Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize Mr. Knute Hansen. Knute has been involved with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation from the beginning and still continues to advocate for Inuvialuit. Welcome, Knute. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier on I spoke about partnerships on suicide prevention, and my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, a patient's ability to control their privacy during their engagement with the healthcare system is critical to their treatment and ongoing healing and wellness. The Action Plan on Child and Youth Mental Wellness commits the department to developing standards of practice for children and youth privacy. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us a bit more about this work? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during the development of the action plan the Member has referenced, and we actually engaged with youth from across the Northwest Territories, and they made it very clear that privacy is of particular interest and importance to them. Youth have been very vocal about the fact that they do not feel that their privacy is always respected when using the healthcare system, so ensuring proper protection and rights of privacy and confidentiality is an extremely important part of the work that the health and social services system is doing. We want to make certain that our system in the Northwest Territories is set up with standards of practice to ensure that youth feel safe in seeking healthcare, regardless of where they go in the Northwest Territories.
In 2017-2018, the Department of Health and Social Services has been working to research the current legal context and the best practices around privacy, confidentiality, and legal rights of children and youth, related to mental wellness. This work has included consultation with the chief health privacy officer. They are doing a jurisdictional scan as well as examining connections to professional standards and codes of conduct from many jurisdictions across the country. In 2018-2019, the department will work to develop the standards of practice that will guide Health and Social Services systems staff respecting and protecting the rights of youth to privacy and confidentiality. This work will all be followed by training for staff across the Northwest Territories.
That is valuable information for youth to reach out. Mr. Speaker, the action plan also speaks of reviewing the out-of-territory program that is a program that sees children and youth leaving the territory for specialized care. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us more about the scope of this review, including how it will interact with the need to establish reliable care options in people's home communities.
Mr. Speaker, we heard from youth that our programs and services need to be flexible and they need to be adaptive to their needs, to the children's needs. Initial work to prepare for review has already taken place. This work is focused on determining the best scope and outcomes for the review. It is anticipated that the review will include an examination of the needs of youth, including health and mental health needs, behaviours of concern, trauma, supervision needs, education, employment, housing, social supports, and any others that are deemed important. The review will also include an examination of the strength of children and youth, including mental wellness, social supports, physical activity, and in connection to culture, which we have heard over and over again is incredibly important.
In addition, the review will look at staffing models at facilities and the full spectrum of programs and services that children and youth need to access to support their individual needs. We are using a recovery-oriented approach to care and recognizing that youth needs change over time, and we know that it is essential that a full spectrum of services is available and accessible to children in order for them to basically have the best outcomes and the best potential future. Mr. Speaker, we need to have a better understanding of the evolving and complex needs of children and youth served both in the territory but also in facilities that we are supporting outside of the territories, and that is the work that we are doing now.
I appreciate the response. Mr. Speaker, the action plan's objectives include creating a supportive environment to protect the mental wellness of children and youth and improving mental wellness programs and services through locally relevant data and perspectives. Mr. Speaker, how will the future of the territorial suicide and crisis support network reflect the need for community-based programming like Project CREATeS or the GNWT sharing circles?
The crisis response network is one thing, and the supports that we are providing at a community, territorial, and regional level, they interrelate, but they have a different role. The suicide prevention and crisis response network will take a whole-community approach, involving relevant community partners who are figuring out who is in the community, who can be part of that network, and will focus on prevention, intervention, but also look at responses after an incident has occurred. The work will also include supporting community-level plans that can be developed to meet the needs of individual communities, recognizing that the communities have a lot of great ideas and they know their communities better than somebody sitting in Yellowknife or even a regional centre might, so it's critical that we get their involvement in the design to a community response. The programs that the Member has mentioned, I am not familiar with the CREATeS program, but I am certainly willing to have a sit-down with the Member so he can help me get educated on that, and then we can have a conversation with the department about how that might be something we can look at, if appropriate, in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The rental officer's 2016-2017 annual report made two recommendations for legislative amendments and looked forward to the appointment of a deputy rental officer. What steps is the Department of Justice taking to respond to these recommendations? These are, of course, for the Minister of Justice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department, of course, did review the recommendation, and the act has been amended several times in the last few years. There were significant amendments made in 2015. In the last 10 years, there have been amendments in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2017, so there have been significant amendments, often in response to suggested amendments from the office. Some of the amendments that we have made this year is to permit the filing of rental officer orders in the Supreme Court registry and the authority to rental officers to correct minor errors in their orders. So improvements have been made, and certainly we are interested in continuing to make improvements.
