Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We just recently tabled the official Aboriginal Languages Strategic Framework that we are going to be working with and building on, but we also have really great partnerships with all of our Aboriginal governments. Since 2014, we have given them funding so that they can develop programs, regional Aboriginal languages plans, and we support them with this additional funding that we did get through the agreement signed with the federal government.
We are getting increased contributions to these Aboriginal governments, as well as creating a territorial linguist position that is going to help with professional development, and help these Aboriginal governments move forward to address and get their Aboriginal languages plans into place and have action on them. There are many other things that we are doing with the communities. In terms of working, I can sit down with the Member and let him know what some of these things are. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In the residential school experience, there was no place for Aboriginal languages or culture. Some might say that the pride and personal responsibility that a person takes to take ownership of our Aboriginal languages is not there. How does the GNWT envision that healing and wellness can play a part in preserving and enhancing our Aboriginal languages?
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has made this call to action for all provinces and territories. We are stepping up to the plate. We are working with our Aboriginal governments to ensure the future of Aboriginal languages. Preservation of culture and traditions is a priority, and we are going to work to increase our efforts, as well as working with the federal and Aboriginal governments to ensure this is done. At the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, we have made it mandatory. With Northern Studies 10, we are implementing the residential school curriculum, and in the future, with Northern Studies 20 and 30, working on implementing our land claims and self-governments, as well. We are doing a lot of things with this increased funding. We are going to be able to increase the resources to adjust some of these calls to action.
I would like to at least acknowledge the efforts of the department in terms of ensuring that we take steps to ensure that, indeed, our languages are preserved and enhanced. There is a lot of good work that is going on, and I think that has to reach the ground level, at the community level.
My other question is, this is a four-year funding announcement. I think last year, it was part of a transfer of dollars, so one year of a full four-year program has passed. I wanted to ask the Minister: at the end of this funding period that has been committed $19.6 million, at the end of the process which could probably take us to the year 2020, what does he think would, by that time, all the partnership achieved in terms of preserving, enhancing, and ensuring our languages are in a state of flourishing, at the same time, successful, and our use in everyday society, of Aboriginal communities throughout the North?
Obviously, there are a lot of indicators that we can identify. We want to see the outcomes of these investments that we are doing in the Northwest Territories. Our end goal is to have revitalization, preservation of our languages, our culture, and increase the amount of our NWT residents speaking their Aboriginal languages.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister had stated very clearly that there will be a position of a linguist established, and that is very good. One thing that I have observed over the years is we have made a lot of great effort in terms of preserving the stories of elders. A lot of them more likely are archived with the various Aboriginal groups and communities. Would part of the strategy consider establishing, perhaps, a central bank? A lot of those interviews of elders who have passed could be safely kept. At the same time, maybe they are in analog form. They could be digitized for future reference, at least to preserve those historical stories as we might describe them.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know that some of our Aboriginal governments are already in that process of digitizing the stories that have been told over the years. That is something that we want to continue to support, and I think the Member has a really good idea in bringing this forward so that we can preserve our culture, languages, and the stories of our elders and our ancestors. I want to thank the Member for bringing that up.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today, the Minister of Infrastructure spoke at length about the three roadways that we have coming to the Northwest Territories sometime in the future, and he knows that he has my support for that, for obvious and various reasons. Most important to me is the safety of our current and future roads. I would like if the Minister could start, first of all, by describing for us and the public exactly what the department is doing to promote road safety across the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member alluded to in his statement there, we have Drive Alive, but Infrastructure has an improvement safety plan that we work on continually for all highways. We also follow the TAC program for our guidelines for all highways in the Northwest Territories, along with all our other public outreach that we have between Twitter and Facebook and those sorts of things. We are always promoting safety. We have our speed signs that we put out and, as we all know, there is a number of bump signs between here and Behchoko. Our staff is working regularly and daily to at least communicate to the public the areas that are of concern out in the highway system throughout the Northwest Territories, on a daily basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. Earlier, I spoke in my Member's statement about the need to potentially redesign some corners and add some guardrails. On the May long weekend, sadly, there was an accident on a corner that I myself, in fact, had an accident on, that very same corner, a number of years ago. It does not have guardrails. I am wondering if the Minister and his department could give any consideration to improving Highway No. 4, the Ingraham Trail, with some consideration to redesign certain corners and install guardrails?
