Merci, monsieur le President. My questions are for the Premier. It appears that our departments work in completely isolated silos when it comes to caribou and roads. Will the Premier tell this House and the public why caribou are not considered in designing and developing roads into the Slave Geological Province? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Honourable Premier.
Our Ministers work closely together. I'll redirect the question to the Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, caribou is not an afterthought with this Cabinet or people in the Northwest Territories. We are working closely with Transportation. Just to be clear, this is a proposed corridor through the Slave Geological Province, and my understanding is that, if this project were to go ahead, they would go through an environmental assessment process that would talk about the possible effects to the caribou, and then we would take the necessary mitigation steps if we get to that stage in the project.
But the fact is there's no recovery strategy or plan for the Bathurst caribou herd. Not one square metre of critical habitat has been protected, and there are no caribou protection measures in place for land users. Will the Premier tell this House why Cabinet is pushing ahead with a plan for a road into the Slave Geological Province in range of the Bathurst caribou herd in the absence of a recovery strategy or plan for that herd, and at a time when the herd is in a desperate situation?
I share the Member's concern. I've seen the numbers from as far back as 1986, so I share his concern. With the proposed Slave Geological Province, there's a lot of work that needs to be done yet. We're not even sure if this project is going to go ahead. There's still the funding that we have to work with, and then the EA process that we need to go through. But in the meantime, we're continuing our work on the Bathurst caribou range plan. We're working with Aboriginal governments and all stakeholders, and we are putting a Bathurst caribou range plan together, and we're hoping to have this completed by March 2018.
So we may have a plan, then, for the Bathurst caribou in about a year and a half from now, but what is this government doing now other than imposing harvesting restrictions on people when it comes to the Bathurst caribou herd? I'd like to know how our government develops a route for a road into the range of the Bathurst caribou herd without any consideration for their habitat, its use, and the current desperate state of the herd.
I commend some of the Aboriginal governments out there on their desire to try and preserve the herd. To me, that shows a great deal of leadership because they recognize the desperate situation of this particular herd, and I share their concern. As far as the proposed route goes, there may be a couple of possibilities that the Department of Transportation is looking at for a proposed road. Again, it would need to go through an environmental assessment process where they'd be able to hear concerns, especially from those that are quite concerned about the survival of the Bathurst caribou herd.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I'm still getting some mixed messages, I think, from the other side of the House in terms of which departments are working on this and so on. In the absence of a recovery plan and continued low numbers of caribou our government continues to push ahead with development that will have a significant adverse effect on the Bathurst caribou herd. At what point would Cabinet decide it is not in the best interest of caribou to pursue this road? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as I said before we are working on a strategy, and as far as mixed messaging goes I think our Premier said it right when he said that all departments on this side are working together on a plan because we do recognize the seriousness of the Bathurst caribou herd and the effect it might have if there was a corridor that was built through there. I can assure the Member and all Members and the public, that the Government of the Northwest Territories is going to take all necessary steps to protect the Bathurst caribou herd, because to go from 476,000 animals in 1986 to just over 38,000 now that points out a problem and we need to try to find ways to mitigate that problem. I've even talked to my officials. I believe there was a caribou summit that was held in 2007 up in Inuvik, and I've even entertained the thought of having another caribou summit where we can hear from all people, including the public.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, Mr. Speaker, I spoke about summer employment. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to try a different avenue with questions today; I'm going to ask the Premier what he can do. We've heard in this House that the Premier spent the last year encouraging his colleagues on Cabinet to hire more summer students. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier please advise the House how he's encouraging his colleagues to hire summer students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Honourable Premier.
Hiring a summer student is a priority for this government and has been for every government that I recall. As a premier I work very closely with my colleagues and all Ministers share the goal of supporting youth in their development, which includes supporting them with employment opportunities within the Government of the Northwest Territories. Usually, at this time of the year we are reviewing how well this past summer went. Usually in December, we start receiving applications from summer students and going forward we review the statistics on a weekly basis and I discuss with my colleagues and, if required, I send out emails or I send out letters to all of my colleagues to ask them to continue to increase the numbers of summer students hired. Over the past six years, we've gone from a low of 272 summer students to 341 as the high two years ago. Thank you.
I'd like to thank the Premier for his answer. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the Premier encourages his colleagues to try and meet or exceed last year's numbers, however, I believe there's a better way of doing it. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier please direct his colleagues to add summer employment opportunities for students as part of the 2017-2018 business plan?
I should point out that the hiring of summer students is an ongoing operational function that we continue to do on an annual basis, and, as a government, the work that summer students are hired to carry out is based on operational needs so they need to cover summer vacancies or work on special projects, and these operational needs vary between departments and change over time, so they cannot be reliably forecasted. We do work closely every year to maximize the number of summer students that we hire on an annual basis.
I thank the Premier for his answer. I appreciate the fact that you work in this operational needs out there; however, if we're developing business plans operational needs should be identified throughout the year. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh asked the Minister of Human Resources to sit with Cabinet and develop a concrete of summer employment opportunities for post-secondary students. Will the Premier work with his colleagues to set the goal of 400 summer students for the 2017-2018 fiscal year? That would work out to about a cost of $4.5 million; money well spent, I figure.
