Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for Minister Miltenberger of Environment and Natural Resources. I just gave a Member’s statement speaking about a horror of a world without caribou. The sliding caribou populations are scary and worrying. Rather than slowing down, unfortunately, it’s actually accelerating, echoing the loss of wildlife worldwide.
I’d like to start by asking the Minister what actions has he taken to reverse this trend, since the most recent counts pointed out the grave dangers posed to both the Bathurst and Bluenose-East herds. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First let me say that I appreciate the Member’s statement and we share the concern of the Member. We have had to call back, or we called together all of the Aboriginal governments, scientific staff and our folks. We’ve had one meeting with the political leadership a few weeks back to look at the results from the Bathurst herd survey, which indicates the herd has continued to decline now into the range of 15,000 animals, down from a high in the mid ‘80s, 1986, from about 460,000 animals. As well, we look at the numbers of the Bluenose-East, which had declined in the area of 30,000 animals and we believe still dropping from about 160,000. So we’ve brought the political leadership together to convene in basically an emergency gathering to look at these dramatic, stark numbers.
Subsequent to that, we brought together all the technical people about a week ago to sit down and look at the information, go over the numbers and talk about options. There’s another meeting next week, and then in early November the political leadership will gather with the intent of making appropriate and necessary decisions about what we need to do to help protect and save the caribou, both the Bathurst herd and the Bluenose-East.
Currently, there is a tag limit of 300 animals in the Bathurst. In the Bluenose-East there’s a voluntary limit of about 2,800 animals, which was singularly unsuccessful in terms of curbing a harvesting past that. So we’re going to be looking at some very hard choices here in the next couple of weeks. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. The Minister has indicated the severity of the drop of caribou and the obvious possibility of the loss of these herds. Yet he’s also said it’s still open, go out and shoot, you can shoot 300 here and 150 there and however many you want with the Bluenose-East. That’s pretty unbelievable. I read in the paper, community hunts, they’re out there trying to find these caribou and the only reason they’re not shooting is because they can’t find them. There is a major gap here. Obviously, we must support these populations to enable recovery, and it seems the one thing we can control is hunting.
Is the Minister prepared to ban the hunting of caribou in these devastated herds? At least stop killing and get together and make these decisions.
Thank you. Once again, I appreciate the Member’s concern, and I can assure the Member that the intent here is by the very first part of November before the winter hunt really takes effect that we will have decisions made that will protect the caribou. There is a process for us to follow. This is a very complex area. We have the Yellowknives, we have the Northwest Territories Metis, we have Akaitcho, we have Tlicho, we have the Sahtu, we have the Inuvialuit as well as the territorial government and interest in the Northwest Territories Metis plus all the other southern and the Deh Cho, all that have an interest and have been harvesting this herd for many years.
So we have a need to follow a timely, compressed process, which we’re doing. I can assure the Member that by the early part of November there will be the necessary decisions made to protect the herds, both the Bathurst and the Bluenose-East. It’s clear with the Bathurst, with a tag limit of 300, that there’s not many options left when it comes to harvesting.
We also have to deal with the fact that the Bathurst herd also extends up into Nunavut and the Nunavut government still allows commercial harvest, outfitters, which to us is unacceptable. We’ve been in correspondence and communication with them to make the necessary changes, to work with us and all the other Aboriginal governments and co-management boards to protect the herd. That’s one of the other things we have to look at. We’re going to look at predator control, we’re going to look at a whole host of things, but clearly, hunting is one area where there is the single largest impact. Thank you.
Thank you. It seems that every question I ask these days, the answer is: It’s a complex situation; we’ve got great intentions. If that was true, we wouldn’t have the services deficits that we have, we wouldn’t be in the fiscal situation we are, we wouldn’t have the wildlife deficits that we have. Community hunts are still being contemplated as we speak and reported in the paper. Plans are being made for winter kills as soon as the ice is safe.
Given the drastic declines, what action has been taken to alert people of the horrible consequences of such activity?
