Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute my constituent Lynda Koe for receiving the Order of the NWT yesterday. For almost 30 years, Ms. Koe has used her nursing skills to increase the quality of life for residents of Avens to meet the highest level of compassion, dignity, and respect. Her professionalism earned her accreditation from the Accreditation Council of Canada. Ms. Koe has played a key role in implementing specialized care in the dementia facility. She is approachable and respected by all as an advocate for residents' social and medical needs. Please join me in congratulating her. Mahsi.
---Applause
Acknowledgements. Member for Sahtu.
Mahsi Mr. Speaker. Today, I pay tribute to Ms. Cece Hodgson-McCauley for her 95th birthday coming this Monday, June 5, 2017. Cece was born on June 5, 1922, on the Dease Arm on the famous Great Bear Lake. She is a residential school survivor, and began as the first founding chief of the Inuvik Dene Band. She also received the 2016 Indspire Award for Politics. Mr. Speaker, today Cece is a well-known columnist for NewsNorth paper, and an advocate for the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for the past few days, I've used my Member's statements to talk about Nutrition North. As stated in my statements, this program is not working for my riding. To add to this, we have seen numerous reports and articles about the challenges this program faces across the North. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier inform this house which department is working with the federal government to make this program work better for small and isolated communities in the North? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. The Honourable Premier.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs has been monitoring what the federal government has been doing with Nutrition North, and Health and Social Services provides nutritional education information on behalf of the federal government to the tune of about $375,000 a year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Premier for his answer. Mr. Speaker, in previous sittings, we spoke about the potential of going to the federal government, and asking if we could take over this program. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise this House if he has had the opportunity to discuss this idea with the Minister or the Prime Minister in regards to Nutrition North?
I have had the opportunity to discuss Nutrition North with Minister Bennett on several occasions. We offered to take over the program if the accompanying money would be transferred with it. The federal government has been non-committal. They appear to prefer to deliver it themselves. They have had a number of reviews, and they even have their own advisory board, so it appears they will be in business for a while.
I thank the Premier for his answer. It is unfortunate the federal government is going to look after this program because it is hurting a number of northern communities, especially in my riding. Mr. Speaker, will the Premier work with his Ministers to come up with a plan that we can take to the federal government to address issues of communities who don't have stores or have challenges such as transportation and freight issues, or do not have stores at all if the federal government allows them to?
The Nutrition North appears to have one program which is a retailer food subsidy, where they provide subsidies to retailers that provide nutritious foods to the communities. Having said that, cost of living, food security, are all issues that are high-priority for our government, and we are always looking for ways to improve in those areas to reduce the cost of living, and also to make more nutritious foods available to the communities even if they are not included on the Nutrition North list of communities. Right now, there are now 15 Northwest Territories communities that are now included. We are prepared to work together to find a way to get the federal government to engage and invest, we would be pleased to do that as well.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for hearing that. My big thing is, my concern, I have two communities who do not have stores. They do not have access to food, so that is probably a big challenge for them. In regards to the residents that have commercial gardens, will the Premier work with the Minister of ITI to come up with a plan so that food can be subsidized so that they can sell their product to the residents of the NWT on a level playing field? In other words, look at the opportunity for Nutrition North to subsidize some of our local farmers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The federal government as I have said, only provides a retailers' food subsidy. Right now, they are not providing subsidies for other sources of food production. We did, as part of signing on to the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, we will be meeting, and are meeting with Agriculture Canada to find ways to develop agriculture in the Northwest Territories. Those that are interested in dairy, chicken, turkey, we will have to find other sources because of the fact that that is a closed door other than existing farmers, but we will be negotiating with Agriculture Canada to look at other forms of agriculture. As a government, we have developed a number of strategies to help improve in the area of food security. We have an agricultural strategy. We have a fishery strategy. We have a small-scale garden program where we now have, all communities of the North have small-scale community gardens.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we all know, this government recently released its Commercial Fisheries Revitalization Strategy. The execution of this plan is in its early stages. Part of the problem that we are facing is that the government does not have authority over the fishery, so we must wait on DFO to make the regulatory changes and the infrastructure investments that are needed to move things forward. I have a question for the Minister of Infrastructure: since this is a problem that we have to deal directly with Ottawa, how often are you meeting with your federal counterpart, the Minister of DFO, and specifically discussing issues related to these infrastructure investments and regulatory changes that are needed to get this fishery going? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since I obtained the portfolio, I have met with the Minister of DFO twice; once in November of 2016 and once in March of 2017 of this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I gave the Minister an opportunity to do that because I know he has been meeting with the Minister, and I know he has been pushing this in Ottawa, and I know he is working hard for Hay River to get this fishing strategy going. When it comes to talks with Freshwater, as you know in my statement, I outlined some of the problems with Freshwater. Where are we at the talks with Freshwater to get this fish plant either rebuilt, refurbished, or build one of our own?
