Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions will be directed to the Minister responsible for ITI. Mr. Speaker, this government's talked about the need for a facility that would allow for the traditional tanning of hides. I have heard this discussion for the past 30 years, and NWT Indigenous artisans continue to find that traditional tanned moose and caribou hides difficult to access. We've talked about tourism, along with collectors that want products made in the North with real northern material which artisans now find difficult to procure.
So I'd ask the Minister, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell this Assembly if there is a financial program that specifically targets with programs specific dollars those artisans that are involved in traditional tanning of hides? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm also well aware of the problem. It's certainly not new. It's been raised to our offices as well.
At present, Mr. Speaker, there are arts council grants through the Department of ECE that can be certainly directed to all artisans in the territory. The Department of ITI provides supports for hide camps, tanning camps through generally through seed funding and funding that can go to the communities. So I anticipate that there could be more that the Member's looking for something more, but there are some creative ways that we can support those these projects for now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's important, and we need to support and encourage those artisans who hold the traditional knowledge of tanning moose and caribou hides. These traditional tanned hides are a much sought after commodity here in the NWT. And this practice goes handinhand with culture, arts, and tourism. So we need to provide a form of compensation for those tanning their own hides. We know it can take up to three weeks and many hours. And the artisan ends up either using the hide for themselves or selling it sometimes at a deflated price, and they deserve more.
So Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to having her department look at developing a program with specific dollars to encourage artisans to continue to and expand the traditional art of tanning moose and caribou hides? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it certainly is disheartening to think that after all that work, the hides would be sold at a deflated price. They are in high demand. I've certainly heard that is a barrier to some of our artisans as well.
At present, Mr. Speaker, in conjunction with my colleague from ECE, there is a review taking place, this fiscal into next, around all of the arts funding programs, certainly wanting to ensure that we are understanding where our money is going and understanding if there are gaps that we should be filling. Of course, alongside that there is the much bigger review of the government renewal initiative to really take a look at all of what we are doing as a government and where we're supporting our the residents. So at this point, that it's through that process that we'll be able to consider whether or not we need to change the existing programs or look for new ones to better identify where to put government dollars. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is important for Indigenous artisans to have access to traditional tanned hides. And it is just as important that this knowledge be passed down to the younger generation. I would ask the Minister or sorry, artisans are willing to teach their children, grandchildren, extended family the art of traditional tanning of moose hide moose and caribou hides.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to work with the Minister of ECE to support the new development of a grant program beyond what is currently in place, one that has both a complementary grant and training program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this again is timely to have this conversation in the House. It's timely to have these questions. ECE and ITI, of course, have released the arts strategy not long ago and are indeed, as I mentioned, undertaking a review of all of the programs and the funding associated to it. So in the course of that, we can certainly commit to working together to look at whether or not there is funding that's available that's perhaps not being utilized, whether there are programs that could be better advertised to those who need it, or if in fact, there's a gap and that there's programming that's not being best directed where it when there is actually a need. So we'll certainly commit to looking at it in this review process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know that many of the artisans are actually bringing in hides from, like, Saskatchewan and Alberta because they don't have access to them here. So, you know, it's important that, you know, that they have access to tanned hides but also they need access to the raw hides as well. And this is where harvesters come in. It's important that we also provide incentive incentive to harvesters if we expect them to bring the hides out after a successful harvest. So, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to working with the Minister of ENR to work out a program that compensates harvesters for delivering the hides, moose or caribou hides, to ENR or directly to the artisan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm certainly happy to take up a conversation with another colleague. I know that ENR does have a lot of programming in place to support traditional harvesters in the communities and around the Northwest Territories. And the Department of ITI, of course, is responsible for the NWT fur program. So we'll certainly take it away and see if there's more that can be done with our own fur program and of course to confirm with my colleague what better response we have to this. The opportunity to have homegrown and homesourced hides really is the ultimate solution, and of course I'm going to see if there's a way that we can get there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, Mr. Speaker, my Member's statement was on housing. And they really we need more housing. We need to be fixing the units that we do have. I just want to know if the Minister's willing to work with the local housing authority, and if not, soon to be our local housing societies because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to we'll set up a society not only with elected officials but with local people that don't