I will ask the Minister later about the deputy rental officer position. The annual report also spoke to the growing complexity of files before the rental officer and cites this as one of the reasons the wait times are increasing. In Alberta in 2014, the residential tenancy dispute resolution service was introduced as an alternative to the court systems and a way to reduce complexity. For example, the service limits hearings to 30 minutes, and the government took steps on implementation by hiring necessary staff and making a wide range of information documents, handouts, and tip sheets available online. So, can the Minister identify what drives the increasing complexity he mentioned and what is being done to help the rental officer tackle this challenge?
As was mentioned in the question and the response to earlier inquiries, we have noted that the complexity of applications has increased over the last few years. I understand that much of that is driven by the increased amount of paperwork that is filed with the applications, dealing such issues as rental arrears, arrears repairs, and other matters, so the applications have become lengthier and therefore more complex. This has of course put pressure on the office administrators' workload, and, in response to this concern about the workload, the position has been reviewed and formalized procedures to provide guidance on certain issues have been put in place.
With respect to the earlier question regarding the deputy rental officer, we did issue an RFP for the addition of a deputy rental officer, but, unfortunately, these processes did not result in the recruitment, so what we have done is hired someone with a great deal of experience on contract as a part-time deputy rental officer in the beginning of February, so we are hoping that will alleviate some of the problems.
The Minister mentioned extra paperwork being submitted with these applications, so I am wondering if perhaps that is the work of one of the departments that is submitting these applications. Paperwork seems like a specialty of the government. It's my understanding that roughly 140 applications to the rental officer in 2016-2017 were made by landlords outside the public housing system. It sounds to me like government agencies are squeezing individual landlords out of the process that is put in place to protect them. On top of that, individual landlords may have to compete for time with the large residential landlords. Can the Minister identify how many of these 140 applicants were individual landlords compared to the large residential landlords such as Northern Property?
Of the 139 non-subsidized public housing applications that were filed in 2016-2017, 51 of them involved individual landlords as applicants or as respondents to a tenant application. I would assume the rest were corporate.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I noted earlier that there has been a decrease in the number of applications, and I think this might be attributable to the fact that it is taking so long that some landlords are just giving up on the whole process. How has the department considered addressing the imbalance in services delivered by the rental office? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Certain emergency matters can be fast-tracked, but apart from that, it is first come, first served. Corporate applicants or respondents are not given priority over anybody else, and tenant applications are not given priority over landlord applications. We do realize that there is a problem, which was identified in the report that has been referenced. Hopefully, the improvements that we are putting forward, in particular the hiring of a part-time officer to assist, will reduce the wait time, because we do realize this is a very serious matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Mining Investment what he is doing to address the ongoing concerns about the perception of investors that the Northwest Territories is not as ideal a climate for mining investment as other jurisdictions in Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to remind the Member that we do not have that kind of Minister in this building, so if he can rephrase that certain Minister?
My apologies, Mr. Speaker; the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are doing quite a bit. We get a lot of heat sometimes for going to some of the shows that we go to in the press. We have been to Mineral Roundup. The Premier and I have just been to PDAC, but it is one of the reasons that this government has developed a Mineral Development Strategy, and that is to address some of these inconsistencies that people have about the Northwest Territories. The 17th Assembly had signed on to devolution, and that gives us the tools that we need to change a lot of legislation to help us address some of these things, be it the Mineral Resource Act or a number of LPs that my colleague, the Minister of Environment, is going to bring forward around environmental protection and the new protected area strategies and these sorts of things.
