Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to recognize Mabel Brown, originally from Aklavik; also, my high school friend, Ryan Yakeleya; also, long-standing mayor of Paulatuk, Ray Gruben; also, Merven Gruben from Tuktoyaktuk, the mayor; also, former MLA and Minister and good friend, Dave Ramsay. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. [Translation] I would like to recognize visitors from my community, Jane Weyallon. Welcome to the Assembly. [Translation ends] Also with us, Kelly Clarke, who is the mother of Tyson Clarke, one of the pages here. Welcome to our Assembly. Masi.
I would like to thank all of you for joining us here today. It is always great to have an audience as part of our proceedings. Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Sahtu.
Masi, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize three ladies from the Sahtu: Yvonne Nakimayak, Marie Speakman, and my cousin, Karen Caesar. Masi.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Jake Heron, chief negotiator for the Metis Nation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Can the Minister explain to us how spending the bulk of the federal contribution to childcare on professional development will make services more available and more affordable? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Providing professional development for daycare staff or for people who are looking into getting into the field is part of the solution to making childcare more affordable and more accessible. If we don't have qualified staff to provide the services, it is not accessible. We had people in childcare centres who don't have the qualifications. We are trying to improve them.
Our children are our most valuable resource. We need to provide the support so that they get the quality programming. We are providing the two-year early childhood development. It is going to be a diploma program. We are providing, with the federal government, up to 30 scholarships for people to get into that field. It is part of the answer. It is not the whole answer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for that response. Can the Minister please tell us how she's going to make childcare more accessible and more affordable?
I have to give credit where credit was due. It was under the guidance of the previous Minister of Education, who did a great job actually of increasing the amounts that are paying for subsidies to childcare centres to actually provide services for children. That was a great move on his part. I really recognize that, and congratulate him very much.
The other thing we are doing is that in the Member's speech. We have 11 communities that don't even have childcare centres. Research says early intervention is the key. Out of those 11 communities, we are working diligently. We are trying to get as many of them as possible to actually open up a childcare centre, some kind of early childhood support for their children. We have made a little bit of progress. We are working right now. Out of those 11 only, we are working with Norman Wells and Enterprise, and we are hoping that they will have centres coming in within a short while. We know that we still have nine more communities after that to go, but they are totally on my radar, and I am trying my best, Mr. Speaker to try to support those communities so that they can have early intervention programming for their children.
I would like to ask the Minister why the mandate tracker says the commitment to creating an action plan on affordable and accessible daycare is fulfilled when we have a 100-person waiting list here in the Yellowknife daycare, and a month of daycare costs almost two weeks of minimum wages?
Earlier I had said, I need to give credit where credit is due, and I also have to take responsibility where responsibility is due. I did see that as it was fulfilled, and I am not okay with that. We are actually adjusting that. We will have a more complete plan.
Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
That is welcome news, Mr. Speaker. I am looking forward to additional detail. In the meantime, I'm wondering when the Minister is planning to share the plan that's part of the Canada-NWT bilateral agreement, along with the information that substantiates the professional development being funded with the Standing Committee on Social Development? Thank you.
I didn't know, actually. I had made the assumption, a wrongful assumption, it looks like, that that was already shared with standing committee, so I will make a commitment that we will share that with standing committee at the earliest convenience. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I did a Member's statement on the funding gap for municipal governments. My questions will be for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Can the Minister advise us what amount of the annual funding gap at the beginning of this Assembly, what is the gap? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Member's concern, and I appreciate his statement. This is a concern that we've been working on and trying to address. We have been working with the NWT Association of Communities to the Member's question. At the beginning of the 18th Legislative Assembly, the funding gap was approximately $39 million; 15 in operations and maintenance, and water and waste combined; and an additional of about $23 million in capital. For the current fiscal year, the funding gap is about 4.5 in O and M, and 4.8 in water and waste, including new costs identified for solid waste management. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister, and I appreciate the department's work with the NWT's Association of Municipalities. Can the Minister advise what the department has done to close the gap over the last three years?
We have seen some increments in the capital funding since about 2014. MACA has been successful, though, in reducing the gap in operations and maintenance funding and environmental service funding by almost about 50 percent.
On the capital side of things, we have seen a significant funding investment through the federal infrastructure programs that has helped us mitigate the gap over the short period of time. We are running some of those projects out to the municipalities over the next year.
One initiative that MACA has started and implemented is an asset management strategy, and we are working with all the communities to develop that and look at ways we can maximize the useful life of their public infrastructure, and not increase the pressure on capital funding moving forward so we can actually stretch our dollar in working with our municipal governments.