sit on no boards and they have a different different view on how to work with it. Is the Minister willing to do that, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the local housing authorities as the Minister responsible, I am interested in looking at unique and different innovative ideas. And if we're looking at what has happened in Fort Good Hope and if Nunakput is interested in doing something like that, I would like to bring the two organizations together and looking at possibilities. But I do commit to working with the Member's riding as well in trying to find strategies and different approaches on how we could work with housing in his communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister, for that. You know, working I guess working on a housing strategy, I do have a housing strategy being done, but I really like how Fort Good Hope did it and in regards to doing their society. I really think that something like that would do a lot better than some of the housing boards that we do have in place, because housing boards could give the units that they do have and allocate and stuff like that but a society could do much better on and being able to pick what they want to do. So if you have Ulukhaktok and Paulatuk want a new Elders facility so we're going to get the society to work together with the Minister which we had the Minister last week say that they want to work with us. So are they willing to do that; are we able to pick what we want to work with, with them to go forward? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the questions. I do want to highlight the community housing working plans that we do have. Paulatuk was actually one of the first communities to finalize theirs and through that initiative, they're able to identify their housing needs. And looking at the structure of how housing is wanting to be delivered in that riding, I'm interested to continue those conversations with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Minister's ready to work with the community. Paulatuk is she brought it up that Paulatuk is in need. We have young families with nowhere to go. We have overcrowding. We just don't have enough houses. How does it work? Do we take some out of our old stock, give them to residents that could handle it, and then get CMHC to come in and backfill in regards to take I guess give away and bring in new stuff. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to work with the Member's riding as well. And looking at the federal funding that is available that's there, we do have some successes throughout the Northwest Territories with communities allocating their own direct funding from the federal government and looking at putting houses on the ground. So I would like to commit to following up with the Member and with his community leadership and looking at those possibilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, that's been kind of one of our problems, is when they do get the federal funding gets into to the development corporation's hands, it's staying there too long. It's the same problem that we have here, that they can't spend the money fast enough and get materials in. So there's got to be a better way to do that, and I'm looking forward to work with the Minister to find a solution and being able to I guess spend money on houses and providing service to the people that we represent. More of a comment; thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Taken as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are about this government's lack of preparedness around the opening of the Tlicho AllSeason Road. I'll mainly focus on the environmental side for now. So my questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
The legally binding measures from an environmental assessment project have not been completed, especially when it comes to the impact on woodland caribou. Can the Minister tell us how this will affect the proposed opening date of the road scheduled for tomorrow? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all the wildliferelated measures for the opening of the road have been completed. ENR has been working with the co-management partners to meet the measures from all or the Tlicho AllSeason Road environmental assessment that needed to be fulfilled prior to the road opening to the public.
In July, ENR provided input into Infrastructure's final habitat offset plan with boreal caribou which was submitted to the Wek'eezhii Renewable Resource Board.
In August, ENR submitted an interim Wek'eezhii boreal caribou range plan to the WRRB. Work on the full Wek'eezhii boreal caribou range plan will be assumed in 2022. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Of course there's a number of things that are still not approved, and he didn't actually address my question about what effect that's going to have on the opening, which is tomorrow. So the effect, Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you, is nothing. This government hasn't completed its commitments.
I noted the recently released boreal caribou population and harvest models report from ENR that recommended a very limited or no resident harvest for the boreal caribou population around the Tlicho AllSeason Road. What is the Minister going to do about the new all season harvester access that the road represents and will harvest restrictions be introduced and when? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the boreal caribou sustainable harvest assessment report was completed for ENR to identify sustainable harvest levels for boreal caribou in the southern NWT including the Wek'eezhii area. ENR is meeting with Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations on the finding of this report. I must really stress we're meeting with Indigenous governments here and our organizations. The report concluded that the area around the road could support some harvest of boreal caribou and so far we have not seen indications that sustainable harvest levels are being exceeded. ENR has hired a renewable resource officer in Whati to increase a harvesting monitoring along the roads in accordance with measure 9-1. The GNWT is also providing financial support to the Tlicho government for the Indigenous harvesting monitoring program that will begin this winter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Minister for that. I'll just remind him again that the road is opening tomorrow. So it's great that there's meetings happening but the road opens tomorrow.
