Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for that. Minister, you're going to need to be bossy with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation to assert your right to see the information at the same time, to have a common evaluation method so that you can explain to us and to the public how decisions are being made about that co-investment fund. It was touted as a great bonus to this territory to have the $60 million carveout, but if it turns out that we are in the back seat here, I don't think it will be as useful as we all hope it will be in creating new housing for vulnerable populations.
My final question is: how do you think that the Housing Corporation will evaluate applications in the co-investment fund to decide whether they are worthy of the GNWT investment? Thank you.
I just want to inform the Member also that CMHC, currently, we have the lady that has been working for the three territories, Nunavut, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. She is retiring this year. Right now, this position could possibly be relocated in the South, which, right now, is a conversation that I am having with the federal government to try to keep this position here in the Northwest Territories, so that we have access to the partnership and bringing the applications forward. That is going to be something that we're going to be challenged with going forward.
Also, evaluating the applications, I wanted to just advise the Member that we do assist in completing the applications with the client, but ultimately, it's up to the federal government whether they deny them or not, what their criteria are, and what they're looking at. We just get that after the fact, once they have reviewed the application. Right now, it's the feasibility and affordability of the unit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for health a couple of questions. I am going to go to something that was brought up in the last Assembly, and it was to do with dialysis. In the North, it's an issue getting that service, and in Hay River, we have a dialysis unit, and it's kind of running at half throttle. We're looking after eight people when we can be looking after 16, and it's partly due to funding.
What I'm hoping the Minister of health -- I've got three questions for her. I'm hoping that the answers will just be one word, "yes," "yes," and "yes." We need something positive. We have to roll something out to the communities. I would ask the Minister of health if she is willing to have her department, commit her department, to work with the Hay River health authority to look at expansion of the dialysis? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes. Our department is committed to working with the Hay River Health and Social Services authority, and actually, I was in Hay River last week, and I was able to go and have a look at the dialysis unit. The Member is right. It is under-utilized, so thank you.
That's one yes. For the second yes, is she willing to direct her department to immediately start building a business case to make that happen?
Second yes. We will commit to doing the necessary work.
That wasn't too bad. The final one, so hopefully it will be a yes here. It is an easy question. Will the Minister of Health ensure that her department keeps me in the loop as well, and updated on what's happening?
The third yes, and the Member gets what he wants.
This is easy, Member for Hay River South. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiiledeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't think I will get the same magic that my previous colleague just got, but I will give it a shot. My questions are to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. It goes to my comments earlier from my Member's statement on the Teck decision to withdraw.
I want to speak a little bit about the transboundary water agreement with NWT and Alberta. I really thought about this for the last couple of days. I was really surprised at the amount of silence we had from that end of the Chamber. It concerned me because I know that if we had a large project in the territories and the water spilled the other way, and we had any sort of environmental impact going the other way into Alberta, I guarantee you the Alberta government would be saying something right now. I guarantee you some other government organizations would come back, and there would be some backlash to that.
My question to the Minister is: what benefits did the NWT receive as part of this NWT-Alberta Transboundary Water Agreement? Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiiledeh. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes. Does that answer it because it makes everybody happy? Sorry. What benefits? We have a relationship with the Alberta government, and we are able to work with them. We have the ability of first response on these issues. Again, when the quality, quantity, or the biology is an issue, we have to get the information first. We get that information, and we are able to work with the people of the Government of Alberta, to make sure this is it.
We have also been able to have correspondence and work together. I have already reached out to the Government of Alberta and the federal minister to make sure that these transboundary agreements are in place. We have that relationship. That is something we are able to deal with. As for the comment about other projects, if it was going south, I can't comment on that, because we don't do that. The water comes north from Alberta. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the response, or kind of the lack of it. There was still silence and a lot of radio silence from the ENR Department for this whole development. Going back to the agreement, in my research, I found out that the Indigenous governments largely have observer status. My question to the Minister is: are there any plans to have Indigenous governments play more of an active role moving forward with our transboundary water agreement with Alberta?
Indigenous governments and organizations are involved in NWT-wide, community-based water quality and monitoring programs, which includes 21 partner communities across the territories. Regular engagement meetings include the annual water strategy implementation workshops with water partners across the territories; seeking input on the monitoring program and aiming to build capacity for communities to take an active role in the water monitoring.
Just to make it real short and simple, we engage with Indigenous governments and communities. They are a part of this whole process. It is just not the department. It is actually the collective as the NWT. We actually do engage with them as we make decisions.
Thank you for the response. You mentioned a little bit about monitoring. I guess my question is: does ENR have any funds earmarked for environmental monitoring as part of this transboundary water agreement?
I may not have heard the question correctly, but I think we are talking about: do we have money that ENR helps with getting Indigenous governments involved? We do. We have funding for participants that includes honorariums, travel for the participants to engage in meetings, training sessions, and hands-on training opportunities. ENR involves community members in water monitoring programs as much as possible, including co-development of some programs, for example, the fish monitoring program for the Slave River.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In listening to the responses from the Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation regarding the Arnica project, it is clear the Minister does not understand the situation. The current agreement to purchase expires on March 31st. The CMHC turnaround time on a re-application is 300 days, Mr. Speaker. This project cannot go forward on a re-application. My question is: will the Minister contact the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation and ask them to change their rejection of this project?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have identified before, we are wanting to work with the Yellowknife Women's Society. They need to contact our office. They have received a response from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, I want to say, two weeks ago, maybe a week ago. They need to move quickly. They need to move fast. I do understand the dire need of homelessness and addressing the issue in Yellowknife. The longer they take to submit those documents and those papers, they are going to lose out on their own initiative. They should at least be able to resubmit that application so CMHC can have another look at the application and reconsider their decision. Also, the concern on the application was to look at the long-term viability of the units and also the affordable criteria. I would really like to look at that application that they submitted. Like I said, I haven't seen it, but going forward, I would really like to encourage the Yellowknife Women's Society to act fast. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This is exactly the problem we run into. In the real world, real estate transactions have deadlines, and they can't fit into tight, bureaucratic processes. Therefore, there is a political will for this project to happen. Will the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation contact CMHC and clarify that we support this project?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the application being submitted to CMHC, like I said, CMHC has concerns regarding the long-term viability of the units and also the affordable criteria. These are stressed from CMHC. I would advise the Yellowknife Women's Society to contact our office so we can work with them and go forward from there. I am just thinking: the faster you act, the faster we would be able to submit these applications and go forward.
