In 2014 the Government of the Northwest Territories met with Canada, IRC, and the Yukon to look at initial discussions around interests to inform Canada's mandate development process. We also had some preliminary discussions with Newfoundland and Labrador to start a process of information-sharing around their experience in the offshore. However, with the announcement of the moratorium, we haven't done any further work. We will be seeking a contract negotiator with expertise in oil and gas. Committee has requested a briefing to provide input before the Government of the Northwest Territories finalizes its negotiating approach, and I would be pleased to provide a briefing to committee.
I would like to thank the Premier for that. It sounds like we really haven't done much work on this over the last while. I certainly don't have any objection in principle to the negotiation of such an agreement and revenue sharing, but of course, it doesn't seem like there is going to be much development in the foreseeable future.
Can the Premier tell us what the role is going to be for Regular MLAs in developing the negotiation mandate and how he intends to keep us informed?
As I indicated, we will be asking for a time slot to brief committee, and committee will be involved, like they are in all of the other process of this government.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I look forward to that briefing, of course.
I was very pleased to see that the Premier has agreed to a science-based life cycle impact assessment review of the Arctic offshore rights issuance moratorium every five years that will take into account marine and climate change science. This raises the question around why Cabinet has refused to carry out a similar review of onshore hydraulic fracturing. Can the Premier explain this inconsistency and when the public can expect a public review of onshore hydraulic fracturing? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
There is no onshore hydraulic fracturing going on, so there is nothing to review.
The science-based review of offshore development was a federal decision that accompanied their decision to put a moratorium on all gas licensing in the Arctic. We made it very clear that we didn't support a moratorium, and we agreed to participate in the review because we felt that would be one of the ways to work to get rid of the moratorium. We are very pleased to see that the federal government has agreed to start negotiations on devolution on the offshore.
Also, on the offshore, we have a strong legislative and regulatory framework to oversee oil and gas development, and they are subject to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Mackenzie Valley EIRB. 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 two questions for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister: how is the Housing Corporation planning to increase housing stock in the Mackenzie Delta communities over the rest of the 18th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As all Members know, we do have a capital plan that we do follow. One new initiative that we are doing is the community housing plans, as I have mentioned numerous times during this session, that are going to help identify where our needs are.
Last week I talked about some of our core need progress that has been going on. Our work with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation is helping address those needs, as well. We have been meeting with the Gwich'in Tribal Council to see how we can work together to address these issues, and we will continue to have those in place as we move forward, but the community housing plans are going to help us address some of those and how we, as a government and as a corporation, spend our capital dollars. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My next question asks maybe a little too much detail, but I will ask it anyway. I am a Member of the Standing Committee on Social Development, and that committee has often spoken with the Minister of the territory's long waiting list for housing. I want to ask the Minister: how many people have been on the waiting list for more than two years?
The Member is right; it is pretty detailed. I will have to get back to him on that question on how many people have been on the waiting list over the last two years. It could make a lot of work for some of our employees, but we will get that information for him.
We do know that it is a long waiting list right across the Northwest Territories. We are trying to make an indent into that and working our partners, such as ECE, working with Infrastructure, going through our capital plannings, but most importantly we are still continuing to work with our federal counterparts to nail down a bilateral agreement and looking at funding.
As the Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh mentioned earlier, there were some northern housing funds that I believe we got shortchanged on, and we want to address that so that our residents of the Northwest Territories, and us as a government, and our Indigenous governments get the funding that they do deserve to address our housing needs right across the NWT and in our communities.
I know we will see a number of changes over the next year, as I know there are a number of units that have not been completed yet but that are being built at the moment, but I would like to ask the Minister, Mr. Speaker, we need to represent these residents stuck in the housing limbo with some viable options. How will the Housing Corporation take action to rescue these residents from the waiting list?
