Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I greatly appreciate the Minister for that commitment in trying to work with our poorer athletes. It is greatly appreciated, and I know it is not going to help the athletes who did not make it this year, but I mean it is a positive step moving on. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister direct the department to reimburse the athletes for the registration fee and other transportation costs these athletes incurred but who did not get the chance to compete for a spot on Team NWT?
The transportation costs, Sport North was already covering these transportation costs to get into the trials. Unfortunately, some of the youth decided to take alternative transportation to try to make it, and my understanding is that, if they would have stayed in place, they might have actually made the trials because the weather was better in that community the next day. So we will not reimburse the travel expenses, but we will reimburse the registration fees that these youths paid because it is not fair that we charged them registration and they could not attend. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today in my Member's statement I talked about the justice system. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice questions. I would like to ask the Minister, Mr. Speaker, if the Department of Justice is working with other departments to reduce Indigenous inmate population? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, the department of course recognizes that there is an over-representation of Indigenous people in our facilities, and we are working with other departments to find ways to reduce that over-representation. Now, the current committee of Cabinet structure brings together all social development Ministers and deputies to collaborate and discuss cross-departmental work to provide a collaborative approach on social issues, so we are working with other departments hopefully to reduce this rather shocking figure.
I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit to directing the Department of Justice to lead a government working group -- I am not speaking of the Ministers but maybe of a lower level of working group -- to incorporate some changes to reduce the Indigenous inmate population.
There are currently many interdepartmental working groups that focus on social program issues, such as the integrated case management interdepartmental working group, family violence working group, and therapeutic community steering committee, so there are interdepartmental working groups already working in this area on the federal-provincial-territorial side. We are also working nationally as the federal government rolls out its strategic action plan to reduce the over-representation of Indigenous people. So we are working both within our government and with other governments.
The social development committee has been working on this whole Justice file, of course, from the beginning. I would like to ask the Minister if he would work with the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation so that inmates are not released into homelessness?
Yes, we recognize that the reintegration of inmates back into the communities is an important part of the corrections service, and certainly we can work with Housing. However, as you know, there is a shortage of housing in the Northwest Territories, and, while we work with inmates who are being released as they go back into the communities, we cannot guarantee that they can jump the queue, if I can put it that way. So there is a shortage of housing. We do attempt to assist them.
Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have spoken to former inmates, some who have long records and long incarceration backgrounds. Particularly two adult former inmates indicate to me that the biggest help that they had while they were incarcerated was working with mental health workers. I would like to ask the Minister if he could commit to looking at increasing the number of mental health workers, I guess, maybe working with the Department of Health or on their own to have mental health workers in the correction facilities to work with the inmates? Thank you.
There are currently two registered psychologists at the North Slave Correctional Centre and one registered psychologist at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre. Fort Smith Correctional Centre is currently in the staffing process for a counsellor. Now, the majority of people who are in the facilities are there for less than 90 days and many for less than 30 days. So we will make efforts to ensure that all inmates are aware of the mental health resources that are available to them. So, again, we do have, currently, registered psychologists at two of the institutions, and we are hoping to staff at Fort Smith Correctional Centre. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Mahsi. Mr. Speaker. Following up on my Member's statement to the Minister of Infrastructure, my first question: can the Minister of Infrastructure explain what benefits the Sahtu region has seen from the Sahtu regional health and long-term care facility? Mahsi.
Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Norman Wells health and social services facility has got a substantial completion date in December of 2017, so just right around Christmastime, and it will soon be in operation. The question is what benefits did the Sahtu region get out of this. It was a project that was carried on by a local development corporation and a major contractor, and I can inform this House that, directly through northern and local employment and business of goods and services, $20 million was spent in the North on this project. This is very impressive because this is a very high-level facility, being a health centre, the amount of work that is required to complete a project like this. At the same time, one thing I want to mention about this project as we go forward with our climate change and carbon pricing and such is the interesting thing about this project is we asked the contractor to build to the national energy code, to exceed it by 25 per cent, and, some of the stuff that they have done on this project, it has actually exceeded it by 33 per cent.
