The short answer is no. The work that we are doing is to inform the development of the renewed airport 20-year business plan. That is what we are looking at doing.
Thank you to the Minister for that reply. Does the department have a private-sector partner in mind for any potential airport hotel? Or have they been pitched by a developer about building a hotel at the Yellowknife Airport?
No, we have not been approached or I, personally, have not been approached about developing a hotel at the airport. What we are trying to do is come up with the long-term objectives that we need to do with this airport. Part of this planning process, this takes some serious technical review, so we have put out a separate RFP. That is the reason that has caused such a ruckus in the community over this issue.
What we are trying to do is just get a 20-year business plan and have a look at what needs to be done. If this is the long-term planning efforts to help us achieve a development plan for the next 20 years and this is going to provide information around that, that is what we need to do to come up with our plan.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect, I think the reason why there is a ruckus is because there has been a breakdown in communication. The department met with the City of Yellowknife and their council and did a presentation to them. The committee which I chair has not even had any such presentation presented to them. I am going to ask the Minister: will the Minister at least bring the results of this study to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment before it goes to anybody else? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can commit to doing that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice. The Rental Office has made some positive changes in getting clients to the hearing stage, but the wait for written decisions often adds up to three months. The Rental Officer, in her most recent report, says, "Amending the Act to be consistent with Alberta's legislation would immediately reduce wait times for both hearing dates and issuance of orders. By releasing the time spent writing reasons for decision that have already been given orally at hearing, more time would be available to complete other duties." My question is: does the Minister agree with this assessment? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did have an opportunity to read that portion of the report. Clearly, we need to speed up the process. We are looking seriously at that recommendation. I note that, in many provinces, in fact, six, there is no requirement for written reasons for a decision. That would certainly speed up the process. We are looking seriously at that. It does seem to be a sensible suggestion. Thank you.
The Minister, of course, knows that the legislative calendar is now very full for the remainder of this Assembly. Work could be begun now, if not completed, by the end of this Assembly to move this issue forward. Will the Minister begin work to bring forward legislation to make the change suggested, specifically that written orders are discretionary?
Of course, there are a lot of other legislative initiatives facing us. We are reviewing this report and will be working on it and hope to bring forth something before the end of this Assembly, at least start that work.
I am pulling out my wish list. I got a yes, so I am going for it. There is hope. In the meantime, prior to the legislative change, can the Minister commit to providing more staff at the rental office so that the written orders can be made available sooner?
We went out for an RFP for a deputy rental officer. That contract is being finalized. Hopefully, that will speed up the process.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Another yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for that. My final question is: my constituent also had issues with the forms. Basically, she had to take a template from the office and recreate it on her computer. Can the Minister tell us what he is doing to bring forms for the rental office into this century? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the question. I haven't looked at the forms myself, but certainly I will have staff or myself look at them. If they need to be modernized, perhaps we can provide some assistance in modernizing them. I realize many of the forms that are used in the judicial or semi- or quasi-judicial area are outdated and are in need of improvement. I am committing to look at those forms. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I referred in my statement to the inability to match up the public reporting of royalties by fiscal years with the value of mineral and oil and gas production by calendar years. Since the royalty amounts of all resource products are lumped together, you can't disentangle the amounts received for individual commodities. Will the Minister commit to begin to disclose publicly the royalty figures for each resource commodity, using the consistent reporting period similar to the value of resource production as used by the NWT Stats Bureau? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, we have mirrored legislation from the federal government through devolution, and we do not currently allow this disclosure. That is what he is clearly asking for. I will note to the Member that the information is currently available on a company-by-company basis on NRCan website that was developed to support the federal excise industry transparency act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I guess we still have to rely then on the federal mirror, whether it is ESTMA or the stuff that we have in place. That is just not good enough. Cabinet has made much of its open-government initiative, yet the most basic revenue figures for judging management of our resources can't be found. Will the Minister commit to reviewing his public reporting of resource revenues and set up a clear and accessible public record for reporting resource revenue information, yes or no?
When we developed the associated regulations for the mineral resource sector, intent is to bring information required for public release in line with the federal excise industry transparency act. I think the Member is going to be quite pleased with that. Transparency on both finances and materials are signature of our oil and gas legislation review, and our "what we heard" report for that project outlines our commitment to those principles.