I greatly appreciate the Minister's answer to that, and I'm very excited about the department working on their asset management, getting a longer life out of our facilities, and making sure they work better. I applaud the department for doing that. Has the department done any calculations or projections to determine the cumulative shortfall of the funding gap since 2016, and what is the amount of funding gap right now?
To date, the department has not done any analysis on the cumulative shortfall. MACA continues to move forward on an ongoing basis to improve the ways that we do fund communities. As I mentioned, since 2014 we have seen a slight increase in the amount of funding that we do get. We do have to work within a GNWT fiscal framework, but we continue to look at ways we can try to lobby for more funds. Working with the federal government is one way that we've done it. Looking at some of their programs to help us offset some of the costs in our municipal governments, and we'll continue to work with our partners, in particular the NWT Association of Communities, to find ways that we can look at closing this gap, or at least making an impact on that.
Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much for the Minister for providing that information. I understand the fiscal realities of the Northwest Territories, and I understand that, but we're talking about our municipal government. I would hope that the government would start looking at trying to close that gap even quicker. Will the Minister commit to tabling the department's strategy to fulfill the mandate commitment of 4.55 at the next sitting of this Assembly in February? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Member does recognize our fiscal situation here within the GNWT, and as we go through our operations budgets as well as our capital budgets, we have to compete against things such as schools, health centres, roads, other types of infrastructure. Then you have to look at all the program services that we provide to residents of the Northwest Territories. We are working diligently with the NWT Association of Communities as well as our municipal government and our leaders across the Northwest Territories to address the concern that the Member has brought forward. It is, as all Members know it is, a tough way to make decisions in this House sometimes, but I will make a commitment that I will table the strategy in the winter session and make sure that we do share it with our stakeholders so that everyone is aware of the strategy that we are looking at moving forward to address the concern that the Member has brought up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm hoping to ask the Minister of Finance some questions around the collective bargaining to put some fears at rest in the community. The looming threat of strike is something nobody wants to hear. Other honourable colleagues have raised this issue, and we know that the mediation has ceased. When does the Minister anticipate the release of the mediator's report? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are soon in the process of talking with UNW, and the doors are always open for further talks. I will say no more than that. Take the question as notice. Thank you.
The question has been taken as notice. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment; and my apologies, well, I can't.
Well, you can still raise your question. The Premier is here.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I apologize, I did not give him much of a heads-up. Today I catalogued a number of concerns with the quality of the tourism products being offered and this government's ability to regulate the industry for the protection of tourists and our product reputation. Could the Minister briefly explain how the tourism licensing system operates and what consequences there are for persons operating without licensing? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. The Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You cannot manage what you cannot count. Our licensing system allows us to know how many people are delivering tourism services, what they are, and what time of year their products are being delivered. It can help us measure growth, identify gaps, and guide our planning and investment. We also have legislation that determines which areas of tourism require licences.
Recent years have seen an explosion of tourism, and I believe the Minister talked about that in his statement earlier today, and a lot of this a related to aurora viewing. Can the Minister give us some idea in the growth in the number of Yellowknife operators and licences in recent years?
This year, we have 151 tourism licence holders in the Northwest Territories. Last year, we had 147 tourism licence holders. Five years ago, we had 109 tourism licence holders.
I would like to thank the Premier for those numbers. So, a very significant growth, almost 50 percent it looks like. According to all indicators, the volume of visitors and the tourism operators will continue to grow. This raises some issues for me and other residents of the NWT around the adequacy and suitability of the measures that we use to regulate, inspect, and enforce our tourism licensing. In light of the issues that I raised earlier today and that are out in the media, what evaluation and possible legislative changes are needed to ensure we have the right tools in place to meet these challenges?
I have been involved with the Department of ITI. In fact, I was the Minister, I think, for the first year of this government. We do not see this as a systemic problem, and I am not convinced that it is today. We are more interested in growing our industry and its capacity than we are in pursuing discipline, especially if there is apparently opportunity to turn it into growth. If we want to change this approach, it would require changes to the Tourism Act, and I would expect that it would have to be done in the next Assembly.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I think I differ with the Premier's assessment of the state of the industry and our capacity to regulate it. My statement also mentioned the inadequacy of consumer protection laws. Here, tourism officers of course cannot sit around and read to see what kind of advertising and services are out there. It's important that we have a vigorous system to receive and investigate complaints and provide restitution where appropriate, and that includes, of course, the ability for tourists to hear back about complaints, even while they are here, in town. So can the Minister explain how our tourism-complaint system works and whether it's adequate as currently operates?
As the Member knows, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs deals with consumer protection, so we work closely with MACA but primarily in areas of licensing accommodations in communities. In the area of enforcement, we work much more closely with the Department of Infrastructure and the City of Yellowknife and even the RCMP. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