There’s been extensive contact and involvement of the media in this issue. I’ve just laid out a very comprehensive plan that we’ve taken to involve all the communities and Aboriginal governments and the public government to sit down in a very timely, compressed way to make decisions and to come up with options for the leadership that’s going to gather early in November. There will be decisions made early in November that will allow us to make the necessary decisions to protect the herds, the Bathurst and the Bluenose.
I would point out that the Member is very, very big on process and consultation, endless consultation sometimes, and now he wants me to just stand up and rule by fiat and dictate and decree. The necessary decisions will be made and they will be made in basically a couple of weeks actually. We’ll have those decisions made.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s the other feedback I get all the time, is the best offence is a defence, or the best defence is an offence. That’s the Minister’s strategy now.
I’m not worried about being politically correct here. I’m worried about the caribou and the consequences of their disappearance to generations of First Nations and other resident families to whom the caribou are critically important.
The Minister and co-management boards have had several years to effect conservation. Instead, the caribou are going down the tubes. The Minister has the authority. We have invested the Minister with the authority. The nation has invested the Minister with the authority.
I understand stakeholders are meeting in November, as the Minister has mentioned. Obviously, all stakeholders should be at the table, all stakeholders.
Who has the Minister invited to participate in talks about emergency recovery actions to ensure that all perspectives are there and considered? Yes, let’s consult properly if we’re going to do that. Mahsi.
I am very aware of my authorities as Environment Minister, and I have in fact used them in the not-too-distant past. The steps are being taken to deal with this issue. All the people of the Northwest Territories, all the governments of the Northwest Territories share a concern about the caribou and the need to make hard decisions, and it’s time not to worry about anything else but who speaks for the caribou or who speaks for the continuation of the herds. That’s going to be the people in this room; it’s going to be the Aboriginal governments and the leaders when we gather to make those hard decisions.
Again, I want to assure the Member and this House and the people of the Northwest Territories, those decisions will be made. No matter how tough they are, they’re nothing we’ve never dealt with before. The issue of bans has been talked about before, herd limits. We will make those necessary decisions.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is very fitting we actually have wonderful representatives of our college here today, and I’m very proud to see so many of them. So, it’s great.
One of the issues that I’m going to raise, and I’ve continued to raise, it all boils down to one word: accountability. That’s it. Nothing fancier than that, accountability.
I’ve asked the Minister of Education repeatedly about demanding that the Aurora College boards be, guess what, accountable. How so? Accountable by providing an e-mail address so our students can contact them and, at the same time, have a meeting with each of the three colleges, and to put all of that responsibility on the student rep, I think, is unfair.
I’ve asked this. I’ve demanded this. I’ve even written to the Aurora College president, trying to get some action on this. Sorry, chair that is.
So, at the end of the day, what has the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment done for accountability for those folks sitting in our gallery here today and every other college we support with great enthusiasm here? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I do believe it was Ms. Bisaro who highlighted a student representative that is with us. When it comes to representing those students, whether it be social work, nursing and other business programing, we do have a student representative. It has been vacant for a bit there, but we did hire a student representative. Not only that but the Board of Governors are accountable to the students as well as to the population of the Northwest Territories. What has been shared with me in the House, I’ve also shared with the Board of Governors. They integrated that into their communication dialogue with the general public. So, being accountable, they are accountable to the GNWT. They are accountable to the general public as well. Mahsi.
By virtue of inaccessibility, they’re accountable to no one. They’re not even accountable to the Minister. May I use the wonderful occasion to educate the Minister responsible, it’s Section 7 under the Aurora College Act, “The Minister may give direction to the Board respecting exercise of its powers and the performance its duties”.
So, if it’s dutiful and responsible and, guess what, that one word again, “accountable” to its students, it would be accessible to those students, every one of them up there. Frankly, putting all that on one person is baloney, and everybody here knows it.
So, would the Minister of Education finally do his job and direct the Aurora College Board of Governors to have an e-mail address and certainly hold some public meetings, because they are accountable to no one. Thank you.
