Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Premier for that, and I look forward to getting these letters, seeing them in draft form. It's customary for these in the last Assembly and in the federal government, they make the letters public, and I assume that the Premier is going to do the same thing. The reason why I'm so interested in these letters is that the mandate, the priorities we develop, don't actually cover a lot of what some of the Ministers may have to do. Can the Premier tell us whether these letters contain work for the Ministers to do that might be outside of the actual mandate? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Yes. The mandate letters do identify some of the normal day-to-day operations that would be expected. It does focus on the mandate. There is a section on COVID-19, and there is room where we can actually tailor it. However, I must point out that every single duty that I expect from our Ministers will not be in that mandate letter. It is not possible. I would have to write a book to do that. There are other ways to make sure that Ministers do their jobs, such as why we are here. There is the BF system, where people ask, enquiries. There's walking into offices, talking to Ministers, and challenging on the floor, and that's what we're all here for. The mandate is one tool. It is not the only tool. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While my colleague was asking questions of the Premier, I overheard an assumption that the mandate letters would be made public, and I'm wondering if the Premier can confirm whether she intends to make those public or not. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Honourable Premier.
Mr. Speaker, you said to make our answers short. The answer is: Yes.
I'd like to start off first by congratulating the GNWT on its Emerging Wisely document. It was well-prepared and well-communicated to the public. The document sets out for residents what they need to do to move from the lockdown phase, and to loosening of restrictions, and being able to interact again with their loved ones. I believe that, to accompany this document, we need an economic recovery plan that identifies the financial supports and programs the GNWT intends to put in place to combat COVID-19, or as businesses attempt to combat COVID-19. My question for the Premier is: what does she see as the most important thing the GNWT needs to do to recover the economy while moving out of the lockdown phase?
It is really hard to pick one. We have done a lot of economic revitalization programs and services that we provide to do for people. One thing I noticed is that, every time we had an initiative and went to the federal government and said, "Help, help our tourism industry, help our airlines, help our mines," there was somebody coming in behind.
I can't pick one. I'm going to have to pick two. There are two very critical things that I have to do, and I have been working on it. Every week, I meet with the Premiers, and every week, I meet with the Prime Minister. I've been saying, never has it been so critical. We have been saying this since the beginning that this House was built, but never is it so critical, base plus funding. Per capita is not working. All my Ministers are carrying that message strong. The other thing is flexibility. Do not put us in a box because a lot of your programs, people in the territories are still not accessing. Those are the two things, federally, I've been doing, so that's important.
The other thing that's important is to listen to the stakeholders, and that's why we're doing the groups. My Minister of ITI did a great job, putting out surveys to all of the businesses, trying to find out what they say. It is inappropriate for us as Members of this House to define what the future will look like for all residents unless we hear from the residents. That, again, is my commitment.
The Premier alluded to the federal government in her response and, over the course of the pandemic, we have seen the federal government really crack open its purse. Given how close we are to our federal borrowing limit and the fact that, really, the territorial financing formula doesn't necessarily work for our territory, what can we expect to see this year to address both of those financing supports from the GNWT?
I'm going to kind of guess the answer, because the last part of that got quiet and I couldn't really understand what the question was, but if the question is what we're actually looking for the federal government for supports, I'm going to go with that and you can correct me after. Again, it's, like I said, flexibility. The federal government, at each meeting that I meet with the Prime Minister, I'm told, we're at an opportunities gap to start with. We did not come in at the same place as our southern jurisdictions. I respect them. They are all fiercely fighting COVID-19, but they have the infrastructure we don't have, so I've been an advocate at asking for additional. We started with an opportunity gap. This COVID-19 can put us way back, if we're not careful. I do believe that our Prime Minister is hearing us and supporting us.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary, member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question was in regard to the territorial financing formula, and also the borrowing limit. Thank you.