Infrastructure is investing roughly $8 million from 2015 to 2019 on the Ingraham Trail. A lot of work has already been done in the years leading up to now, which was chip sealing, embankment work, installing culverts, and such. There is a multi-year contract on road widening and structural engineering and drainage improvements, as well as surfacing, an ongoing challenge on that road. As far as guardrails and such go, there is some guardrail installation that is actually going to take place in the 2017-2019 calendar years. Which sections those exactly are, I couldn't give the Member that exact location at this point. The other point I want to make today is any time there is an accident on the highway, we have all our engineers go there and review the critical incident that happened and see if there are improvements that could be made to that section of road moving forward.
As I have said in this House a number of times, climate change has proposed significant challenges for the department as the roads are continually changing. They are continually sinking and changing and cracking from climate change, and those challenges will continue. They will continue going forward on Ingraham Trail specifically, just due to the amount of traffic that is out there in the summertime and the amount of winter traffic that we have serving the mines. So we will continue to review everything going forward and pay close attention to this section of the highway.
Thank you to the Minister for the commitment, I suppose, from the department to go and review this particular corner. It is good to know that, after accidents such as this, they do take the time to go and reassess the potential need for improvement.
Mr. Speaker, what is the department doing to work with regard to highway patrols itself? We have highway patrol within the territorial government, but not just our own highway patrol. Are we working with the City of Yellowknife's Municipal Enforcement Division? Are we working with the RCMP to take best advantage of patrolling our highways? Are we working on collaborative programs such as check stops, et cetera, to reduce unsafe driving?
As the Member said, we have our own highway patrol that goes out there continually, specifically in the wintertime when truck traffic is at its peak. We have our superintendent who patrols each highway section that they are in charge of on a daily basis to make people aware of potential hazardous areas and the condition of the highway and report back to the department on that. As far as us working with the City of Yellowknife and the RCMP on the sorts of things that the Member has alluded to, I am not quite sure how that works. I would have to check with the department if we have collaboration with the city and their municipal enforcement and the RCMP on a regular basis on some of the challenges around that.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for his reply. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to know if the Minister can inform this House at this time with regard to any update on the investigation or assessment that was going to take place around the winter ice road season out on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto highway that was stemming from all of the accidents, the rollovers, the cab fires that had happened? Can the Minister inform us if there is anything he can share with this House right now to let us know what has come of those circumstances? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I committed to getting back to the House on that communication that we would have, particularly with the contractors of the winter road, and I have not got that to date. I will follow up and get back to the Member.
Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. The Premier has made statements in the past resisting any form of carbon pricing but later signed on to the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. Can the Premier tell the public and the Regular MLAs the Cabinet's current position on carbon pricing for the Northwest Territories? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. The Honourable Premier.
Mr. Speaker, we have had briefings with committee. There is another briefing scheduled with committee on Wednesday, and we have been very clear in our briefings. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the briefing that we are going to get, but it is not public, as I understand it. I guess we will wait and see. As I said in my statement, the federal government recently released a technical paper on its backstop carbon pricing scheme that will apply to all provinces and territories. What is our government doing on the issue of carbon pricing, and when will that be shared with Regular MLAs and the public?
As I have said many times in this House, we will be doing what the people of the Northwest Territories tell us to do. We have been holding roundtables throughout the Northwest Territories. We have been inviting people from the smaller communities to attend these roundtables, and we will be tabling in this House a report on what we heard, so that all of the people in Northwest Territories will know what we heard. Also, we will be releasing an NWT carbon tax discussion paper in June, so that we will have another round of consultation with the people of the Northwest Territories. We feel that it is very important for us to have a very clear understanding of what the people of the Northwest Territories want us to do in this regard.
