Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for his reply. We have moved from "hope" to "confidence," and that is a good thing, but there is a missing piece, Mr. Speaker. That leads me to ask the Minister about: can he update us and this Assembly on the current status of the Territorial Protected Areas Act? Are we as confident in having that piece of legislation passed so that we can enable the establishment of this park? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, establishment of a new territorial park via legislation during the life of the Assembly, needless to say, is a priority with the Government of the Northwest Territories as well as the mandate item. A collaborative effort process with the Indigenous government organization, other level of governments, and stakeholders has been undertaken to gather input needed to develop this important piece of legislation. The work continues. Public engagement is also underway. Formal consultation with Indigenous governments and organizations is also ongoing. It will be conducted prior to introducing the bill for first reading. We are looking at introducing the bill for first reading during the winter 2019 session, which would be the February-March session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as follow-up to my Member's statement, I have a few questions for the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Mr. Speaker, right now, what is the department doing to make sure that all Tsiigehtchic clients of income security programs can have face-to-face access to staff when they need to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, we have a client service officer who travels into Tsiigehtchic on a monthly basis so that they can meet with income support clients. We also have government service officers who can help people with filling out forms or applications, et cetera, if the client service officers aren't in Tsiigehtchic. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the number of income assistance cases and the number of income assistance beneficiaries in Tsiigehtchic has increased over time. We are also hearing from community leadership that a local dedicated staff person is necessary for practical purposes. What other information does the department need to build a business case to re-introduce this position into the community?
Customer service is a priority within all government departments, but we also have to be reasonable. We have more need or more desires than actually money. Within the community of Tsiigehtchic, currently we have 10 people who are on income support and we have five people that are accessing our home heating services. The five people on home heating only have to apply once a year. The 10 people on income support have to do monthly assessments, but I really have a hard time justifying that we would need a full-time worker for 10 people on income support in a community. If I had the money, Mr. Speaker, I would have one. Again, it is hard to justify a full-time worker on 10 income support people.
Mr. Speaker, one thing that I didn't mention in my statement is travel time is taken out of the actual hours that a person is in the community. You're looking at anywhere from four to five hours per day once a month that that person is in the community. Now that I have brought these issues to the Minister's attention, what actions will the Minister take to improve local, face-to-face income security program services in Tsiigehtchic?
Since the Member brought it up, there must be an issue with it. I'm more than willing to sit down with the Member and discuss what their community is actually seeing as barriers. My understanding is that we do have workers going in once a month at minimum. I will make sure that they are providing that service, and I would be more than willing to meet with the MLA to figure out what the issues are and see how we can accommodate.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister actually come on a tour in the first week of December, with Minister Schumann and I, along with whoever else is available? Will the Minister commit to that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
There was a commitment that Ministers get to as many ridings as possible. I know I have been to that riding probably a couple of times already. I am not sure if it is on my agenda for December. I do know that I am booking up until February, but if I am available, then I would be more than honoured to visit the riding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last week I was asking questions of the Minister of Lands about cabins and squatters and Aboriginal rights and that, and I have to thank the Minister for following up and providing me further information.
However, I would like to ask him the question: with DFN being identified as the organization that their staff is working with, is it now DFN's responsibility to get this information out to the cabin owners? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Lands.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our engagement with Indigenous governments has started. Really, what they do on their side is entirely up to them. We have started engaging with them. It would seem to me that they may wish to consult with their members, but that is their choice, of course. Thank you.
Yes, he has worked with Indigenous governments, and he is organizing that. However, this is a regional government, and these cabin owners are community-based. I know that Acho Dene is getting consulting as well, but again, what about the other three communities out there: Wrigley, Nahanni Butte, and Sambaa K'e? Is it DFN's responsibility now to get that information out there?
This is a government decision, not DFN's thing. Will the Minister advise us, will they look at going to the smaller communities and getting this information out there?
As I mentioned, our initial engagement, if I can put it that way, will be with the Indigenous government organizations. Whether further engagements will be required in the smaller communities is an issue which I will discuss with the department.
All I can say is that we are engaging with a large number of Aboriginal governments throughout the Northwest Territories and possibly beyond, if it is deemed necessary.
Our initial engagement, and, in fact, this engagement has just started this week, is with IGOs, and I assume that they would then be in touch with their members, but again, that is up to them.
I thank the Minister for the non-answer. I mean, I find it really interesting that this is a government decision. They are going to decide who has the rights and who are the squatters on this land. That is their job. They should be getting the information to each community so that the communities can get that out there.