I am not going to take other people's glory away, but I do know that the borrowing limit, our Minister of Finance has offered a briefing to standing committee on that, and I will let her do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have no doubt that the Chief Public Health Officer has been making numerous decisions on data, and we've heard that today. We have heard numerous requests, from Members and the media and the public, to see some of that data. I recognize are is some issues with modelling, but firstly, I just want to get a sense of our capacity to really be making evidence-based decisions. I was hoping the Minister of Health could tell me how many people specializing in epidemiology we have on staff?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have four full-time staff and four part-time staff.
The reason I ask this question is because I have no doubt that those eight people who are trained in epidemiology, this is the most important time in their career, and the most important time for the decisions they are making for all of our residents. A lot of that has been behind closed doors, and I haven't seen a lot of that data today. I think there is sometimes a hesitation on the part of scientists to give data to people like myself, who have no idea what to do with it. I was hoping the Minister could commit to bringing forward some sort of report of modelling, the data we have, an idea of the number of people with respiratory illness in the territory, what other jurisdictions have been doing. I would like to see some scientific evidence, and I was hoping the Minister of health could get that team to put something together for the public.
The epidemiology unit created what is called a public dashboard. The public dashboard is not quite live yet. It is something that demonstrates some of the Northwest Territories' case and test data in more detail. We are developing some important and transmission models so that we can better understand how this COVID might spread throughout the Northwest Territories with partners that are outside the Northwest Territories. We are working on the dashboard. It's not live yet. We are getting there, however; we do have information that is available.
I look forward to seeing that public dashboard and what kind of scientific evidence is put on there, as well as seeing the transition modelling. I hope to see that sooner rather than later. A request: often, when our government publishes data, they don't actually do it with a data set or give you access to the open data. Sometimes, it's just a PDF. Sometimes, it's a nice graph, but, obviously, there is always some underlying data there. My question for the Minister is: in that public dashboard, can we contain access to the actual underlying data in an open format?
The guidance documents are available on the GNWT website, and the public data dashboard will be available shortly, as I have just mentioned. The daily situational reports used identifiable data so these can be made public. Individual privacy can be assured. This only can be done with greater numbers. Right now, we don't have that.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. With the Emerging Wisely document, post-secondary is not recommended to begin in the fall, and there are a lot of post-secondary students who are hoping to continue or pursue their post-secondary this fall. Will there be programming in September, and what will it look like this fall for post-secondary in the college?
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Emerging Wisely document, I believe it is phase 3 that the colleges can open. What the college has been planning for is for distance learning, come September. However, we don't know exactly where we're going to be, and we would like to be able to provide some in-person instruction for people who absolutely need it. The work is ongoing to try to figure out if we can do that, but the plan right now is distance learning for the most part. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
With the way the economy is right now, a lot of our students have no jobs. Some of them offset the cost of their post-secondary with these jobs. The federal funding is not a lot of money compared to what summer students would normally make. Will SFA be increasing the funding this year for those students to be able to afford their post-secondary?
The Member is absolutely correct. With the lack of summer employment, it is going to make it very difficult for summer students. As well, some of their parents, too, maybe have lost their jobs. It's going to make a very tough situation.
The federal government has announced increases to the Canada Student Loans Program. The Northwest Territories opted out of the Canada Student Loans Program back in the '80s, I believe, in order to create our own program tailored to Northerners. It is more generous to Northerners, but, as a result, we don't get that increase that the Canada Student Loans Program will get. However, the government did commit an increase to those who have opted out of the program, so we will be seeing an increase. The way it works is that the territory gets the student loan money based on how many students went to school. For the upcoming school year, we will receive that money in January of 2022. There is a bit of a lag there. With that being said, I am looking at ways that we can bridge that gap and figure out how to support students, because this is a serious issue that is going to affect a lot of people's lives.
Student housing, for some, is their main housing. Will the students be able to continue to live in the student housing even with distance learning?