Thanks to the Minister for that information. That is good to hear, that quite a significant amount was spent locally. My next question is: can the Minister explain what benefits the Sahtu region has seen from the Canyon Creek all-season road second project?
The Canyon Creek project is a 14 kilometre access road from Norman Wells to the Canyon Creek bridge, as many of us know. We have talked about it in the House many times. Same thing, this is one that we have done with a local group and a local contractor. I was up there early on in the start of this project, and I got to spend some time with some of the students who were doing the simulator training, very similar to what was going on the ITH. I can say that over 70 people are working on this project right now, and 75 per cent of them are Northerners.
Thanks to the Minister for that information. Leading on to the moving ahead, from these two projects comes experience. Can the Minister explain what benefits these experiences will see for the Department of Infrastructure, the design manager on behalf of our government, to the upcoming new Tulita Health Centre?
The Tulita Health Centre was approved by Legislative Assembly in the capital in 2018-2019, and on this project, very similar to the Norman Wells facility, there has been a number of people trained there that we will be able to utilize, I believe, when this thing goes out to tender. The experience that was gained on that facility, we will be able to transfer those skills over to the Tulita Centre.
We are doing a functional plan on this thing right now, and programming on it, and the design of the prototype, which should be completed here shortly. When this thing goes out to tender, I expect that the proponent that bids on this is going to include as many northern residents and locally-trained people as they can to work on this thing.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question leads up to some of the learnings that we heard on efficiencies for green energy conservation. My last question is: is the Minister willing to engage with the community of Tulita on their input to the building design, for example, any traditional features that they might want to see? After all, it would be their building for a number of decades. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I have said, we are moving forward with this. The next step is the procurement process of this process, and once we select the contractor, our project team will be getting together to redefine the prototype of the building. As part of that process, we will be engaging the community on this and get their input, but the project team will also include regional staff and local staff. They will be engaging the Health and Social Services authority, which will be engaging the community as well; so we will be able to implement some of the specific things that the community probably wants to see in this building. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today I discussed the draft NWT Energy Strategy. Public comments closed on the draft on January 3, 2018. We do not have a "what we heard" report, and no indication of what the next steps are going to be. Can the Minister of Infrastructure tell us what the next steps are for the NWT Energy Strategy and the target dates for these steps? Masi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government is planning to release the Energy Strategy, the Climate Change Strategic Framework, and the NWT Petroleum Resource Strategy at the end of April in a coordinated, collaborative effort to bring this forward; but at the same time, Members have to realize we are working on finalizing our bilateral agreements with Infrastructure Canada, as well as Environment and Climate Change Canada, which will provide critical resources to move these strategies and action plans along. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister for that, and I look forward to the release of the final versions later in April. In my statement, I mentioned the confusing energy targets in the NWT strategy. Some sectorial targets are related to reduced greenhouse gas emissions, while another is based on increasing renewable energy use, another is couched in terms of energy efficiency, and the largest energy use sector industry has no targets whatsoever. Can the Minister explain this patchwork approach to setting energy targets in the draft strategy?
As the Member has stated in this House, he named off all of the targets that we have, and he is correct. Industry has no target in there. We know that industry needs to do its part on this side of things. The Government of the Northwest Territories is going to support their efforts in an incentive program to help industry reduce their emissions around a carbon pricing that we will be bringing forward.
People have asked us how we get these targets, and what we have done, we went to a federal database on the national inventory report on greenhouse gas emissions, and this is where we got our baselines and what we plan on doing in the next ten years to reduce our targets to help us meet the Pan-Canadian Framework, which we are a signatory to.
I would like to thank the Minister for that explanation. I suggest that he put it in the final version. It is a good start, but it doesn't really explain this patchwork approach, and I think we need to have a consistent one.