Once again, we seem to force the Yellowknife Women's Society to do all of the work, and we are not in a position to help them or assist them. My question is: have we committed to providing our 25 percent, our $680,000 if that application is approved?
Depending on the outcome of this application, we will have to go forward. If it is submitted and it is approved by the Housing Corporation, we would have to find money alternatively within our budget. We have not finalized our budget as of right now, today. Going forward, we are going to end up having to cut back on some programs that are being delivered currently. Going forward, we have to make sure that we would be able to find that money somewhere internally within our Housing Corporation within our budget. Once again, I would advise the Women's Society to submit their application so that we have something to go forward with. I need to see what it is that they submitted because I have not seen it today.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems I failed to get a single "yes" once again. Have we committed to providing our 25 percent should the CMHC change their decision and approve this? We said earlier that we support the project, but if we have not committed to providing the financial support, I don't understand how we can say we support the project. My question is: have we committed to both CMHC and the Yellowknife Women's Society that we will provide our 25 percent if the CMHC brings their 75 percent to the table?
I know that the Member is very eager to hear a commitment from the NWT Housing Corporation, but, in reality, we need to make sure that we do have that 75 percent from CMHC, and I need to make sure that we are able to afford the $650,000 that the Yellowknife Women's Society is requesting. We will be able to find it, but I just need to make sure that this application is approved by the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, my questions are for Madam Premier because I want to ask about governance and the overall approach in governance in territorial corporations. Mr. Speaker, does the Premier agree that the territorial corporations should be run in accordance with the best practice principles in the governance of the government-owned corporations? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do agree that all organizations should be run on best practices. Thank you.
Good job. That is almost a yes, Mr. Speaker. Which practice principles do you feel are most important, and which could the GNWT improve upon?
I think that any human being who thinks that they are perfect is a fool, and I think that all of us and every organization needs to be constantly looking to improve upon this. Picking a model, though, is difficult. In the couple of minutes I was looking online, looking through different models of board governance, there are policy boards, there are policy governance boards, there are working boards, there are collective boards, there is a traditional model of governance, the Carver board of governance model, there is the cortex board of governance model, there is a consensus board of governance model, there is a competency-based board governance model. What I am saying is there is no one model that fits all. All the research that I have been doing says you need to fit the governance structure within the operations of the organization.
Do both Aurora College and the NTPC initiatives include the examination for the best practice and principles of governance to ensure that they are conforming to them?
I hope that all of our organizations and all of our departments and any of the corporations that we have are always looking to improve their services, looking to best practices. I do know that the Aurora College is moving into accreditation, which means that you will be looking at best practices all the time. My worry is that, when you are not accredited yet and you are moving into it, you still have areas that you need to work on.
I think that, yes, all of us should be working constantly towards making sure that our services are providing the best they can and that we are taking advantage of best practices, which, Mr. Speaker, tend to change quite often. Therefore, we also need to keep on top of the current practices.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary, Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has the Premier issued the direction of discussions with Ministers Simpson and Thompson respectively about the completion dates of transformation of Aurora College and the polytechnic to develop a governance of options, and also NTPC?
I have not sat down and had direct conversations with both Ministers that were named, to say what kind of board you are doing and those kinds of things. However, I was the education Minister before, and I know that education does have a timeline when they will be bringing in a board of directors. Ministers are responsible for appointing their boards, Mr. Speaker, and so, therefore, if they wanted a direct timeline, it's probably better to ask the relevant Ministers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Masi, Mr. Speaker. I made a statement last week about the Tlicho Whati all-season road, and the amount of contracts, the hiring. I would like to touch on the percentage and ask questions pertaining to that. According to the numbers I shared in my previous statements, out of 137 workers onsite up to date, Tlicho were 36 percent of labour, 13 percent were northern hires, and a whopping 51 percent non-NWT hires; 49 percent of the labour force contracted to work on the Tlicho All-Season Road were NWT hires, and 51 percent outsiders.
Mr. Speaker, this should be totally opposite. We should be having more of a percentage than a southern firm, so I would just like to know, since this business is operating on the Monfwi Gogha De Nihtl'e boundary and outsiders are being given preference in hiring, what is the Minister doing to prevent this from happening? Masi.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my understanding that the Tlicho Government was involved with the negotiation of the numbers and the quota for the Tlicho All-Season Road, so I cannot speak specifically to why those numbers were not as the Member would like to see. However, I believe, as the Cabinet and all of us together, all 19 of us together, have made retaining our government dollars in the North and maximizing them for the benefits of all residents of the Northwest Territories a priority that we are committed to, one that I am personally committed to, I think that the Member will see that, under a different direction of this Cabinet, we will be seeing more of those contract dollars staying in the North and looking at more of the indirect benefits of retaining northern businesses and Indigenous businesses. I cannot speak to why this one ended up the way it did. I was not part of that negotiation. However, I would be more than willing to discuss that with the Member going forward on future contracts, if he would like.