I would like to thank the Minister for that. We are getting closer. In my statement, I said that, if NWT were a country, it would be the second-richest place in the world on a GDP-per-capita basis. We certainly don't seem to lack the capacity to generate more revenues. The report that I am going to table today also says that "more aggressive fiscal and royalty rates" are something that we can do, so how does the Minister plan to work to incorporate more transparent and accountable public reporting of resource revenues in the proposed Mineral Resources Act and the amendments to our oil and gas legislation?
I would say that the Government of the Northwest Territories is quite committed to that. The Member is quite aware, as I have said in this House before, that we mirrored the regulations; we are moving forward with both of these acts to move forward with the regulations probably in the 19th Assembly, especially around the royalty regime and that and any regulations. So we are quite committed to doing these things in consultation with all residents of the Northwest Territories and our partners at intergovernmental council. We continue to work on that.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Minister for that, but I am hoping we do not have to wait until the 19th Assembly. Cabinet has failed to make any substantive changes to the mirror legislation we inherited at devolution more than four years ago. Cabinet has rejected something as basic as a public review of the adequacy of resource revenues, despite making cuts to programs and services in the last three years. Can the Minister explain how our government can possibly convince the federal government that we can and should assume any further responsibilities for resource management with that kind of a track record?
I want to be quite clear. Our government is on track to deliver these changes by the end of this Legislative Assembly with a number of pieces that we are working on. We believe the federal government believes in good legislation. With that being said, I think with respect to that fact, to get legislation right takes an appropriate amount of time, and we will continue to work on that, and I think that will help strengthen our case with the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, the Minister of Education did a Minister's statement on the response to Aurora College foundational review, and in there she talked about that the associate deputy minister will guide the college in the formation into a polytechnic. Among the first steps will be including an overall vision for post-secondary education in the North. Can the Minister please advise: is this the direction of the department and Cabinet as we move forward, that this associate deputy minister will be the one coming up with the vision? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The territorial-wide vision is actually a political decision that will be made, but it's really important; we actually want the associate deputy minister of post-secondary renewal to be with us during that process because that person has to understand really clearly what the vision is, because the next step from that is to be able to do the post-secondary vision based off of the territorial vision. So it's a political decision, but that person will be helping to facilitate it.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister. How long is this going to take, then? If we are talking about a vision, and I strongly believe we should be starting that here in the House, talking to committee and other Members to see where it is, but when will we be able to have this person in place to start this process?
The competition for the position closes at the end of this month, and then we will be starting the interview process as soon as that's done, so we are assuming that the person will be hired before the end of this calendar year.
I appreciate the Minister giving us that answer, and I am looking forward to the end of the calendar year so as we can move forward. I guess we wait a little bit longer. A little bit of time shouldn't hurt us. So the next question I have for the Minister is: what's happening to the advisory committee? When will that voice, the voice of the Northwest Territories, be brought back?
In the government response that we tabled yesterday, it was stated that the advisory committee to the regional board will be set up and an advisory committee, or senate, or whatever we call it, will also be set up. One is to have regional representations from all of the regions in the Northwest Territories. The other one is to actually provide expert advice to the administrator on specifics regarding the post-secondary education. Those two boards, committees, are very critical, so they will be one of the first priorities. We did commit to that at least in the first two years, but I am hoping to get it done in the next fiscal year.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Minister's commitment in moving forward, because that is very important. Those two committees are very important. The advisory committee has a regional and territorial voice, and then the academic advisory council, that there is new, something that's new, and I think it would be very beneficial as we move forward through our post-secondary. So in the meantime, what is going to happen? Who is going to replace the advisories? Is it still going to be the public administrator? Is that person still going to be in place, being the voice of the NWT at this time?
The act does state that we have to have an administrator in place, so that position will stay until we get the new advisory committee initiated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Mr. Speaker, on Friday, the honourable Minister for Economic and Natural Resources did a Minister's statement on the 2018 wildfire season. I appreciate the work that the department is doing, but I do have some questions for him in regards to our staff going out of the province and that. Can the Minister advise us on how those costs are recovered? I believe I have heard of a program, MARS, and if he could just give us a further update on what that program is about? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Mr. Speaker, through the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement, we were able to recover $2 million from this summer.
So can the Minister advise us how much of that funding came back? Because we paid our workers and for our equipment, so how much money is that coming back to the NWT, what percentage money-wise? What percentage is coming back?
My understanding is $2 million came back to the Northwest Territories. Broken down, I am not sure what that is as far as salaries go for the employees, but through our Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement we recovered $2 million.
I greatly appreciate the Minister for that answer. Can he advise the House how much we spent sending them out at this time?