Through the Board of Governors and also the senior staff that we have, the president, the VPs, the councillors, the student support, all those mechanisms are in place and they do have e-mail addresses. The Board of Governors are there as well.
I work very closely with the Board of Governors, and I shared this very concern with them as well. They are developing a plan of action to deal with those matters. But the president of Aurora College and the VPs are always available. If there are concerns from the students, concerns from the general public or from the community, the regional perspective, they are there to represent that as well. Whenever there are issues or concerns brought to my attention, I immediately deal with it through the college venue, through the chair or the president in that matter. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, we continue to waste the public’s time on this by the defence of the status quo by this particular Minister. Section 7.(2)(a) of the Aurora College Act says, “The Minister shall determine the policy respecting the operations, programs and priorities of Aurora College”.
Mr. Speaker, stop sharing the darn concern; direct it – you have the authority, you have the power – and do it in front of everyone here today. That’s it. You could do it today. It is time he actually showed some leadership and just tell the college, you have an e-mail and you are going to be accessible to the students, because I can tell you every darn hamlet council, city council, school board trustee, I mean, the list goes on, MLAs, even senators, for goodness sakes, in Ottawa are accessible by e-mail addresses and certainly phone numbers. There is zero of that on the Aurora College website. Today is the day to be accountable and certainly useful.
I did share all that information with the Board of Governors. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now, followed by my favorite phrase: Who is in charge? According to the Aurora College Act, the Minister may give direction to the board. I am not going through it again. The Minister knows this because I told him repeatedly over the years; I have even told him a couple of times today.
---Interjection
Well, if you want the question, then answer it.
Will you today have the courage to call the Aurora College president and direct an e-mail be publically provided for every single one of those board of governors so they are truly accessible, not hidden in the fray and out of touch?
We are in a position of power in this House when it comes to Cabinet Ministers, and at the same time, I am not in a position to dictate to the various organizations. We are here to work with them, work with those organizations so they can best meet the needs of the communities and best meet the needs of the students as well. I am also committed in this House that I would share that information with the Board of Governors, and they are developing a plan of action towards that to deal with those matters. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this fall the NWT Native Women’s Association raised the concern of unusually long wait times for RCMP to respond to calls in various communities. In events of this concern, it was suggested that this was more of a GNWT issue than RCMP. There is such a thing as emergency call logistics, contract services and language barriers. My questions today are going to be for the Minister of Justice.
Currently, the RCMP emergency call system for all communities is dispatched through Yellowknife. This seems to be a frustration point for many.
Can the Minister indicate why is Yellowknife used as a hub for emergency dispatch? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Operations and Communications Centre is located here in Yellowknife. It provides services to every community across the Northwest Territories. The centre currently has 21 employees, which includes four operators and one supervisor per 12-hour shift.
The OCC is able to make direct contact with at least one officer from each detachment across the Northwest Territories at all times. We have an operation that is centrally located. It’s the most cost-effective and efficient way to operate a very specialized 24/7 policing operation. Calls from communities are taken, as I mentioned, 24/7 by OCC and dispatched on a priority basis. If there is an urgent call, an RCMP officer will be dispatched. Non-urgent calls will be taken, recorded and dispatched when the next member becomes available. Urgent and priority calls are dealt with in a triage manner. There are specific OCC operators who are assigned to each area, north, south and in Yellowknife.
Establishing an OCC in other communities would be cost prohibitive due to factors such as the cost of specialized equipment, salaries, expansion of infrastructure, housing for employees and yearly operating costs. Recruitment and retention of these specialized positions is often difficult in Yellowknife and major centres across the country. Staffing these positions in smaller communities would be much more difficult as the positions are very stressful, require specialized training and high security clearances. Having administrative support in all detachments 24/7 to answer all categories of complaints would come at a very significant cost to the government. Thank you.
With that thorough answer, some of my questions are going to be almost answered. I will try to rework some of them here.