I also mentioned in my statement that the NWT Power Corporation is not even mentioned in the draft strategy. I had expected to see something for the corporation along the lines of the corporation doing itself out of a job by building energy self-reliance. Instead, we have a straitjacket approach to community-owned renewable generation that gives utilities a veto. Can the Minister tell us what the role is for the NWT Power Corporation in the NWT Energy strategy?
As the Member knows, NTPC produces most of the electricity in the Northwest Territories. It owns and operates all the hydro facilities in NWT, as well as most of the diesel generations. He is right. It is correct that they are an important factor in how we are going to approach this. They are a critical partner of ours in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but, at the same time, our action plan is closely aligned with their next 20 years strategic plan on how they are going to operate and their capital requirements doing this.
Our bilateral agreement that we are going to sign with Infrastructure Canada has hundreds of millions of dollars in there right now that are going to help us align with new electricity generation in the NWT and all our communities, and we are best aligned with their strategy now more than ever before.
I have talked in this House about a number of things that we are looking at doing with them, being expanding the transmission lines to the ones that are closest to the hydro communities, to the wind farm in Inuvik, which is a possibility, but all of these things are not possible with the federal dollars to be invested in the Northwest Territories, and we are continually talking with the NTPC on how we can align our efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Minister again. Lots of talk with the NTPC. That's great, but let's put something in writing in the strategy about what the role is going to be for that corporation moving forward.
The relationship between the NWT Energy Strategy, the Climate Change Strategic Framework, and carbon pricing is not set out in the draft Energy Strategy. A reasonable person would expect to see greenhouse gas reductions linked to specific energy conservation, fuel-switching, technology targets, that would be funded by carbon pricing revenues and federal programs. That is when I expect the approach should have been.
Can the Minister clearly explain the relationship between the Energy Strategy, the Climate Change Strategic Framework, and carbon pricing? It's not clear from the draft that is out now for public comment. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.
The Climate Change Strategic Framework will set the overall approach to addressing climate change. It will also guide the broader interests that go beyond just energy. It's going to do climate research, adaptation, resilience activities. The Energy Strategy, as I said, is the primary tool to look at greenhouse gas reductions and energy use in the NWT as set out by our draft that we will be tabling at some point.
Carbon pricing is something that we have been working on that needs to be implemented and encourages carbon conservation, so less use of fossil fuels and the substitutions of that moving forward and how we reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our territory.
At the same time, we have to factor in minimizing the cost of living, because that is what we heard from residents of the Northwest Territories, and we don't want to cause industry or small companies barriers to be able to do economic development in our territory.
All three of these are working in lockstep together, along, as I said, with the Power Corporation. There are actually four big pieces of documents that are working in sync to meet this objective. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in follow-up to my Member's statement, I have a few questions for the Minister of Infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, how has the Department of Infrastructure monitored the impacts of its decision to end shoulder season ferry services on the communities that historically relied on those ferry services? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't believe we've done that. The whole intent of the ferry service in the winter that the Member is talking about was to address the situation at the Ikhil Well and we took that out of the budget in the last session, and we believe that the proponent in Inuvik has made this a priority for them to bring propane in to be able to keep the flow of the Ikhil Well and the propane flowing.
The Minister highlighted his department's work on accelerated ice road construction. What is the status of this work in the Mackenzie Delta?
I don't have the exact dates in front of me, but from my recollection from what I read from my briefing note before on the update on this is, when the ferry service pulled out, the one crossing was put in within 10 days of that date, and the other one was within a month's time. With our new equipment, there was a significant challenge this year, and we have actually done it still in record time because of the warming temperatures.
Oral questions, Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister means record time by mid-February. I don't call that record time, but we'll have to discuss that later. Mr. Speaker, when will the department assess and review its decision to end the shoulder season ferry services?
I have no intention to look into the shoulder season around the communities. Our concern when we put it in was around the Inuvik situation, and as far as I've been updated to date, everything is under control. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
