Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we all know, at the end of March the Building Canada Plan expired and a lot of projects came to a halt.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation, will the new Building Canada Plan be ready for the upcoming year and projects continuing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are continuing negotiations with Infrastructure Canada on the Building Canada Fund. The thought was that this actual construction season that just went by would be at the time we would be able to roll out that money, but that didn’t happen. So, we are continuing to work with them.
We’re very positive, as a department and as a government, that we will be able to sign the necessary documents and roll out that money for this upcoming construction season. Thank you.
I would like to ask the Minister again, come April 1st, will this new funding roll out and the project continue over the upcoming summer? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That’s certainly our hope. We can’t commit to something where we haven’t signed on the dotted line at this point. But like I indicated, we continue to work – our Minister of Infrastructure and their Minister of Infrastructure – and we’re sorting out the details. I feel that once all the details are sorted out and they have a clear understanding of all the projects that we presented in our plan are projects that the federal government Infrastructure is prepared to fund, I’m positive we will be able to roll out new money in the upcoming fiscal year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask Minister Lafferty, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, a couple questions about Junior Kindergarten.
I just want to note that I feel the general population has understood the delays in the larger communities. It’s still going forward in the other 23 communities for this year that want it. I also want to say that I don’t believe the delays were caused by the middleclass, the low-income people and single parents out there that could not use the daycare or daycare operators anyway.
I’d like to ask the Minister, how well is Junior Kindergarten received in the 23 communities that use it? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The decision came down from this government to continue with the 23 communities this year and also next year. Part of the process, obviously, is to re-evaluate the programming that’s going to be happening over the coming months, within eight months. The feedback we’re getting to date has been positive overall, and there hasn’t been major issues pertaining to delivery of JK. There were some questions about specific areas of clarification, so those are some of the information and also calls and e-mails that came to my department. There may be others out there that we may not aware of, but what came to our attention is there haven’t been any major issues. Mahsi.
I know that we heard that there were funding fears out there.
I’d just like to ask the Minister, with the 23 communities that are using it now, how is it being funded and what are the plans for the future? Thank you.
Mahsi. Part of the decision that was made by this government is to continue with the 23 communities this year and the following year based on the funding allocations from PTR of up to $1.8 million a year. So that will subsidize the 23 communities where the research has found it’s mostly needed in the small, isolated communities. So that’s where we are currently delivering Junior Kindergarten.
But keep in mind that we are in the process of re-evaluating our program delivery over the coming months as well. Mahsi.
When the Minister talks about evaluating in the next coming months, does he have a time frame that he can let us know? Is it in December and once again at the end of the school year? How frequent will the evaluations be? Thank you.
It’s very important that we reach out to the stakeholders, the parents and educators to share their perspective, the community members. Those individuals are currently delivering Junior Kindergarten, as well, in the communities. So, the Premier made a statement that within the coming months, within the eight months from now, we should have the final results of the overall review of our programing. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad that we’re working towards evaluating it, because it’s a much needed program, I believe.
As we move forward, can the Minister know… Will he compile an overall report for this House? Thank you.
Once the review is completed, I would have to share that information with the standing committee, so that should be coming within the next coming months. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will do a follow-up to my Member’s statement about decentralization. My questions will be for the Premier of the Northwest Territories.
This Assembly is going into its last year. Is it a priority to do decentralization? Is the government any closer to solving some of the housing issues and some of the office space issues to do decentralization throughout the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honorable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we are. We have identified $21 million over the next three years, and we’ll be, as well, investing in the housing market in the communities, so our expectation is we will have approximately 178 new houses in the small communities that are predominantly identified for decentralized positions. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, from the perspective on this side of the House, we haven’t seen the plan of where these jobs are going to be.
Is there a plan coming forward? We just completed phase three. Is there a plan to do a phase four and where and when will we see this plan? Thank you.
The Member will be very pleased to hear that we have just started phase three and we have decentralized 141 positions in this 17th Assembly. This is the most positions that have ever been decentralized in the history of this government and we are just starting phase three. So the plan will be, when we roll out the business plans for 2015-16, they will be very clear and I am sure that the Member will be very appreciative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my Member’s statement, I do know about those decentralized positions, and obviously the numbers in Yellowknife have grown as well.
Does the Premier have that type of information of how many jobs were created and devolved into Yellowknife, to prove that we haven’t actually done any decentralization? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The jobs that were devolved from the federal government, there were 135 positions that were filled that were transferred to the Government of the Northwest Territories. I would say approximately 80 to 90 of them were in Yellowknife. One of the conditions for devolution of those positions was that we could not move them within two years, so we would have to wait at least two years to even consider doing anything with those positions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the information that I received from the Premier, phase three is a ‘14-15. When we come back to this Assembly in February, we will be in ’15. So I am looking for the next phase of what is happening in ‘15-16 for decentralization and what is the plan going forward.
Once we hit that two-year mark with the federal government, do we have a plan of how to implement more jobs out into the communities? Thank you.
As I indicated, the business plans for 2015-16 will be rolled out early in the new year. It’s very difficult for us to be prescriptive to the next government, and certainly as part of the transitional planning, we will continue to identify decentralization as a priority and we will lay out our thinking on decentralization, but it will be up to the 18th Assembly to make those decisions subsequent to 2015-16. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to direct my questions today to the Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment. The question of an agricultural policy for the Northwest Territories is one of those things on my list that I can now say I have been talking about for the last 19 years. It’s sad to say we haven’t seen much progress on it. We’ve had some very good news recently from the federal government in their support for agriculture in the Northwest Territories; we’ve been moving along with our Growing Forward programs and our different funding programs, but the time has come, we need an agriculture policy.