Clearly, having some form of auxiliary dispatch in communities, if not regions, I believe could better deal with language and urgency. We have just heard from the Minister that cost seems to be a prohibitive issue, but can the Minister indicate why has the department not explored this or alternative solutions for an improvement in RCMP response and wait times?
As I mentioned in my previous response, it is very difficult to recruit staff here in Yellowknife for those OCC positions because of the type of work, the specific skills required and the level of security clearance that’s required. Again, recruiting staff in smaller communities and regional centres is going to be even more difficult.
Recruitment of community members for auxiliary dispatch program could face similar or greater obstacles due to the lack of capacity in most communities, and the lack of willingness to volunteer, and high stress, high demand and occupations for no pay.
In the past, RCMP “G” Division has advertised and held career presentations in order to recruit and hire NWT residents as regular members and OCC operators with NWT official language skills. To date, the interest on this from the public has been low.
Establishing an OCC in other communities or regions would range from $1 million to $2 million, depending on the site selected and whether the centre is constructed new or whether it’s retrofitted. In addition, annual staffing and maintenance expenses would be estimated to cost well over $1 million. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, what we haven’t heard is a common theme, and that theme is language, and this has been a concern in communities where they feel that the delays in wait time are the barrier of language.
Can the Minister indicate to the House, what has improved with communication in our nine official community languages with respect to breaking down such barriers? Thank you.
To accommodate the translation needs, the department has arranged for the RCMP “G” Division members to have access to language line services, or CanTalk. It’s a 24-hour translation service for most languages, including many Aboriginal languages. In addition, OCC maintains a list of the languages spoken by “G” Division members and employees.
The RCMP “G” Division has on staff an Aboriginal person who is a recruiter specifically for the Northwest Territories. The role of the recruiter is to travel to communities and make RCMP career presentations to interested individuals. While there, there are many roles in the RCMP that are explained. The recruiter’s focus in the NWT is on regular member officers and OCC operators.
I should mention that since April of 2014 there have been 17 recruiting sessions held across the Northwest Territories in a number of communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Native Women’s Association has challenged this Minister, has challenged his department with this call for action. Clearly, there is still concern regarding unusually long wait times with respect to RCMP calls to various communities. We have heard a very detailed forensic reply to a lot of the questions here today, but of course, there is still some concern.
What, if any, are the future steps of this government, and what is the Minister prepared to do to ensure that we can improve our response times for the public and safety of our community residents? Thank you.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is currently working with key stakeholders and industry to identify viable options for implementation of a territory-wide 911 system. This work will inform future decisions concerning 911 implementation in the Northwest Territories, and a draft implementation plan, I believe, is coming forward to this House before December of this year.
Of course, this topic is nothing new to Members. It was studied by the City of Yellowknife in 2008. The intent is to build upon that examination and to consider how we can implement such a system on a territory-wide basis. The examination will take into consideration all options involving the necessary infrastructure, resources, equipment, governance, funding, start-up and maintenance of a 911 system. A 911 response system would be part of a broader system. It is very important that we continue our efforts to strengthen civil emergency preparedness, fire protection, ground ambulance and highway rescue here in the Northwest Territories.
I may also recommend to the Regular Members, if they’re interested in a tour of the OCC and the operations facility, that we have at “G” Division here in Yellowknife. I would be more than happy to help arrange a tour of that facility for any Member that wants to take part in that tour and see the good work that the OCC puts in, in protecting our communities and our people.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
In my Member’s statement I talked about the water, and I want to ask the Minister about the water usage. The oil and gas sector has over 100 applications for water permits. We know Canada has tried to cut back on the monitoring.
Do we have the capacity to take over these positions and who are our front-line monitors? ENR has the responsibility. I wanted to ask the Minister in regard to these two questions.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have the responsibility and the capacity. Coming out of the Water Strategy that took four years to do, there were two major issues. One was get the transboundary agreements done with Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Yukon, and the other one was to come up with some good water monitoring, community-based water monitoring so we could do the work at the community level, work with the communities, which we’ve done, incorporated traditional knowledge, which we have done, to set up a community-based water monitoring system that would allow us to take the best equipment we can have with local folks that have been trained to gather that data so that we can start assessing and doing that water monitoring at the community level.