I agree. As Members of the Legislative Assembly, we all have these issues of people who are on the waiting list. We also, like I mentioned, have a good working relationship with the Department of ECE. We have a lot of programs in place, such as major retrofits. We have had good partnerships with the Salt River First Nations, the IRC, the Fort Good Hope band, and we want to make sure that we address that waiting list. Our Northern Pathways to Housing is another good initiative in transitioning some of our homeless people into more public housing units. We have got a long list of work that we are doing to address core needs, but there is that waiting list that we do need to address, as well as, and we want to make sure that we are trying the best that we can.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My honourable friend the Member for Yellowknife Centre was asking the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about the social work program. This program has long been a subject of interest of this Assembly. Without any student intake, it's currently withering on the vine, and now we hear we have even more delays, which is conveniently linked to my statement earlier today. So I will ask the Minister from the Member for Kam Lake: is this program going to be allowed to wither on the vine, or are we going to set new direction to allow intake until the full transformation of Aurora College can take place? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have made a commitment and I will stand by my commitment that I am not willing to let Aurora College stay status quo. There are issues that need to be addressed within our post-secondary education, and my commitment is to making sure that we have the best quality post-secondary and secondary and elementary education for our students as possible.
So the social work program as it is, could the Minister make the improvements or some of the improvements that are indicated in that review, which is now public information? Could the Minister implement some of those recommendations now, improve the program and get it working the way it should to fill the much-needed gap in social workers, that are indicated in the government's own Skills 4 Success strategy?
No, the Minister cannot make those changes immediately. There are significant changes to be made. One is deciding where we want the transfer of credits to go or if it wants to be stand-alone. That is one issue. The other issue is it talks about having third- and fourth-year courses in the first year of a student attending university. That is not okay. That sets up our students to fail. That needs to be changed, and it talks about how to change that, combining it with other general arts throughout the other programs, but that has to be negotiated. This is not something that you just automatically do. So all of the changes need time. The internal review done on the social work program says develop a plan. I picked that up, and I am committed to making sure that we do a planned process that ensures that we have quality programming for our students. As said over and over, I am all about quality programming.
I appreciate that there are areas that can improve and, if the Minister is certain that these opportunities cannot be made, then I will ask this. Everything hinges on the ADM, this new ADM position that is out for hire. When is the Minister going to have that position in place so we can start making progress on Aurora College?
The competition is now open. It's going across Canada. It closes, I believe, at the end of this month. At that point, we will be conducting the interview process, and we are presuming that person will be hired by the end of this calendar year.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the department cannot succeed in hiring this position, what is the Minister's backup plan? Are we still going to move ahead with changes, or does everything stall until we can fill that position? Thank you.
I would be shocked if we did not fill the position. We have had applicants from across Canada apply, and I have even gotten three that came across my desk as a Minister, so I am not even sure why that would not happen, that it would not be done.
As the Member had spoken before, I do not know if it was a hockey puck or a football, but this is not a game, Mr. Speaker. This is about building a strong foundation. We need to do things in proper time. We need strong leadership to guide this forward. It is not appropriate that a Minister who does not have the expertise in bringing forward post-secondary education would be designing what that post-secondary would look like. My degree is in social work. It is not on running post-secondary education. I need the expertise. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a follow-up on my Member's statement today here. My questions will be for the Minister of Lands. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain why residents are feeling that their treaty rights are being taken away by having their cabins be considered unauthorized occupancy on their own traditional land? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Lands.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently in the Northwest Territories there are over 700 structures on land administered by the Government of the Northwest Territories that do not have land tenure. Some of those untenured structures may be associated with an asserted or established Aboriginal or treaty right. Of course, this government respects treaties, and this fall the department is engaging with Indigenous governments and organizations to initiate discussions on respectful and effective ways to identify which of the 700-plus properties, cabins, are rights-based and which are not.
I thank the Minister for that answer. Mr. Speaker, though, we are talking regional, but we are talking about individual cabin owners, so can the Minister advise how cabin owners are being informed about the process to identify what type of occupancy their cabins are on?
As an initial step, we are reaching out to Indigenous governments across the Northwest Territories, and I see there are meetings scheduled to take place in the Nahendeh riding with IGOs on October 22 and 25, 2018. Individual cabin owners should speak to their IGOs or with the regional office if they have questions with respect to their camp or cabin.