The majority of funding for summer students comes from vacant positions in the Government of the Northwest Territories. As my colleague indicated in his line of questioning a couple of days ago, generally, rule of thumb, you're looking at about 10 per cent vacancy rate. So to take positions, possibly taken away from families, people that have jobs and have their own children, and convert them to summer student positions would not be seen as the ideal way to go. Over the years we've been very successful in hiring summer students. As I said, the maximum has been 341 and I wouldn't want to set a limit on how many summer students that we can hire.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. I'm not talking about taking jobs away; if there's vacancies, you can put that part of the business plan I honestly believe, and work on it. My colleague spoke about a subsidy for small businesses or communities to help them hire additional summer students. Mr. Speaker, will the Premier commit to work with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to set up a subsidy of $5 an hour for at least a hundred positions at a cost to the GNWT of about $250,000? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We have had a program exactly as the Member described in the past and we'd be prepared to look at that again.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I too have questions for the Premier. We will develop and implement a strategy to increase employment in small communities as part of our mandate in the 18th Assembly. I'd like to ask the Premier: what has the government done to date to increase employment in small communities? I'm specifically talking about the last year. Thank you.
Masi. Honourable Premier.
As a government, we've done a number of initiatives over the years to increase the number of employment in small communities. I guess the one that's been more successful has been our Government Services Officer Program where we have taken vacant positions and converted them into government services officer positions and I think we have been able to hire approximately 20 government services officer positions in small communities and they're all filled and they're providing a very useful service. We also have the Skills 4 Success program which incorporates input from industry, NWT residents, and so on so that we can help people acquire the skills, knowledge and attitudes for employment success. We also have the Small Community Employment Support Program and about 300 people are supported every year. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention decentralization initiatives of the Government of the Northwest Territories where over three phases and over a number of years we have moved approximately 190 positions out of Yellowknife out into the regions and into small centres.
The Premier almost answered all my questions but that's okay. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Premier if he could have a discussion with the departments to create other jobs in small communities that are outside the public service using government dollars, whether they're projects or O and M programs.
We do this on a regular basis, and certainly we will continue to look at ways to fund these jobs so that we can hire people in the smaller communities. We recognize the significance of those jobs, and certainly through a traditional economy, where the government invests about $2.5 million a year in trapping programs, certainly we work with industry to try to get more people hired from the communities. As a government, we are constantly looking at this approach.
The Premier mentioned decentralization as part of the method of putting some employment outside the larger centres into the smaller centres. The Premier mentioned Phases 1, 2, and 3. I'd like to ask the Premier if there's anything beyond that in the area of decentralization?
Decentralization continues to be a priority of this government. Over the past few years as a government we have not made excuses for not decentralizing. In the past, there have been issues with lack of housing, lack of office space, and as a government we've invested $21 million, I think it's $7 million a year for housing, to support decentralization. We invested about $300,000 for office space, and we asked our departments to identify opportunities for decentralization on an annual basis. For the most part, the suggestions or recommendations are small units or divisions that lend themselves to decentralization, and we'll continue to take that approach and continue to have decentralization as a priority.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad we've gone that road. The government may actually be having some difficulties filling some jobs in the small communities due to lack of infrastructure. Has the government looked at those jobs that have remained vacant for longer periods of time and considered perhaps re-profiling those jobs to somebody else in the community that may have a different set of skills but could also be helpful to the community in all kinds of areas? One example might be alcohol and drug counselling. Thank you.
I know that, as a government, we review our vacant positions, or positions that have been vacant for a long time, to try to identify the reasons for those positions to be vacant. A large part of them are professional, very technical positions, and in those cases we have to look at if it's a required service or a critical service, then we have to look at other ways to have those services provided. Where we have some flexibility, we would be prepared to look at that. I think that, historically, if I recall properly where we've taken professional jobs and filled them with people who don't have those qualifications, at some point you have to review how successful the program is. But where we have that flexibility, we've shown we can do it with the government service officer positions, where we've been able to do that, and certainly we're prepared to look at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Canol remediation procurement process was under way starting with the site visit of mid-August. My question to the Minister of ITI is his department working with federal counterparts to confirm and secure project funding for the clean-up of that trail? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right. The site bidder tour, I believe in October, was supposed to take place and it didn't. The federal government maintains the rights for the Canol Heritage Trail. This all came through devolution. They kept the right to facilitate the full remediation of this site, and we are working with the federal government on the transfer of land over to the territorial government to make it into a territorial park. But that won't take place until a remediation has taken place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Minister also confirm if there's some information that his department could share with our side here on project scheduling?
That's a federal government responsibility. Like I said, we are engaged in conversation with them, but until the site is fully reclaimed, it is a federal responsibility and I would have to see what the federal government would have available to share with the Member. But again, like I say, it's a federal responsibility.
I'm seeing that we have no money yet, but on the permitting side of the project here, our government is responsible for issuing the permits for the cleaning up of it, when we have in fact one third of the regulatory agency to issue those permits. Can the Minister confirm that the permits are going to issued, and pass me the schedule on this side of the issuance?
I would have to look into who would be in charge of the regulatory process on our side. I know for sure it's probably not ITI's department, but it's something I can look into. It's probably the Department of Lands and ENR. I will look into it and get back to the Member.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to the information and continued dialogue to be kept aware of the project's process as a result of all the many opportunities we're going to see in our area, and the North for that matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. I'll take that as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, what heritage funding exists to preserve unique heritage sites in our communities?