We get out there and continue to pound the pavement to promote the Northwest Territories as a great jurisdiction. We know that we have the mineral potential that is here, and just as we have done today here in the Great Hall, signed a deal with the Minister of Infrastructure of Canada on how we can invest in the Northwest Territories to alleviate some of these things so that we can draw some more international dollars to our territory to invest in the mineral potential that we have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The issue in this most recent Fraser Institute report that is primarily the holdup for investment from the survey respondents, and this is a direct quote, is that "ongoing disputes over land claims and protected areas create uncertainty for investors." I would like to ask the Minister what his plan is to address those specific concerns. Let's start with land claims.
As the Member knows, we have all sat down with all of the Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, and one of the number one priorities of this Premier and this Assembly is to address land claims in the Northwest Territories. The Premier has done a tremendous amount of work on this file. We have made substantive offers to two of the three outstanding land claimant groups in the Northwest Territories, and we are working on getting something with the third one. There is some significant progress being made there. The recent announcements with the federal government on how they are going to approach some of these things is certainly going to help us, I think, move some of these files along.
I'm with the Premier. Hopefully, we can settle some of these in the life of this Assembly.
The issue with land claims is, of course, much more complicated than we can get to today, so I am going to move on to protected areas and conservation.
An often concern is, that because of the size of conservation areas in the Northwest Territories, they cut off potential exploration and mineral development. Is the Minister cognizant of that, and is he bringing forward some clarity on that issue to investors that we are a friendly jurisdiction for mining?
Early in the life of this government, I was the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, so I am quite aware of the protected area strategies moving forward. This was something that was under the federal legislation, and now it has been switched over to the Northwest Territories, and we are moving on those fronts. It is a complicated file. It's not like we can just shelve all of the protected area strategies that the federal government was working on. These are led by a number of Indigenous governments, the areas that they want to protect, and it is a complicated issue.
As I have said, the Minister of ENR is coming forward with an LP for the new protected area legislation on how to address some of that and which ones will be rolled out in the coming years as we move forward, and we will be working with our Indigenous governments to ensure that the areas that they want to protect, and maybe carve out some areas that they want to consider for mineral development as they participate in these mineral mining shows that we are participating in, they realize that mining is a big part of our economy, and they want to be able to participate and contribute to their members as well.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister is dedicated to a charm offensive at these trade shows and industry events and mining conferences, but I would like to know what we have to show for it. How much mining investment has been attracted to the Northwest Territories since this government took office? Thank you.
I can't give you an exact number, but I can tell you that we have met with a number of stakeholders and interested parties that want to invest in the Northwest Territories, and the ones that are investing here are glad to see the hard work that this government is doing on a number of these files, as I have said, since devolution.
We have taken over the LPs or the land and resource part of this from the federal government. It is going to create more certainty for the mining industry to come to the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to engage all residents, stakeholders, and industry on how we can promote mining in the Northwest Territories and move this file along. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I talked about the homelessness report done by the City of Yellowknife. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Homelessness if there has been any progress made. The report was released in the spring of last year. From then until now, what progress has been made to address some of the issues in that report? Thank you.
Masi. Minister responsible for Homelessness.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Quite a bit of progress has actually been addressed. The City of Yellowknife, I commend them for doing the ten-year report. It was amazing, and it actually backed up a lot of things that I had been saying, that it needs a continuum of services; we can't just look at one model; we have got to look outside of the community, et cetera.
The City of Yellowknife asked me if I would sit on a committee and work with them on that. I agreed to do that. The City of Yellowknife has taken the lead on that committee. I have met with them once, and we are working towards that. The Department of Health and Social Services has done the sobering centre. I committed to doing homeless shelters in communities outside of Yellowknife. We have almost got the three communities that are covered. We are looking at a homeless support worker position.