Thanks to the Premier for that. I appreciate that we are finally going to get a discussion paper going on carbon tax here in the Northwest Territories. Can the Premier just give us any sort of insights into what will be in that paper? Will it discuss different forms of carbon taxing and what we actually do with the revenues? There are a couple of different ways of looking at the revenues. One is to rebate part of it back. The second is to invest some of it into renewables. Can the Minister explain whether that discussion paper will consider the issue of what to do with the revenues raised through a carbon tax?
My expectation is we will take into consideration all of those aspects with regards to a carbon pricing mechanism. We certainly have been given assurance from the Government of Canada, directly from the Prime Minister, that we are going to work together on a solution. It will be very important for us to fully understand the implications of carbon pricing before we make an actual decision on how it will be implemented. All of the areas that the Member raised, it is my expectation that the discussion paper will raise.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Premier for that commitment that those items are going to be dealt with. On March 1st, the Premier promised to provide a carbon modelling and pricing reports of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and the Environment. Can the Premier explain why this report has not been shared and when he intends to provide it to the committee and to the public? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know that we have been doing modelling on the various implications of carbon pricing. The Member quoted two cents per litre, 18 cents per litre over five years. I can tell you that it is higher than that, but we have been doing that work. I will check in to see where that report is at, and if it is ready, we will release it.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, I addressed the issue that the last Assembly, the 17th Assembly, had seen the Auditor General's report on corrections in the NWT tabled March of 2015 followed by a committee report dated June 4, 2015. My question to the Minister is: what is the status of this report and the recommendations? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2015, the Auditor General of Canada completed an audit on the NWT Corrections Service that focused on the North Slave Correctional Centre here in Yellowknife and the Fort Smith Correctional Complex male unit, of course in Fort Smith. The Department of Justice responded by accepting all of the recommendations in the report, and I understand to this point 95 per cent of the recommendations have been completed. Thank you.
Those are high numbers. I understand that the Auditor General's report produced 14 recommendations, and the action plan items introduced by the committee for the department was 105. So those are high numbers to address the small amount of recommendations by the auditor. However, there was some oversight neglecting to be addressed in the report in the area of port services, sentencing decisions, community in custody programming. Those are just a few that are not addressed in the Auditor General's report. What is the status on those items that weren't addressed in the Auditor General's report?
I'm not entirely sure what programs of Corrections the Member opposite is referring to. We are always trying to improve in all areas. As I mentioned, 95 per cent of the recommendations have been completed. That means there's still 5 per cent to be completed. The items that he has referenced today, however, are not those as I understand it which were included in the Auditor General's report. Obviously, issues of sentencing and rehabilitation are always ongoing concerns of the department and Corrections.
Can the Minister provide a commitment or a briefing to look at the issues that were not completed with the Auditor General's report and provide a briefing on those neglected items?
Just because some of the items have not been completed doesn't mean that they were neglected. It may be that it has simply taken more time. Included amongst them, I can advise, are our changes to the Corrections Act.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister commit to providing this side of the House with a briefing on the Auditor General's report of 2015? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I'd certainly be pleased to meet with the Member opposite on an individual basis. I don't know whether a full briefing is really required at this stage. The Auditor General's report is now more than two years old; 95 per cent of the recommendations have been completed. I would be certainly pleased to meet personally with the Member opposite to discuss those items that are still outstanding. I can advise that even those outstanding have not been neglected in any way. They simply have not been fully completed.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today we had Marie Speakman here. I'm not sure if she still is here, but she is well-known and well-loved for her support for victims of sexual violence. It's my understanding that she has initiated some discussion with police around having a private space for sexual assault victims to receive services of support and the sexual assault kit that is used to collect evidence. I'm wondering if the Minister can tell us whether he is taking a role in this initiative to create a private space for this purpose. Mahsi.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would certainly like to hear more about this private space. I've heard a small amount today, and I think last week. I certainly would be prepared to discuss the matter with the RCMP. I don't think I can make any financial commitments as to whether we would be in a position to provide such a space. Thank you.
I know the Minister hasn't had a lot of time to consider this, but would he agree that privacy is currently a problem and a dedicated space may be a solution?