I fully understand that inland fisheries are federal jurisdiction but we obviously have a role to play. The sellers of sport fishing licenses, promotion of country food, harvesting and sustainable livelihoods. And the Minister also has a fish a wildlife and fish division under his department. So what, if anything, has the Minister done about the impacts of the new road access on the sport fishery in Lac La Martre and the sport fishing lodge already operating there? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Tlicho government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Ocean established a fisheries management working group to ensure any concerns with fisheries are brought forward and addressed.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Infrastructure developed a fish and fish habitat protection plan with the Tlicho AllSeason Road which considers measures and commitments made during the environmental assessment and incorporate input from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And we've reached out to the federal government, and we've had these conversations from our end as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I'd really be curious to know what's happening there, but I remain very concerned about the continuing failing of this government to adequately plan for new roads, let alone properly maintain the ones that we have.
Can the Minister tell us what lessons, if any, we've learned about the banishment of environmental impacts from the Inuvik to Tuk highway and how those were applied to the Tlicho AllSeason Road? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Member right now we are working with the Indigenous government. We are working with the Tlicho government to get this road up and operational and making sure we do things properly. We just received a letter from the Tlicho government with some valid concerns, and I'm working with them on that.
Both projects took a cooperative approach by engaging with local governments, local Indigenous organizations, stakeholders, and the territorial and federal government to achieve significant local and regional benefits. Given the difference in geologic or geographical locations and ecosystems of the two projects and a technical design differs, the project environmental impact for the InuvikTuk highway in the TASR are different. That wildlife management and monitoring plan for the Tlicho AllSeason Road project considered the Inuvik to Tuk highway, wildlife, and wildlife habitat protected area, and the wildlife affected monitoring program. So we've taken and looked at the reports, looked at how we move forward and, most importantly, we work with our Indigenous governments to make sure we do it right. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, supporting our youth is essential, particularly in high school starting from grades 7 or 8 when we start seeing students dropping out. My question to the Minister, what is the department doing to support students in high school grades 7 to 12 to stay in school? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment provides some broad strategic direction to education bodies. It provides funding to education bodies. But really it's the education bodies themselves, the DEAs and DECs, who really deliver the education to students. And so I can talk about the supports that ECE provides, but really the -- obviously the majority of the supports are at that level. So ECE has the ministerial directive on inclusive schooling and that provides explicit funding for and direction to education bodies on supports for students in the territory so that students can be met where they are in their educational journey. ECE officials meet regularly with education body officials to try and coordinate efforts related to supporting students. Aside from the regular funding, there's been a number of initiatives under the Education Renewal Innovation Framework. So some examples of those are northern distance learning. We have that available in 19 small communities. And that's a way to provide small community students with access to teachers who are generally experts in their field, which is something that a lot of small communities don't have access to, and I think that having that level of support really helps students along in their studies.
ECE has partnered with elders, language, and curriculum experts to develop the Our Languages curriculum which recognizes the responsibility of schools to support culture and language. It helps foster that sense of community.
We have the career and education advisors which is not rolling out as fast as I would like, but nothing really is in the days of COVID, but those positions are intended to actually help this exact range of students that the Member's talking about to determine what courses they need to get where they want and help them determine what they want to do in life.
There's a number of other things, and I could talk for quite a while on this, Mr. Speaker, but I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. And mahsi to the Minister for that answer. Can the Minister explain what supports are available for older students who have not completed high school, nor have the grade level to go on to college or university but wish do so. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So students in the territory have access to formal JK to 12 up until the age of 21, and there are schools that offer high school courses to older students as well when space is available, so not during regular hours, and there's a number of these throughout the territory, these programs. Aurora College works with students who want to pursue post-secondary or bring up their training to get into post-secondary. There's the adult literacy and basic education program. It includes six levels of study ranging from basic literacy to course work at the grade 12 level. So courses in this program enable participants to learn or relearn the skills that they need to attain their educational or professional goals. College also offers the occupations and college access program and university and college access program, better known as OCAP and UCAP. These programs provide accommodation of prerequisite and prep courses to enable students to enter Aurora College post-secondary programs.
