Can the Minister identify which of the GNWT departments are working on a policy to support the infrastructure needs of non-profit and private sector organizations? Mahsi.
We do have a committee established that deals with these kinds of initiatives and policy development. The Program Review Office has initiated the discussions.
As I stated, that letter has been sent to standing committee and the feedback has come back to us now within our Cabinet to consider those recommendations brought to our attention by the standing committee to integrate that into our new policy that has been drafted. So, we will be updating that and sharing that with the standing committee once it’s available. Mahsi.
Can the Minister provide a timeline for completing this policy? In other words, will it be done before this Assembly is concluded by our September sitting? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I need to confirm that with the Program Review Office. Part of the target date will be either late this summer or before the end of this term of the government. We want to establish a policy, so we want to expedite that since we have the feedback from the standing committee. We will expedite the process along the way. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, when we’re talking about the policy, is that something that will be done at the end of this Assembly or will have to make its way into the transition document for the next Assembly, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Those are discussions we are currently having and that could be part of the transitional document. There are other programs under review. It is part of the discussions we are currently having with the Program Review Office, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my statement, I have questions for the Minister of Transportation.
The Minister of Transportation indicated he was going to write the federal Minister of Transportation to get going on the project to do dredging in Hay River. Can he give me an update on where that status is? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have written my letter to the federal government on dredging the Hay River. I have not received their response. Thank you.
I’m just wondering if there’s some sort of process that we have with the federal government. If we’ve written them a letter, it’s been a couple of months now that we haven’t heard back from them. Is there a process that we could actually get some results on this dredging? Thank you.
We know that the officials do talk on a regular basis. We continue to have our officials dealing with the officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to see if it’s possible at least to initiate some discussions and see if it’s possible that there could be some dredging done in the Hay River. That will be our attempt to continue discussions with those officials. Thank you.
I’m just wondering if those officials are any prompter than the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Transportation from the federal government, because we sure aren’t getting any results from them.
I’m wondering if the Minister will commit to having a meeting in Hay River with those federal representatives. He’s indicated to me in the past that the Coast Guard and Public Works from the federal government were involved in this process.
Can we get some results in actually seeing the federal government starting to talk in Hay River about dredging the Hay River? Thank you.
I cannot set up meetings for the federal officials. However, we can ask, so I will have the deputy minister from the Department of Transportation, GNWT, contact the officials that are responsible for dredging all rivers up here, mainly Hay River, and try to set up a meeting in Hay River with the federal officials responsible.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m wondering if we could actually get the federal government in to attending some of these meetings if we got some of those interested parties, if we got NTCL together, if we got the NWT Fishermen’s Federation together, some of those types of people who are desperately in need of this dredging.
Is there a way that we can have some of them if we had a Transportation Strategy meeting and all those people showed up and talked about dredging? Obviously, the Department of Transportation, GNWT Transportation knows this. Is there a way that we can make sure that we have all those parties at the table when we have this meeting set up?
Certainly, we can discuss the consultations we had on the Transportation Strategy, the NWT Transportation Strategy, with the federal government and the desire for all of the people who are using the Hay River, the transport people, fisheries and so on, the Coast Guard, to be able to get together and speak to them about all of the areas where we see the impacts of the fact that we need dredging in Hay River.
Everybody knows that the dredging is needed. It’s just a matter of trying to get people to get the money to get the dredging done.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the issue of hydraulic fracturing, not unlike my good colleague to my left, Ms. Bisaro, and the concerns from the public.
One of the concerns from the public, and I certainly see it as an issue as an individual MLA, has been why have we not had the courage to just go straightforward and ask the question to Northerners: Is hydraulic fracturing appropriate for the Northwest Territories? Have that dialogue, understand and educate ourselves as to what the pros and cons are of it, and then step forward and work on regulations if given the, say, good guidance, authority, or at least the direction and suggestion, if that is appropriate for the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We worked long and hard to get our Devolution Agreement with the federal government. We also made a decision to regulate the oil and gas industry here in the Northwest Territories ourselves. Had we not made that decision, the industry would be regulated from Calgary by the National Energy Board, and Members on the other side of the House would not have the opportunity to question anybody and our government wouldn’t have opportunity to influence policy or direction on regulations. That would be left up to the National Energy Board of Canada.
What we have in front of us is an opportunity, and now Northerners and this government have the opportunity.
I want to thank the Member and the Regular Members for their help in helping us learn as much as we can about this process. We spent the last four years learning about the process of hydraulic fracturing. We’re moving forward with the process to develop draft regulations. We’ve heard from Northerners on important issues, water quality, air quality, disclosure. We’re working on all of those things, and it’s because of the work of the standing committee and the Regular Members and the people we’ve talked to around the Northwest Territories that we continue to move in that direction. We believe we can manage the resources that we have here in the Northwest Territories ourselves, and we intend to do just that.