As all Members are aware, in the Member's statement today that Freshwater Marketing Corp., its future is very uncertain, as the last person standing technically is the Northwest Territories. We are waiting for a ruling out of Manitoba, as it sounds like they are pulling out of the Freshwater Marketing Corporation, so that is 80 per cent of their market gone. How do we move this forward? We have been working with Freshwater to this point, and it has been very challenging, and with the situation that has arisen around the Manitoba thing, it has put a lot of things into question. The last time that I met with the Minister of DFO, we had an opportunity to talk about this stuff. We are talking about a range of opportunities that have been presented to us now with the possibility of Manitoba pulling out, and we are in discussions directly with the DFO office on this matter.
As we can tell from the Minister's answer, it is tough to deal with Freshwater. I mean, it is an organization in disarray. We need this fish plant. At what point is this government prepared to pull away from Freshwater and just build our own fish plant?
I am not sure if this is the time to be walking away from the table, just yet, because this is going to take a lot of resources to get this figured out and how to build something and get the processes and money in place to be able to build something like this. The challenge, like I say, is particularly around the resources, and I think we need to be engaged, which we are now, directly with the Minister's office on how we are going to move forward. Hopefully, we are going to be able to come to some solution between us and the federal government in the near future.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Processing fish is one part of the equation. The other part is marketing this fish ourselves or having the fishermen market it themselves, and part of the revitalization strategy is to build those markets, whether they be in the territory, they be in Alberta, or overseas. What are we doing, what is the government doing, to create those markets now? The plan calls for getting out of Freshwater. That is what the plan calls for. We need those markets, so where are we? Do we have someone hired? Do we have markets developed in the South? Can I get an update on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As everyone knows, the quota system being signed onto Freshwater Fish, 100 per cent of our fish goes to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. We believed, as we went into revitalizing the fishing strategy, that there are market opportunities for us outside of Freshwater. Being that we are still signatory to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, we are still obliged to sell our fish to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. We are looking at expanding our opportunities outside of that, but, before we can do that, as I said, we have got to figure out our relationship with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, and now we are dealing directly with the Minister of DFO on this situation. Hopefully, we can figure this out sooner rather than later and get on with the revitalization of the Great Slave fishery.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I raised some points earlier about enabling the City of Yellowknife to possibly start a hotel levy. That would fall under the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, so my questions are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs today. I just want to start, first of all, asking the Minister: there have been some recent changes as it relates to it. The Minister, herself, is relatively new to this portfolio. There is a new deputy minister, and there is a new senior administrator officer at the city, so I would just simply like to ask the Minister how the relationship between MACA and the City of Yellowknife is going so far, and are they working effectively together? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I am more than proud to report that the relationship between the City of Yellowknife and Municipal and Community Affairs is positive. Yes, it is true that we have a new deputy minister, but her experience has been many, many years working with community governments. She is not new to Municipal and Community Affairs nor new to city governments, so she has a solid relationship with the City of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That is good news and welcome news. I can attest to what the Minister described, as a former Yellowknife city councillor. The new deputy minister was an assistant deputy minister at the time, and we have always had a positive relationship with her at the City of Yellowknife. I spoke earlier about the city's intention. They want to introduce a hotel levy, and I am wondering if the Minister can describe the most recent analysis of that question of a hotel levy and what the department has learned.
