Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a couple of the Pages for Hay River North who have been helping us out through some of these long nights, Ms. Taylor Giovanetti and Ms. Lizzy Rimer. They have been with us all week, and I really appreciate their assistance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. [English Translation not provided.] Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Rita Arey from Aklavik, my constituent and also vice-president of the Status of Women, also a retired social worker after many years of service. I thank you for that and all the work that you do. Mahsi.
Masi. [English Translation not provided.] Member for Yellowknife South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize three Pages from Yellowknife South, Tyson Lafond, Janica-Lei Silverio, and Ryley Steinwand. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Ms. Violet Camsell-Blondin. We have run into each other at a lot of Indigenous events and organized working groups around the territory. I appreciate the work that you do. Also, to our friend Arlene Hache, welcome to the Legislature. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. The federal government has introduced Bill C-92, An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Children, Youth, and Families. The purpose of the act is to acknowledge that Indigenous governments have the right to create their own laws to regulate child and family services. I realize this legislation was introduced only a week ago. Can the Minister tell us how Bill C-92 will apply in the NWT, if at all? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has had the legislation for about a week, and we have been going through and trying to determine how it will impact here in the Northwest Territories. I think there is still more work that needs to be done on that analysis. However, through our early analysis, it is not expected that the proposed legislation will significantly impact how CFS is currently delivered here in the Northwest Territories. It is important to note that the key principles in their legislation remain generally consistent with the principles set out in our NWT Child and Family Services Act, as well as Building Stronger Families.
As the Member said, the purpose of the proposed legislation is to affirm the rights and jurisdictions of Indigenous peoples in relation to child and family services and sets out some principles applicable at a national level to the provision of child and family services to Indigenous children. I would like to note that the Government of the Northwest Territories, both before this legislation and after this legislation passes in Ottawa, has been and will continue to be in support of Indigenous governments exercising jurisdiction in the area of child and family services when they choose. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It seems that the reserves in the Northwest Territories and the Tlicho Community Services Agency may be the most likely entities to want to implement this bill. Does the government plan to provide any particular help to these organizations or Indigenous governments in order to put themselves into a position to implement this act if passed?
Currently, there are two different Indigenous governments that actually have the power and the authority to draw down child and family services today. We are working with all of our Indigenous partners. If these Indigenous governments choose to draw down those authorities now, we will certainly work with them in cooperation with Canada to ensure that those services are drawn down and devolved in a way that gives them the ability to provide high-quality services for all their residents.
I wonder what this legislation might do to federal transfers for health to the NWT. Would transfers to specific Indigenous governments go via the GNWT, or would they go directly to the Indigenous governments?
Honestly, we can't answer that question yet. One of the issues that has been raised at the national level about this legislation is that there are no dollars tied to it. If dollars come in phase 2, and I believe that is where the federal government said money might come, we would be happy to work with them, with our Indigenous partners. The bottom line is we all want the same thing, which is fewer Indigenous children in care. We want to build and support stronger families. I think we are all trying to do the same thing. We are prepared to work together.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the responses from the Minister. It is my understanding that the bill allows Indigenous governments to negotiate coordination agreements with provincial and territorial governments as well as Ottawa. Is this an approach GNWT will work with if the bill becomes law? Mahsi.
Our current legislation requires us to work with the Indigenous governments and Indigenous communities here in the Northwest Territories if a child from their community were facing apprehension. We are committed to continuing to do that. If the Indigenous governments choose to draw down these responsibilities, of course, we want to work with them and with Ottawa to make sure that those responsibilities are transferred effectively.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recently read the 2017-2018 ITI Grant and Contribution Report. I was happy to read that $17.6 million was provided to more than 500 individuals, entrepreneurs, businesses, and groups with an economic interest in our territory. Can the Minister of Infrastructure, Tourism and Industry explain how they report on the use of these fund? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. ITI supports the economy in a bunch of different ways. The grants and contributions document is a testament to that. It is a roll-up of various ways that we invest in industry, businesses, and entrepreneurs across the Northwest Territories. That said, we also have appropriate but different ways of reporting out of each of these funding areas. We presently have various accounting spending in this House. I have tabled the BDIC report in this House, community futures, investments in the Northwest Territories Tourism Marketing Plan. Staff and myself regularly get out and talk to the chambers across the territory to be able to talk about some of these documents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Minister verify if these individuals, entrepreneurs, businesses, and groups need to apply yearly, or can they get multi-year funding through this program?
For the most part, applicants to the ITI programming, like the Support to Entrepreneurs and Economic Development Policy, do have to generally apply each year.
I noticed that, on page 4, table 2, "Contributions by clients exceeding $100,000," the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines received $190,600, and on page 8, the table "Contribution funding by major program activities for 2018," there is $100,000 for Aboriginal Development Support Program and $90,600 for the NWT Chamber of Mines. Can the Minister advise if these funds are the same funding?
