As I had the opportunity in committee to explain some of this stuff, the department is looking at all aspects of costing out of revenues and expenses moving forward. There are a number of business opportunities that have also come forward since the purchase of these assets, and we believe that, if these come to fruition, it will help spread the cost out and keep the fuel prices down to where they are, close to the present levels, subject to the markets on the fuel in the open market.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the response, Mr. Speaker. More of a comment than a question, Mr. Speaker. My final question is: when will further information be available to Regular Members? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe I committed to keeping committee well-informed as we move forward, as we secure opportunities of different types of revenue of moving forward, the sailing schedule, the staffing issues and stuff, and in the coming months and weeks I am hoping to update committee on where we are at with these new assets.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. Earlier today I spoke about the importance of our Transboundary Water Agreements. We need to finish these arrangements and fully implement them. Can the Minister tell this House and the public whether there are any actual negotiations going on with the governments of the Yukon, Saskatchewan, and Nunavut for the remaining agreements? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do know that the negotiations with Saskatchewan have occurred and are expected to resume this year. We have had some preliminary discussions with the Government of Nunavut to start the work towards a Transboundary Water Agreement. We do have an existing bilateral water agreement with the Yukon. This was signed in 2002. We are having discussions with the Yukon regarding the renegotiation of this agreement to better align it with the other agreements that we are working on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for his response. It looks like we have at least one of the three in active negotiations. That is helpful information. I wish the Minister could put that sort of detail on the departmental website.
Have water quality objectives and learning plans been started under any of the existing agreements with Alberta and British Columbia?
We are still a little early in the process. We do have the representatives on the board. They are continuing to meet. I will get an update on the plan, and I will share those with committee.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister. These agreements have been in place now for about a year and a half with Alberta and BC, and I really look forward to getting that information, and hope that the work has actually started. We actually have a more environmentally friendly regime in Alberta right now, and I would have thought we could make very good progress towards full implementation of that agreement. Are the bilateral management committees under the Alberta and B.C. agreements actually set up, and are they meeting?
We do have a bilateral management agreement committee with Alberta. We do have representatives on there. As far as the actual meetings, I will confirm that, but we do have representation at the meeting. I just don't have that level of detail. I will find out for the Members. The same can be said with the one with the Government of BC, we do have our representative's name. Again, as to the actual meetings that they have had, I will gather all that information and I will share it with the Members.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Again, I would like to thank the Minister for his answer. I did give him a head's up on what these questions would be. It looks like this progress and implementation is not happening nearly as quickly as it should be. I am just wondering: what is the problem here? Is it funding, political will? Can the Minister please explain the lack of publicly available information, real progress on finishing these agreements and fully implementing them? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the head's up that the Member gave me on his line of questioning. I can assure him that this is a partnership that we have to work out with our colleagues south of the NWT. I will work to get an update on all the work that has been going on. If there is a lack of engagement, then I will ensure that this government initiates that engagement, so we can have these very important transborder agreements not only completed but implemented.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister of ITI on agriculture and homegrown harvesters. As we draw towards our home growing season and the season of federal Nutrition North competition, this program on principle is a very good one to the smaller remote communities; however, subsidizing only one side. My question is: what is the Department of ITI doing to provide agricultural home growers support for the upcoming season? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for the question on Growing Forward 2, because this is an important initiative that the Government of the Northwest Territories has been working on in collaboration with the federal government on bringing agriculture to the Northwest Territories. For the past five years, we have spent approximately $6 million on this program in the Northwest Territories and invested it directly into NWT agriculture. I thank him for that.
In the upcoming season, I suspect that I would have to get that directly from the department, but I am assuming that it is probably relevant to what we did last year in all of the communities. In the Sahtu region in particular, we have done a number of initiatives in the last year. We invested approximately $117,000 in the Member's region under Growing Forward 2. We have made investments to new and expanded infrastructure at the Sahtu Gardens and the McNeely Nursery in Fort Good Hope. We have done summer maintenance programs in the community gardens of Deline, Tulita, and Fort Good Hope, as well. We have also, last year, taken the opportunity to send a number of residents in the Sahtu to Hay River and Yellowknife to learn more about agriculture on some training and a conference that we had here in Yellowknife. I suspect that moving forward in this coming year will be very similar to that. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
I welcome those answers. They are all positive. They are good. They provide positive dialogue to the home growers who are listening here. In some cases, in one community, the Nutrition North program is advertised stating it is subsidized at $2.90 per kilogram. Is there some form of subsidy that could go towards the actual poundage of vegetables or homegrown products there for the people?
Nutrition North is a federal program to increase access to perishable nutritious food across the Northwest Territories and help reduce the cost. Its objective actually lines up quite a bit with the agriculture strategies of the Northwest Territories. Ideally, we want to get the agriculture in the Northwest Territories to a point where we wouldn't need to have Nutrition North to help subsidize the cost of food in the NWT, but we are not there yet. We will have to continue to work with our federal partners and Nutrition North and our commercial producers in the Northwest Territories on how we can work on these programs. I will continue to do that as the Minister of ITI.
My last question is: will the Minister support a gathering to discuss the new agricultural strategy and how could that work in harmony with some of the key stakeholders in the region? It is a small area, so we can pretty much guarantee the names and provide the names to the individuals who are taking an active investment into that home grower program of their own.