If it is not going to be able to do that, will the Minister provide us with the information that they are providing to these Indigenous government organizations and give it to us so that we can now go to the small communities and do the government's job?
As I said previously, Mr. Speaker, there are a large number of Indigenous groups within the Northwest Territories that we have written letters to on September 5th.
Again, I am not certain whether we will be seeking to engage with Aboriginal governments beyond those, but again, yes, we do realize that this is an important issue, and we are hoping that those Aboriginal governments which we are dealing with, of which there is a large number, will spread the news to their various members.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you. The Minister of Hope. Every time I ask him a question, we get this "hope" answer. "I hope something will happen." "I am hoping this." This is the Government of the Northwest Territories, not the Indigenous government, not DFN. This is the Government of the Northwest Territories' responsibility.
The question I asked the Minister was: will he give us the same information that he has given to these Indigenous government organizations so that we can go out there and get that information to them? I am not asking him to say "hope" that those other organizations are going to do it. I am asking, actually "hoping," that they will get me that information so that I can share it with my constituents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This whole issue of unauthorized and potential rights-based occupancy of land in the Northwest Territories is an important issue for this government. Our initial contact, our initial engagement, is with Indigenous governments, and that is where we are at this stage. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my next set of questions are for the Minister of Lands. My colleague, the honourable Member for Deh Cho, started a line of questioning earlier today with regard to community lands, and I would like to continue along those lines.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to get to the point. If cities and towns are doing long-term planning, they already have these community plans in place. In the case of the City of Yellowknife, it is a ten-year plan; they revive it every five years. In order to do long-term planning, the city has, a number of times, requested to get its hands on all of the land within the municipal boundary.
I am wondering why the government still insists that we would have to piecemeal plots of land to the city on a request-by-request basis rather than just give them the lands within the municipal boundary as a whole, as one greater land application. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Lands.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. As I say, there is no policy to turn over all Commissioner's land within the municipalities to the municipalities. We need to have applications. As I mentioned when I referred to the regulations earlier, we need to know the purpose for which the land is needed.
We also have lands needs for our government, so we simply can't turn over everything to the municipalities. However, again, upon application, we may turn the land over to them if it fits the criteria. Thank you.
The Minister is saying that we require plans. The plans always identify the needs. In the city's case, it is over ten years. They know what their needs are. They have applied for all of those lands in what was called a greater land application, and it has been denied in the past. They have done it up to three times.
They have done all of the process. They have provided the plan. They have provided the applications, and they have been denied. The Government of the Northwest Territories has their own needs. Certainly, they can plan to carve off their needs and then give the rest over to the municipality. Is that not possible?
We naturally want to move fairly cautiously in this area. As I said, there is an application that municipalities can make. It may not be that we have finalized all of our needs for the future. There has to be some sense in this, in that we realize that towns, municipalities, and cities do have a need for land.
On application, we have been turning over land to them. We will continue to do so, but there must be a reason for it, and we are not going to turn over all lands within the municipal boundaries to the municipalities for a variety of reasons, including that we don't know our needs for the future.
The City is required to establish a plan and let the government know about its long-term plans for land use. It does that. Then it makes the application. Certainly the Government of the Northwest Territories can identify its own needs within the boundary of the City of Yellowknife.
Does the Minister not recognize that by doing this piecemeal approach, that he is falsely inflating the cost of land and not, in fact, allowing the municipality to do good, quality, long-term planning?
I mentioned earlier that we don’t know our needs. Perhaps it was better phrased to say we don’t know all of our needs for the future. Some of them may not be fully mapped out yet. Again, on application, we can turn land over to the municipalities and have been doing so. I expect that procedure to continue. It seems rational and also following what the regulations state in the Commissioner’s land regulations. Again, applications can be made. They can be studied. If they are of merit, land can be turned over.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister work with the appropriate administrative bodies at the City of Yellowknife to put in a greater land application so that the City of Yellowknife can acquire, while respecting interim land withdrawals and respecting the GNWT’s long-term needs, a greater land application to satisfy the city’s requirements for long-term planning and land use? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Member opposite has identified some issues that do arise. There are our needs. There are also sometimes, in some municipalities, interim land withdrawals. We are obviously always willing to work with the City of Yellowknife, and we look forward to working with them. Again, they can make application, and we can respond. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents entitled "Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No.3, 2018-2019" and "Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2018-2019." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Tabling of documents. Minster of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following three documents entitled "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 281-18(3): Northwest Territories Youth Advisory Council," "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 322-18(3): Tuktoyaktuk Shoreline Relocation Project," and "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 330-18(3): Establishment of the Fort Providence Fire Department." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Tabling of documents. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