That is a fairly detailed question. I don't have the document in front of me. If I remember right, we list by client, by region, by sector, by program area, and so on in the document, but I think that I can confirm that there are two different accountings of the same funding.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister giving the answers here today. My final question is: from what I understand, the NWT Chamber of Commerce is responsible for providing funding for the Aboriginal Development Support Program. Can the Minister explain why the department uses a third party, the NWT Chamber of Mines, to allocate these funds? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This is something that I can talk about for hours, how we are trying to build capacity and participation of Indigenous governments in the mineral resources sector in the Northwest Territories. One of the ways that we are doing that to help grow our economy is through their participation in a number of these industry events. I particularly participate in Geoscience AME Roundup and PDAC. In fact, at PDAC just last week, the chamber hosted an investment event at PDAC. That included presentations and different discussions with Indigenous business leaders and representatives in the mining project sectors across the Northwest Territories by the Chamber of Mines. This is one of the reasons that we have done this through the chamber. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions for the Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources. I would like to ask the Minister: what is the department doing to make sure that communities can implement and fund their Wildland Fire Protection Plans? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we know, we have issues with fire around some of our communities, and ENR tries to work with the communities to deal with it. Through, I think, the community access program through MACA, there is some funding there that the communities can use if they want to fire smart their communities.
During this past fire season, it was a fairly quiet fire season for us, so we actually had some members of our fire crews, just to keep working, do some fire smarting around the communities, cut some brush. As we are able to do, we will assist them, but there are some monies out there, I think, through the small community fund that comes through the rural and remote committee. There is funding available there, too, so if a community wants to do some more fire smarting, they have access to some funds. I think we greatly enhanced those funds during this session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I mentioned earlier today that ENR used to fund fire smarting in the NWT communities, but has since offloaded the burden onto the communities themselves. Why was this decision made?
Actually, I don't think that we have offloaded that onto the communities. I think that the communities have taken the responsibility for that on, because who knows the communities more than the community, Mr. Speaker? It is not another pot of money that we have. The small community employment fund had, I believe, about $4.2 million, of which $3 million went to a lot of the smaller communities. Through the process that we are going through right now, we have added more money onto that because it has been such an important tool for a lot of the small communities. They have that opportunity to access that funding, and the communities make the decisions as to what is best for their communities, and they have the funds available to bring some of these projects to life.
It is good that the communities took on this responsibility, but we are talking in the neighbourhood of $200,000, for example, to do a community the size of Fort McPherson. That is competing with capital projects. What is ENR's estimate of the cost to cut firebreaks around the three communities in the Mackenzie Delta?
The exact cost, I am not sure, but a $200,000 investment, you would think, would save significant dollars if there is damage to the community as a result of the fire. I know that we are in negotiations with Canada on the disaster mitigation funding. That would be another pot of money that communities would be able to access to help with disaster mitigation. We feel that there is significant investment in this particular area, again, so we leave the authority to make these types of decisions up to the communities. You will find that communities do make good decisions. Where there are opportunities, as I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, with some of our crews that, thankfully, have had a quiet fire season, they are able to assist on this, as well.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Seeing as how the Minister is also the money man in the House, fire smarting can save lives and very valuable property, and the cost of doing it is a lot less than many projects that our government routinely delivers. Will the Minister identify funds that communities can use to implement their Wildland Fire Protection Plans by cost-sharing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am the Environment Minister, so I will speak with the Finance Minister and see if there are opportunities to access more money, but again, through a number of the programs that we have, such as disaster mitigation, there are funds that we will be able to access to assist with the communities. The communities, again, have those funds at their disposal if they choose to use them to do some fire smarting, with the folks that we have, because of the quiet fire season, assisting them. There are a number of opportunities there with the small community employment fund. I believe, in one community, they did a lot of fire smarting, and they did a lot of cutting of dead brush around their community. That's a good thing. More than anything, we recognize the importance of saving lives, and I think that the communities do as well. If we can, we will work in cooperation with the communities to try to assist them wherever we can to fire smart their communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Finance Minister that I am just going to spring on him. I didn't give him any heads-up. There have been a lot of announcements about funding to examine some of these big projects that the territory is looking at, whether it's the Slave Geological Province road or it's Taltson Hydro. There is a lot of federal money, but we are also putting our money into it as well. When these announcements are made, is there any sort of commitment on the part of the feds that, in addition to giving us the exploratory money, they are going to be paying for major parts of these potential projects? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are always prepared when there are opportunities for funding from the federal government. One of the things that I have told this House in the last three years is that a lot of the potential savings that we had so that we can match federal money as federal government money becomes available. A lot of the work that the Member is talking about is building a case for these potential projects. Normally, there is the exploratory building a case to try and access the bigger pots of money. When the bigger pots of money are accessed, then I feel that this government is in a fairly good position to do our cost-share of the project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate that answer. I know that, you know, the feds aren't going to come out right and say that they can commit right at the beginning here, but I am a little bit concerned because, as we are going through this budget here, our last budget, I see what the debt limit is. I see where we are at, and we are pretty much maxed out. It was about a month ago in the south the Minister said he had initiated some talks with the federal Finance Minister about increasing our borrowing limit and about possibly talking about territorial formula financing, and I know that the Minister hasn't had any time in the past six weeks because we have been here, so I know he hasn't met with the federal Finance Minister, but have we set a date for these talks to begin so we can really get into the meat of the issue?