The Member is hitting all of the high points here. These are a lot of hard conversations that we are having. There are some people who are from communities where, perhaps, the Internet doesn't allow them to take distance learning. I got an email from someone the other day saying that they max out at 2.3 megabits per second on their Internet speed; they need 2.5 in order to take the program at the U of A. There are some real issues out there. We are looking at how we can support those students. Opening up residence for people is one of those, but that is an ongoing conversation. There are a lot of considerations, but these are exceptional circumstances, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that this is not a lost year for the students who wish to pursue post-secondary.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With that, if the Inuvik single-unit student housing is being occupied, something that is very needed in Inuvik, as well as the homeless shelter right now, how will -- I guess there are three Ministers, there; there's homelessness, health, and education -- work together to ensure that single students can get housing, that this program continues? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can't speak for all of the other Ministers involved, but the Member points out one of the big issues here. This is not just a student housing issue; there is a homelessness issue; there is a vulnerable persons issue. There are all sorts of things going on here, and so we all have to work together. Those conversations are happening.
I don't have an answer right now. This situation is evolving, but I know that we are working to find solutions to all of those issues. As many Members have rightly pointed out today, we have seen some great strides in terms of the social supports we offer, and we don't want to backslide on that, but we have to make sure that, if we have housing for students, or if we have these certain things designated for these certain needs, they are used for those. I don't have an answer, but I will work with my colleagues to try to find a solution to all of those issues. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Through this pandemic, we have had a lot of people go to the hospital sick. It has raised a lot of very sad stories that came across my desk, my e-mails. We have heard some of these terrible stories on the news about people being sick and dying alone because of COVID, and I was just praying that it never did, and I'm hoping it doesn't go that route.
I still had to make a lot of calls for some of my constituents because, as I mentioned before in my Member's statement, we like to do things as groups with our loved ones. I know that, if I was sick, terminally ill, I wouldn't want to be alone during my last days. With a lot of our protocols that we had to change and make adjustments in our own hospitals in the NWT, my question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services: what is the current number of visitors allowed for people who are sick in the hospital? Marsi cho.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time, for anybody coming in the hospital, it would be on a case-by-case basis, but, if you have family members who are terminally ill, we will look at allowing more than one. Thank you.
Thank you for the response from the Minister. I would like to just know a little bit more. Are there going to be any changes in terms of actually giving us a solid number? I know that it's case-by-case, but giving an actual solid number? I know that we have to keep in mind our social distancing and some of the rules that we have from our CPHO. If we could get an answer from our Minister, marsi cho.
The most important message we have right now is we know that families need to be with loved ones during this time, while they prepare. The Northwest Territories Health and Social Services authority has a patient-centred approach, which allows visitors to come and visit family. As visitors come to see patients, we would review it on a case-by-case basis.
Thank you. Nothing further.
Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few more questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I know that, recently, there was a recall on N95 masks. That led me to wonder how much PPE we do have on hand. How many days or weeks, or some other measurement, of PPE is available to us here in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Infrastructure, Minister Nokleby, and I both participate at a national FPT, and we participate with the PPE, trying to find the requirement here in the Northwest Territories. You look at the situation now, we are having a number of low cases of people who have the flu symptoms, but we do need to prepare for, one, the second wind, and we need to prepare PPE for when the flu season comes. Right now, in terms of the N95 masks, we are looking at it's called a reusable PPE, so we have been reusing PPE in accordance with the federal guideline. We have four sterilization machines that have been secured to extend the life of the N95 masks and to help maintain our supply. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am not sure how much PPE we have, but it's useful to learn that there is now a trend towards making it reusable. Can the Minister tell me where in the NWT the supplies are located? Are they all in Yellowknife, Inuvik, and Hay River, or are they in other places, as well?
The national emergency supply system sends all of their supplies here, and we have what is called a dashboard, so, at any time, we are able to see what we have. With Stanton Hospital, what we have with gowns, gloves, sterilizers, N95 masks, surgical masks, visors, facials. So we have quite a list, extensive list, of all of the equipment, and we are able to show how many stock days we have by region.