Largely, I don’t necessarily disagree with much of what the Minister had said, but I still think we’ve missed our moral compass on this particular issue, which is there’s a decision on how to do fracking, not a decision as to should we do fracking. I welcome that from the NEB, and I welcome the authority we’ve gained, but what is stopping the department from actually just getting out there to ask that basic building block question?
You have to have a solid foundation before you build a house. Let us ask the question and have the courage to ask the question: Should fracking happen in the Northwest Territories, yes or no?
On April 1, 2014, this government made a commitment to the people of the Northwest Territories to devolve and then evolve. We have been at this for just over a year, it is an evolution process. We are continuing to work on a process, and I know the Member is saying we should ask that question right up front. The process isn’t even halfway through. Yesterday in this House I committed to giving us as much time as we need. We are going to take to the end of August to get public comment.
We are going to go through this process, and Members on that side of the House seem to want to pre-empt that entire process and ask that question. Let us finish the work that we start, then we can ask that question.
In response to some of the other comments I heard from Ms. Bisaro, she said we’re going to do this at any cost. We are not going to use the process of hydraulic fracturing at any cost, and I never said that in this House and I have never said that publicly, so I take offence to some of the comments from the Regular Members that we’re going to do this at any cost.
It’s not going to be at any cost. Like I said yesterday in response to some other questions, if you’re going to be in the energy business, like I believe the Northwest Territories is going to be in the energy business, you better be looking after the environment and we intend to do just that. Thank you.
This is like putting icing on a cake and we never asked them if they like cake, type of thing, and we are serving it to them.
What the question really comes down to is we should ask them about what the fundamentals of the process are, which is should we allow fracking in the Northwest Territories and under what conditions?
Talking about down the road is great, and it’s not pre-empting the problem, it’s about asking the root of the question, which is the meaning of why we want to do something, because that drives the regulations. We passed the Wildlife Act and then we did the regulations. We’ll pass the Mental Health Act one day and then we will write the regulations. You don’t write the regulations and go back and ask the question. It’s the old saying, as we’ve all said, "The horse has left the barn."
I would like to see the Minister stand up and say, "We will go back and ask that peer question." Will he do that? Thank you.
We’ve been at this for all of 14 months. It’s been our responsibility to manage oil and gas activity onshore in the Northwest Territories. It’s only been 14 months.
We are in a process right now. That is not the question. The Member is trying to ask that question. That is not the question we’re asking right now. Don’t we owe it to the residents of the Northwest Territories to better understand exactly what we’re getting ourselves into before we ask that question, before we throw that opportunity out for the people that live in the central Mackenzie Valley and in the Sahtu who are hungry for the jobs and the economic opportunities? We want to put infrastructure into the Sahtu as well.
We need to manage this resource and we’re going to do this work. We’re not making any decisions today, and for Members to think that we’re making decisions today, that is not the case. We are not rushing into this. We are taking a measured, proactive approach to this and that’s what we’re going to do. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My kind of question, of course, and I appreciate that. I always have a saying, we should know what the question is before we’re willing to answer it. I certainly am supportive of development and I’m supportive of the good work happening in the Sahtu region. It’s just the question needs to be asked first, and we shouldn’t be afraid to ask that question.
So, I’m going to ask the Minister, does he, firstly, have concern with this question? Is the department concerned about this question? Should the public be informed in any way that the department is not willing to ask the right question, the critical question, the meaningful question that will define our time, which is: Should hydraulic fracturing happen in the Northwest Territories and, if so, under what conditions? That’s critical, and I’d like to see some courage and maybe some leadership from the Minister willing to ask that clear, simple question. Thank you.
Leadership is not taking a world-class opportunity that we have in the territory and putting it on the sideline. What we’re trying to do is manage this. We’re trying to get out; we’re trying to educate the public; we’ve been to many communities; we’re halfway through the process that’s underway today; and we can manage this resource.
I’m getting the feeling that some Members on the other side of the House don’t believe that we can manage this resource and that we can do it in an effective way. We want to manage the environmental concerns. We want to manage the opportunity that this presents us with. It is a world-class resource in the central Mackenzie Valley; make no mistake about it. It’s there and we can manage it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about this government’s opportunity to provide post-secondary students who come home to the Northwest Territories to work for the summer. I don’t know what the statistics are right now on whether that number has been growing. I’m not sure what the statistics are with respect to how many of those students are priority 1 hires and how many are priority 2s, and I’d like to know, also, how many of those positions that are made available are made available here in the capital and how many are in the regions, and I’d like to know if the Minister has any of that information at his fingertips as a starting point. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The departments try to hire as many students as their budgets would allow them to hire for the summer. But we do try to achieve a greater number than what we have been averaging, around 300. So, as of right now, we have hired 230 summer students and another 23 who are ready for signing. So, 253 summer students.
At this time last year, we had 217 summer students and we ended up hiring 312 last year. So, we’re expecting to beat that number this year. Thank you.