Specifically, I point out that there are four sites at Norman Wells, two on the Mackenzie River upstream in Norman Wells and downstream in Norman Wells by Radar Island, and two additional sites on Bosworth Creek. In addition, there are two sites at Fort Good Hope, the Mackenzie River up the Ramparts, the Rabbit Skin River. There is also one site at the Sans Sault Rapids on the Mackenzie River, one site on the Carcajou River, near the mouth, five sites at and near Tulita, the Mackenzie River at Tulita, the Great Bear River at Tulita, McKay Creek near to the mouth, Slater River at the mouth, and Bog Creek at the mouth. There is other ongoing monitoring that is associated with the enforcement of water licences and the investigation of spill activities and incidents.
That’s an impressive list of monitoring for water quality in the Sahtu. The Minister rapidly fired off 13 sites in and around the communities that are looking forward to it.
I want to ask the Minister, in our land claims under Chapter 20 is the water rights and management of the Sahtu Land Claim Agreement. Section 21.8, I believe, talks about the quality and the quantity of altering our water in the settlement area.
I want to ask the Minister, are there increases to ongoing funding to know that this provision of the chapter will be honoured and respected and enforced if need be.
There has been about $4 million spent in the Sahtu since 2013 tied to baseline information, a lot of it tied to water in different areas, which is the information I’d be happy to share with the Member. We’ve taken over the Taiga lab from the federal government as part of devolution. That’s a $600,000 operation, and they provide a lot of critical scientific support. We have all the work done by Dr. Erin Kelly and her water staff in terms of spearheading and maintaining this community-based water monitoring. There has been an increase from the territorial government in work we’re doing not only in the Sahtu, but specifically to the Member’s question, in the Sahtu, to make sure that we can provide assurances to all the constituents and all the people that live in the Sahtu that they have some of the best water in the world coming down the river and flowing into the Mackenzie. It is a big issue. It is a big issue and we’re putting a lot of attention to this.
With the government and with the contributions that have been happening in the Sahtu with regard to the funding and the specific sites, I want to ask the Minister, given that Imperial Oil’s 10-year water application licence is going through, they are going to take out billions of litres of water, run it through their system, bring it back, pour billions more back into the Mackenzie River that will flow down towards Fort Good Hope and Tsiigehtchic and the other communities along the river system.
I want to ask the Minister, knowing this and knowing that 720,000 tonnes of hazardous material was dumped in Great Bear Lake when they had the mining operation, now we are talking about the new oil and gas exploration happening in the Sahtu with these hazardous waste materials or the hazardous waste materials that are on our lands, is there any type of discussion with this government here talking about a hazardous waste site in regard to monitoring just environmental hazardous sites such as the water and the land?
There has been some activity in terms of working to acquire lease land near the community of Norman Wells to put in a waste treatment site in anticipation of the need that may come with oil and gas development. It is a very big issue. The idea of having a proper waste treatment facility would be a great asset to the Sahtu and to the Northwest Territories. Most jurisdictions now are not very receptive to having wastewater and other substances imported into their jurisdictions for treatment, so there have been some initial discussions. It’s something I know that industry is interested in as well as is the government, ENR, ITI, Lands. It would all be seen as a next step in terms of being able to better manage the impacts of whatever oil and gas development is going to evolve in the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister inform the House and inform the people in the Sahtu as to when will the baseline studies of the water use or the water monitoring in the Sahtu, because there are concerns about groundwater consequences of the technology of hydraulic fracking.
There have been hundreds of thousands of dollars put into baseline work. We know that we need it on a regional basis, but clearly, we’re looking at starting near where the proposed activity, or potentially, will be. There has been work ongoing over the last couple of years, and that work is slated to continue as we work to get that critical information not only on baseline for water, groundwater, surface water but also for wildlife.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