As I made a comment in my earlier statement, we brought a number of Sahtu residents to Yellowknife in particular last year for an agriculture conference; this is some of the stuff that we heard there that we put in towards our agriculture strategy. I don't think we need to have another conference already to do that. If the Member from the Sahtu would like us to work closely with the residents of the Sahtu, we can have our superintendent reach out to him and see how we can facilitate that.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have questions for the Minister of Transportation on his Minister's statement. As we are proposing more P3 projects adding Slave Geological to the previous P3 proposal for a Whati road, I would like to ask the Minister if there is any indication on when the P3 approval of the Whati road would occur? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we have announced in this House, the federal government has made a commitment to the Whati-Tlicho all-season road. We are working on a number of initiatives within the Department of Transportation presently. One of them is to get through the environmental assessment process with the Mackenzie Valley Environment Impact Review Board. That was brought forward in July of the past year. We continue to work on that. The next step on that process is we need to draft an adequacy statement response that satisfies the requirements of the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board. We will do that, and we will continue to move it through the regulatory process for now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I asked the Minister if there is any indication on when the P3 portion of the Whati road may be approved?
All that is probably going to depend on what is going to happen with the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board. We have no control over what they are doing. The other thing that we are looking at doing is we are going to put out a request for qualifications on this process for this road. That should be coming out shortly. We don't want to get ahead of the environmental process.
I would like to ask the Minister why we are not going after the National Infrastructure Fund for the Slave Geological Province road?
We haven't totally decided that right now. As I said in my statement today, we are doing a P3 business case assessment on the corridor of the Slave Geological Province. When this business case is completed, which we are hoping to have done by mid2017, this will give us a better idea how to make a decision on how we move this process forward. It is going to give us a little better idea on the cost of construction of the road, as well as determine the appropriate funding model, and that is what we will determine at the end of that.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister a very similar question to my last question, and that is: why are we proposing a P3 as opposed to going straight to the National Infrastructure Fund? The National Infrastructure Fund, if approved, would be 75 per cent funded by the federal government. Also, it would be something of national significance because, eventually, Slave Geological Road could end up joining up with something from the Port Road of Nunavut, so it is definitely significant nationally. I was wondering why they don't move to the National Infrastructure Fund first, before attempting P3? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason we are doing the P3 business case, as I've said, moving forward is it is going to give us a better idea on construction costs on the construction of this road now that the route has been determined, which took a number of years to get that figured out. This is just going to give us a better idea of costing of the project. Once that is done, then we will probably sit down, no different from the Whati road, and see which makes the best case; national infrastructure process, which is the federal government hasn't clearly laid out the rules around that yet, or a P3 business case. We will determine that and probably have that conversation with committee as we move forward.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the last couple of weeks, we have been asking questions of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about the proposed cuts to the education and social work programs. Today I will be asking some questions on behalf of the students of the education program. Mr. Speaker, when looking at the cuts, can the Minister advise this House: did the college consider looking at reducing administration costs first to save some program funding? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, that was considered, the administration costs. A review of the college's operations deemed several support positions nonessential, and any remaining duties of those positions will be reassigned to other staff. To meet the target reduction, there were three administrative positions that were affected. With this reduction, Aurora College will be required to be innovative and become more efficient and effective in their administrative process moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his answer. Mr. Speaker, when looking at these cuts, can the Minister advise this House: did the college consult with the students on ways to improve the program and save it, or did they just go out and make these cuts without consulting the students?
No, the students were not consulted about reductions moving forward. It was the Department of Education, Culture and Employment that was working closely with Aurora College to identify where reductions could be coming from. Evidencebased decisions on low graduation rates within these two programs were identified. Sometimes tough decisions need to be made, and those were the decisions that were brought forth to this government.
I just want to let Members know that Aurora College is continuing to support the students in these two programs to completion, working with them, supporting them to make sure that all the students in both programs do graduate to completion over the course of the years.
I thank the Minister for his answer. However, I would like to inform the Minister that the access program students, they are not accounted for, to graduate in the North, and that is a challenge. Mr. Speaker, with the majority of the TEP and social work students tending to be young parents, did the college or the department consider the effects of making them uproot their families and lose some of their family support system here to attend school in the South?
The Member did bring up the access students. The Aurora College staff has worked with the access students to look at the next steps for them in their career path, so they are working on that side of things. As I mentioned, we still continue to support families and students wherever they want to get their postsecondary education. As I mentioned earlier, we spent $12 million in Student Financial Assistance, and that affects over 1,200 students who are getting postsecondary education at this moment. Any families that have dependents, there is an increase in the Student Financial Assistance that they receive, as well.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I thank the Minister for his answer. Dependents are one thing. Family support is another, and that is the biggest challenge for us people living in the North. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that, in the fall of 2015, the Aurora College Board of Governors signed an Indigenous Knowledge Declaration. Mr. Speaker, some of the students are not sure that the college was sincere when they signed this document. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain how cutting this program helps Indigenous people share their knowledge among their peers if they are attending a southern program where people may not recognize, respect, or share the same process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, Aurora College and the Department of ECE take that declaration very seriously, including the respect for and importance of Indigenous knowledge. Aurora College will continue to seek new ways to incorporate Indigenous knowledge, world views, and approaches in all of its programs. All Aurora College programs serve Indigenous learners, not only in social work or the TEP program but through all the programs that it does serve. As well, the department has done a lot of work around residential schooling as well as cultural training for our Northerners but also for southern workers who come up and work in the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