So those are a few of the things that we're doing. And of course, the college has the community learning centres in most communities, and I hope to see those in all communities some day soon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. And mahsi to the Minister for that. Some of my questions might be repetitive.
Mr. Speaker, there are many former students, many have dropped out or have not attained the required grade 12 grade-level staying in our communities with no hope for a future in the work force. How would the Minister explain the various ECE initiatives to our high school students to show how they help improve their school success. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I would not say that they have no future. I think there is a future for everyone. There's Members in this Assembly who dropped out of high school and went back and, you know, accomplished quite a bit with their lives. So I would never say that the student has no future.
Right now, this Assembly has prioritized education to the greatest degree, I think we've seen, in quite a while. So there's a lot of efforts to going into assisting students right from before they enter school in their early childhood through the JK to 12 system and then once they're out. Even if they don't graduate that system, you know, through the improvement and expansion of Aurora College programs, through renewing our skills for success initiative. But it really is the entire community that needs to get behind improving educational outcomes. And so in addition to the individual programs that we do, I always try to speak with community members and let them know that, you know, we need their help as well. We can't do this alone. If kids aren't in school, then they're not going to learn. It doesn't matter what we do. So we really need to ensure that the territory values education the same way that we here in the House do, and so we do that work as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain how the department's significant initiatives are linked to each other in order to improve student grade levels and outcomes? I'm thinking of the department's renewal strategy, the proposed changes to the Education Act, the new Skills for Success Strategic Framework that the department is preparing, and even the Aurora College transformation. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Member has asked about the biggest things that I'm undertaking -- the department's undertaking this term so I will keep my answer short even though I could definitely talk about this for quite a while. But I want to point out that this Assembly has prioritized improving student outcome to the same level as the rest of Canada. And I just want to note that that's not -- that's no small task. The Canadian education system is among the best in the world, is universally respected. So what we are tasked with doing here is ensuring that our students have the best educational outcomes in the world essentially. And so it's not something that we take lightly, and it's not something that can be done alone.
I will start with one of the biggest initiatives that we're undertaking, and that is the move towards a system of universal child care. And there's no silver bullet for improving educational outcomes, but investments in early learning and child care are as close as we can get to a silver bullet. And so over the coming years, along with federal government, we're going to making significant investments in that area. And not just opening up child care spaces but ensuring there is a high quality enriched environment for youth to participate in so that they are ready when they get into school to participate to the greatest degree, and they're not falling behind right off the bat.
In the junior kindergarten to grade 12 system, we are renewing the curriculum because we need to make sure that students are prepared for the real world once they get out. And we need to make sure that we have a curriculum that students enjoy and they see as being beneficial to them. We need to get kids into school, and I think curriculum's one of the biggest ways that we can do that.
The modernization of the Education Act is another major initiative. There are a number of things in there that we need to do probably sooner than later, and overall the entire modernization will probably take a little longer but that will allow us to ensure that we have that community buy-in so that people do see the system as reflective of themselves and they want to participate in that.
The Skills 4 Success Strategy, this is a strategy that's half over -- we're about halfway through in ten-year strategy and so we've looked at what we've done over the past number of years, and what we need to going forward. Some of the things we can continue to do but others we know that there's been some gaps, and we need to fill those gaps. For example, in small communities there are people who would like to become apprentices but they don't have that opportunity because there's no one to apprentice under. And so we need to help provide them with those opportunities.
So we are revamping the system to encourage students to go to school, to make them want to go to school, and to try and fill those gaps that they're falling through right now and provide them with opportunities that they don't currently have. It's no small task, Mr. Speaker, but I appreciate the Member's support of improving the education system as well as that of the entire Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister responsible for HR.
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my statement, it's apparent that the issues at Stanton that are leading to ward closures long predate COVID despite it being used constantly as an excuse. From an HR perspective, how does the Minister plan to properly investigate, characterize, and address the poor morale situation at Stanton that existed prior to COVID in order to address the longstanding issues at the hospital? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for HR.