Would the Minister of ITI please update me on where we are at on a comprehensive NWT agriculture policy? Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Out of the EOS, the idea of an agricultural strategy was born, and we are moving forward with the agricultural strategy. I agree with the Member; the Northwest Territories is one of only two jurisdictions in the country without a comprehensive agricultural strategy in place. We are going to change that. Work has started.
To advance and nurture growth in this sector as well as economic opportunity and benefits for the Northwest Territories agricultural industry, a definitive strategy and accompanying policy instruments are certainly needed to help guide decision-making, growth and capacity building and to attract and leverage future investment and funding in this sector.
We are moving forward with a strategy and certainly look forward to sharing the work along the way with Members of this House. Thank you.
That’s reassuring but, of course, it can’t come quickly enough, in my opinion.
As I said in my Member’s statement today, the lack of an agricultural policy is actually a barrier to a lot of… It is an impediment and a barrier to a lot of activity that could take place in the agricultural area, whether it’s about taxation or purple gas or licensing of farm equipment. There are so many different things that our government does not have any framework or policy or legislation on.
The big one is land. In order to undertake and become involved in agriculture, we need land.
I would like to ask the Minister, how closely does his department work with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to ensure that the availability of land will come alongside an agricultural policy in tandem? How closely do they work together? Thank you.
A policy, a strategy on agriculture, I mean, it’s not going to be worth the paper it’s written on if we don’t have access to land, so I agree with the Member.
We are going to continue to work with Lands and MACA to ensure that where available, we will make land available for agriculture here in the Northwest Territories. The Members don’t have to look any further than in this room to see support for agriculture. Here in the Northwest Territories we’ve had a great deal of success in a lot of our communities across the territory. When it comes to growing this sector, we feel there is a really bright future for agriculture here in the NWT. We need a strategy, we need those instruments in place to make it successful, and we are going to do just that. Thank you.
I hate to ask this question, but is this going to happen in my lifetime? And please don’t say depending on how long you live.
In terms of the time frame, are we going to see some action on this within the life of this Assembly, and who are we going to consult with? Who do we need to bring together to get this policy formulated and adopted in this House? Thank you.
We have had discussions with the Territorial Farmers’ Association; they have been involved. The advancement of the institute in Hay River, folks there have been involved.
This will happen in the life of this government, we will have this strategy in place. We have just over a year left in the life of this government. I want to assure Members that we feel very strongly about putting this in place and, again, having those tools in place at our disposal to grow the industry here in the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to work with MACA and with Lands to look at the land issue as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned in my Member’s statement that Choice North Farms has a pilot project ready to go. ITI has been involved in supporting that.
To the specifics of assisting this organization now in moving forward, what can the Minister tell me that he can do to help identify a location and land for this, if not under agricultural then under industrial, something outside of the town limits. What can the Minister do to help us find that land and get this pilot project off the ground? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, what I will do is I will have a discussion with the Minister of MACA and we will try to find a solution to do this. It’s important that agricultural pursuits don’t have the hurdles to go over. In this case, it looks like there is a hurdle there and that’s the issue of land and the availability of land.
I want to assure the Member that at the earliest possible opportunity we will have a discussion with MACA and we will try to sort this out. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this week I talked about the NWTRPA becoming a national, I don’t want to say icon, but it will be promoted at the national level. It’s a great opportunity for this government to get messages out there to get tourism on the national front, much like we did with Arctic Air and we had those NWT Tourism Spectacular NWT during the commercials. So my questions today are for the Minister of ITI.
Is the department doing anything to promote tourism with CBC Television during that special in January like we did with Arctic Air? Is the department in talks with possibly the CBC Television show to get something in the commercials while that special is being aired? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not aware of the specifics on whether or not we are involved, whether NWT Tourism or the department is involved in that. I will endeavor to find that information out, but certainly if there’s a way that we can continue to promote the region and promote the territory through advertising and that is an opportunity for us, we will certainly take a look at that. Thank you.
I know we’ve done a lot of investment and a lot of work with the Arctic Air production, like I said, doing all those commercials.
I’d like to ask the Minister if he and his department, in partnership with NWT Tourism, would possibly sit down with the NWT Rec and Parks Association and come up with a promotional strategy. They’ll be developing this air program and also look at when they go down and visit with the Play Exchange group, if they’d be willing to look at some kind of promotional campaign where they all could partner together to get NWT on the national level. Thank you.
I certainly encourage the folks at NWT Parks and Rec to contact our staff in Inuvik, our ITI staff in Inuvik. There are a lot of great things, and the Member really made a great statement today on this. The opportunities here don’t end at tourism, of course healthy lifestyles, and including maybe Health and Social Services and trying to get as much out of this as we possibly can. I really appreciate where the Member is coming at with this. So, if there is a way that ITI can help out, we’d certainly like to be there to lend our support. Thank you.
The NWT Rec and Parks Association represents all of the Northwest Territories. So, in terms of that fact, I’d like to ensure that ITI or NWT Tourism does contact the office here in Yellowknife. It is a made-in-the-NWT event, and like I said, it can be highlighted at the national level.
Is the Minister’s office, working with NWT Tourism, willing to contact CBC broadcasting and see if we can actually get some of those spots during the special to air some of our Spectacular NWT commercials? Thank you
Thank you. Again, I appreciate the Member’s enthusiasm and his ideas. Like I mentioned earlier, I will go back to the department and to Northwest Territories Tourism and discuss that option of airing those ads and how that might all work, and I’ll get some information back to the Member. Thank you.