I could go on and on. We have done a lot towards working on the plan, and again, my biggest stress is that the City of Yellowknife did an amazing job of doing that report, and I must commend them. They didn't only look at the City of Yellowknife; they looked at the extenuating circumstances, as the Member had stated. Homelessness in Yellowknife is not just a Yellowknife issue; it's a territorial issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It appears in the report that talks about all of the reasons for homelessness and maybe addressing homelessness should be to resolve those issues, but it sounds like the Minister is telling me that they're putting things in place here that I'm not sure that it addresses the homelessness anywhere other than sobering up the people on the streets, maybe, if we're talking about the sobering centre.
I'd like to ask the Minister if there are homes being built in other communities to address homelessness on that report. When she mentions that there are homes being built in other communities, are those directly for the individuals who are considered homeless in that report? That's my question.
Yes, my years before being a politician, Mr. Speaker, I did work with the Yellowknife Women's Society, and so homelessness was something that I have been working with for many, many years. I recognize that the majority of people actually who access the supports in Yellowknife are from other communities. When I came on, I committed to not only looking at Yellowknife but other communities. Right now, we have a fourplex in Behchoko that is just recently done. That is ready for operation and that will serve people who are homeless within that community. We have a fourplex that's just being completed in Fort Simpson that is looking at homelessness. I believe it's Simpson. Then the last one was the homeless shelter that we're still looking at bringing into Aklavik.
The other thing that we're doing to address homelessness is we're doing a pilot project. A lot of times people have a place to live before they become homeless. We're doing a pilot project in Behchoko where actually we're having a homeless support worker. A housing support worker; it's not homeless. A housing support worker who will work with people who are on the last kind of chance, they're falling through the cracks, and they may need a little bit of support and able to retain their homes because, if we can be proactive and we can actually help people to retain their homes before they become homeless, Mr. Speaker, that's the most humane way to deal with people. These are people. They aren't numbers, so keeping them in their homes is a priority of mine.
I'd like to ask the Minister if there are other departments involved in trying to address the homelessness issue. As I see it, a big part of the homelessness issue is lack of employment. I'd like to know if there's any work that's being done to try to get people employed so they can find their own homes.
Yes, the Ministers actually sit on a social committee. On that committee is the Minister of Justice, the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and myself, the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Education, Culture and Employment is doing a lot to try to get people employed, but also what we're looking at is people within the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. We have people who have huge arrears, so that is one of the policies that we're looking at currently to see if we can actually look at ways to support them so that they can get employment opportunities, work with us to actually pay off some of their debt. It might not be the traditional sense of employment that people think, but in my opinion, it's employment and in gear to actually helping people stay in their homes, and that is my focus as the Minister responsible for Homelessness.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is certainly a big issue. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister if there is an actual budget put in place to address the homelessness identified in the report. I'm looking about a holistic type of approach here in trying to resolve the issue. What I'm hearing and what I know from my own history of just being a Northerner is that homelessness is not necessarily an inventory issue. I'd like to ask the Minister if they're doing things to try to get people into homes and homes that actually already exist. Thank you.
Yes, there are budgets. I don't know the exact number. We'd have to pull them all through, but like I said, there is a budget for building of the homeless shelters within the community. We provide the operating money with that. We have food security initiatives that we provide to people. That comes with a budget. We also have a homeless assistance program. Again, I'm not sure of the total budget, but that is just people with up to $1,500, a one-time funding that they can actually use to repatriate, if they wish to go back to their communities, if they need to pay off a little bit of debt so that they can get a home. That funding is actually specifically for people who are struggling, so that they can actually not enter homelessness. There are quite a few programs within the Housing Corporation that are specifically budgeted to address homelessness or to keep people housed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