I’d like to ask the Minister, do you have any idea what the breakdown is? Obviously, they’re hired for our Affirmative Action Policy, which would then employ priority 1 and priority 2 hire candidates, and I’d like to ask the Minister if he has any kind of a breakdown on how many of each of that category are hired by these departments. Thank you.
Of the 230 who are signed on, 120 of those students are priority 1 candidates and 106 of those students are priority 2 candidates and four students hired to date have no priority status. Thank you.
That is very welcome news, because I tend to hear more from the priority 2 students who are out studying, and when they come home, for some reason, they get screened out. So, it’s very good for the public to be aware of that breakdown between P1 and P2 students. So, I’m glad we’ve got that out there and on the record.
However, we have more than this number who are out taking post-secondary education. We have a recruitment and retention issue in the public service in the Northwest Territories. I still think it would be better if there was an initiative to hire more summer students and try the best we can to match their area of learning and training to a position in the public service here in the Northwest Territories.
So, I’d like to ask the Minister, how would he see ensuring that departments have money to hire more students, and does he know how many post-secondary students there are in total, perhaps, who are outside of the Northwest Territories in school? Thank you.
The Department of Human Resources tracks some students by the amount of applications. So, we start in December by holding open houses. We contact students. We go through a process of inviting students. We have a website inviting students to apply.
Last year we had 598 students apply for summer employment, and of that we hired 312, like I indicated. To date, we’ve had 558 summer students apply.
My understanding is that at the end of this month, a lot of the technical students will be returning to the Northwest Territories, so we’re expecting a little bit of a jump there. So, the next point where we see increases is usually at the end of May. So, we’re anticipating that we could easily beat the number of last year, but I don’t know exactly how many students will actually be hired. Again, it would depend on department-by-department budget numbers. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps in the past, and I’m not too sure of the details of this, this government collaborated and cooperated with the private sector to expand the number of students employed back in their home Northwest Territories for the summer months who are involved in post-secondary education.
I’d like to ask the Minister if his department has recently contemplated the idea of doing a top-up to the private sector for hiring post-secondary school students in their workplaces and is that a way that we can expand the number of opportunities? We don’t want to lose our students to the South. We would like to get them back home and get them some experience in their field of training. Thank you.
Those are real good ideas that I’m going to have a discussion with the deputy minister of Human Resources on.
One thing that was contemplated this year, it was interesting, it was brought up by another Member last year, and that was hiring students on a 0.7, 0.8 basis so that they have an opportunity to also work outside of their field of studies and maybe go into the private sector a bit and then give the private sector an opportunity to also attract the students. That was something that we looked at so that we would broaden out. If we were to hire all the students at 0.75 as opposed to the full-time job during the summer months, then we’d be able to increase the amount of students by 100, for example, last year. So, that was something that we looked at closely.
There was a bit of an issue with doing that right then. Maybe we didn’t have the time in HR to be able to sort out all the numbers and so on, but certainly that’s the one idea that we would look at, subsidizing the private sector to be able to attract students and also doing some as part-time summer jobs for summer students so they could also venture into the private sector. Those are good ideas that the department will look at. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I mentioned that I recently went to Deline and went to visit the school. I want to speak to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Does the Minister know, given the assessment of the Deline school, that the school literally is falling apart? Does the Minister know that?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The information that I do have from Public Works and Services, working very closely with my department, is that there’s been a building assessment done in 2008, and the building ranking obviously came back as good condition at this point. But as the same time, my department visited the community’s school in November 2013 and met with the officials, met with the community members and identified one of the areas, the floor that the Member is referring to. It has been identified, the floor movement. My department is working closely with Public Works to resolve that issue as we speak. Mahsi.
The Minister is correct. I have copies of my Member’s statement and my exchange with the Minister of Education, also the Minister at that time, the Minister of Public Works, talking about the work that’s been done on the Deline school.
I want to ask the Minister, it’s like having a plate or a bowl of Jell-O and putting straws in it and putting a building on there. The building is shaky. It’s moving and it’s falling apart. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t keep Deline’s school together again.
---Laughter
So you need to build another school. The Deline community is asking this government if they’re looking at if they were to work together, they could look at the concept of working with the community, working with the government to say, if we are to build it, can you lease it off them? We had that type of discussion. I believe at the time when I asked the Minister of Public Works, that type of discussion can be had.
I want to ask the Minister of Education, is he willing to come to Deline to the school and say, “Yes, let’s see if we can do something?” Given the life of this government, given the financial situation we are going to be in, is this the type of thinking that could be had with the community of Deline?
Any opportunity for the department to visit the community, obviously, I’m receptive to it, having my department and myself visiting and also meeting with the officials and the community members on how we can deal with this matter. As I stated, there are at least six different items that are being worked on as we speak since November 2013. It may not be completed fully, but those are areas that we continue to work on, because we have to keep in mind the safety of all our students.
When the Member is talking about opportunities to meet, by all means, those are areas that I’m willing to consider, as well, meeting with the MLA and also his leadership.