I thank the Minister for that answer. Again, government is sloughing on the responsibility. I have asked him: how can we get the government, the Department of Lands, to get that information to the cabin owners? I am not asking about Indigenous governments. I am not asking about process. I am asking him how we are going to get that information to the residents, the ones who are the traditional peoples. The hunters and trappers who are out there are getting notices right now, saying that, you know, you have got to come in. So how are we getting that information to them, just putting a notice up there, posting? That does not seem right.
I would encourage camp and cabin owners to see the regional Lands offices for information relating to their specific cabins. As I say, there are a great number of unauthorized occupancies in the Northwest Territories, and we want to decide which of those are rights-based. We are taking the first steps by engaging with Indigenous governments with respect to this matter. We would encourage individuals to speak to the regional offices regarding their specific cabins and camps.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that answer. However, this is their traditional land, not the Government of the Northwest Territories. This is traditional lands of the First Nations. This is their land. Now, we're sitting here saying they've got to come to the government and explain it? Will the Minister commit to providing the information sheet that we can share with our residents so they can understand the process, not just speaking here in the House but we can get some information out to the residents so we can help them? Right now, they're not unauthorized. They're on their traditional hunting territory. Until I find something different, you know, the government is not responsible for this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, as I said previously, we wish to determine which cabins are unauthorized and which are rights-based. Our initial steps are with Indigenous governments. I'd be pleased to provide some additional information to the Members opposite with respect to the process should they wish. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further into my statement on landfill disposal, Mr. Speaker, this is a joint effort. In preparation on an affordable shipping schedule, Mr. Speaker, this winter, Husky Energy will be delivering a winter closure project in the Tulita area. My first question to the Minister of ENR: in cooperation with MACA, Infrastructure Department, and Husky Energy, can the Minister commit to working with our regional office to coordinate backhaul arrangements from the landfill to licensed disposable sites in the south? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in September and October of this year, ENR worked with two community governments and their contractor to identify and consolidate all their hazardous waste in preparation for transportation on the Mackenzie Valley winter road to an approved disposable facility. The following hazardous materials were a part of this package. There were a number of pallets of used oil, glycol, and this was from a couple communities, vehicle batteries, fuel, contaminated water. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'm glad to hear that from the Minister. That leads me to my next question: will the Minister direct his regional office to work with the Industry company, in this case it's Husky Energy, on identifying backhauls that could be loaded up with some of the landfill materials from the five communities in the Sahtu region for this coming winter season?
As part of our waste resource management strategy, we had a number of conversations across the Northwest Territories. We had a lot of regional meetings, and we had some online questionnaires that people could fill out. We have produced a "what we heard" document. The reason I bring that up is a number of the items that the Member is talking about, some of the priority from the respondents was they would like to see bulky waste packaging and tires, appliances, vehicles, and that removed from their landfill. We continue to work with whoever we need to work with. We have to work with industry if there are opportunities to remove some of this waste site.
As I stated earlier, they are consolidating all their hazardous waste right now to haul out of the area to an approved disposal site. I'm not sure exactly what transportation company or how they're using that, but I will find that out, the details of that, and share it with the Member.
I thank the Minister for taking that active department response to try to get the waste out of the area. We have two seasons to do that, for the land management of disposal. One is during the barging season. One is during the winter road season. In this case, if the Minister could commit to working with I do believe it's Braden-Burry Expediting that has the supply chain management for shipping, if we can coordinate that between the regional office and this company to coordinate backhauls of landfill products?
As I stated earlier, we'll take any opportunity to work with who we need to work with to try to take advantage of some of the empty backhauls that are going out. I can commit to them, and I'm sure our folks in the region are working with them. Again, we have the discussion paper that we released. We have a draft implementation plan that we're looking at presenting to Cabinet very shortly, here. Then we will seek further input into the implementation plan.
So a lot of work has gone into this. We had a number of respondents to our questionnaire. We had 109 people, I think, show up in a lot of the engagement sessions. It is an issue that is out there, and people are conscious of it, which is good. We just need to do what we can as a department and as a government to support those who want to remove a lot of hazardous waste from their communities.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is not a question, but I will help the Ministers office here, help by coordinating the contacts or supplying the contacts in preparation for the trucking season. Having seen the landfills in some of the communities during my summer visits, I can really tell that they're getting overstocked with these waste objects, so I'll provide that information, any way I can help. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