The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has done a cross-jurisdictional analysis of hotel levies to see within other jurisdictions how they are presented, how they are run, what the costs look like, et cetera, so we have done that research. We are also working with the City of Yellowknife very closely. We have had over six meetings with them since October, developing a discussion paper that we will be bringing forward to other stakeholders.
Thank you to the Minister for her reply and updating us on what we will term the discussion paper. I guess, if the discussion paper is sort of a next step towards this possible opportunity of a hotel levy, can the Minister describe to us maybe then what the next steps are and what the schedule might be towards actually developing potential legislation and when the municipalities might be in a better position to actually start a hotel levy?
Yes, we are meeting with the six municipalities during the summer, when session is over, to discuss the proposed changes that we are looking at. We have also realized that it is not only the municipalities that will be affected by this; it is also hotel operators and lodging operators that might be affected by it, as well. In trying to be as transparent and inclusive as possible, Municipal and Community Affairs is also reaching out to those operators to get their feedback on the proposed amendments.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. These are all positive replies, and I am glad that the Minister is sharing them with us. I think this is good information that the public needs to hear. Then, just lastly and very simply, I would like to ask the Minister if there are some steps that she can let us know that the department is taking to support municipalities in marketing themselves as tourist destinations, aside from the potential hotel levy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Diversifying our economy was one of the priorities identified within this Legislative Assembly, and so it is important that municipalities also look at diversifying their economies, as well. Tourism is a great opportunity within the Northwest Territories, as proven by our capital city and the City of Yellowknife, so I would recommend that all municipalities, towns, et cetera, contact the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment to find out what programs and services they have that they can actually access to support tourism within their municipalities.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Yesterday, the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources made a statement about arsenic monitoring in the Yellowknife area and how our government would improve coordination of its responses. This is good news and is a helpful response to concerns I raised earlier in this sitting. While it is good to hear that ENR staff have begun monitoring Kam Lake and Grace Lake, look around. Yellowknife is surrounded by small lakes. What plans does his department have for a systematic approach to sampling most if not all the lakes around Yellowknife, and would this include speciation to detect more harmful forms of arsenic? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said the other day, we have been conducting some sampling in Great Slave and the Yellowknife River, and we have also sampled some of the lakes. I mentioned Kam Lake, Grace Lake. We plan on sampling them again this summer. ENR, what we are doing is we are compiling some water quality information from water bodies in the Yellowknife area because there are a number of other governments, industry, and academics who have collected water samples, so what we are doing is we are working with them to compile all that information. If there are some lakes there that need to be sampled, then we can look at that, but I think step number one is to see what information we have from all the lakes and all the studies that have been going around the capital, and put that information together, and then decide on our next steps from there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for that response. I agree that a good first step is to compile what is out there. I am hoping that, in compiling that, we also look at speciation or the different forms of arsenic. Some are toxic and some are far less toxic. Sampling water in lakes is a good start, but we also need to think about sampling of sediments, soils, and fish. Does the Minister have any plans for a systematic sampling of sediments, soils, and fish around Yellowknife for arsenic in its various forms?
The quick answer is "yes," and I will explain. We are collaborating with the University of Alberta to study metals in large-bodied fish, including arsenic, from several high use and potentially impacted lakes in and around the Yellowknife area. We have taken some sampling in March of 2016 on Kam, Grace, Long, and Upper Martin Lakes, and it will occur during 2017 at Walsh and Banting Lakes. Existing sediment, soil, and fish data is also being compiled in the Yellowknife area. There are many entities, as the Member mentioned. Like the other governments, industries, and academics who have collected this type of information, again, we will work with those entities to compile a list of all the lakes that have been studied. If there are some that still need to be looked at, we can look at undertaking that.
Thank you again to the Minister. It sounds like all of this information is going to get pulled together, and that is a good start. Of course, we have to also think about how this information is going to be shared with the public. Will the results on any health implications be simply posted on a website somewhere? What is the plan to make this information available to the public?
