Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier. As to my statement, I will be looking at the Yukon-NWT border. Has the Premier had conversations with the Yukon Premier about a bubble with the NWT, since he has the power to open the border on the Yukon side? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I have had discussions with Premier Silver from the Yukon government around exemptions for residents to cross over the borders. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'll wait to say if that's good news or not. With the high uptake of Moderna vaccine that we've been hearing of, and I know that the communities in my region have really been posting a lot that they've been getting high percentages of first and second doses. Recently, with all over 18 in Inuvik being able to receive the COVID vaccine, that covers the Beaufort-Delta, anyone over 18. Will there be a Yukon-NWT bubble anytime soon after those discussions?
I have had discussions with Premier Silver from the Yukon Territory. He is more than interested in having exemptions for residents to go across the border. We are, as well, interested in that. However, I have to put it out there: Premier Silver has let me know that, if he was to consider having an exemption, not a bubble, but an exemption, then he would not be okay with us closing the border when they open up to British Columbia; and in conversations, it will only be a couple of weeks, he's assuming, before they open up to British Columbia. At this time, that is the underlying factor that is not good news for us.
That's not good news, but my next question will be: will the Premier have discussions with the Minister of health and the CPHO, or has had discussions with them, on what the NWT plans on doing, especially knowing that we have higher rates of vaccine?
Absolutely, we have been having discussions with our CPHO around what will happen when the majority of residents in the NWT get vaccinated; 75 percent is herd immunity. However, there is still a population, there are still people who have not, will not, or cannot get immunized, and we have a whole population of children who we don't have a vaccine for. The major factor is actually that they're not projecting that the vaccines will be delivered in the South until late fall, September, so we have serious concerns. There is not enough research. My understanding is that, even if we have the vaccines ourselves, can we still transmit COVID-19 to other people? Those are questions we don't know. I know that our CPHO is well-aware of the mental health, and I know that she is tired of it just as much as all of us. Her job is to make sure that we keep as safe as possible, and she is trying to do that.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The next question I am going to ask is: how long are we going to be in this public health emergency? I refer back again to the Emerging Wisely plan. I think the people of the Northwest Territories, the people of the Beaufort-Delta, have a voice, too, just like the people at the mines do when they are given exception after exception. How long will we be in this public health emergency, and do residents who have been vaccinated have the option to challenge this public health emergency if they choose to, especially after they have been vaccinated? Thank you.
I would like to defer that question to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Premier. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the question. The CPHO conducts regular risk assessments of the context of COVID-19, and it is her view that a public health emergency still exists. As a result, her public health orders remain in place, and as a result, the self-quarantine for 14 days remains in place until a time when she doesn't think that that risk any longer exists.
In order to change those orders, as the Premier said, she has to do a scan of, for example, vaccine levels. While the NWT is now over 40 percent vaccinated, the number for the whole of Canada is 1.42 percent. There's not anything like equality of vaccination across the country. Secondly, there is still community transmission of COVID-19 in some southern jurisdictions. That's something that we have worked very hard to prevent from happening here.
The third part is that, while we know the vaccine reduces how sick people become with COVID-19, we don't have definitive answers about whether it also stops transmission, so that whether, as a vaccinated person, I can still carry the virus with me and pass that on. We are very interested in making the changes that the Member is talking about. We understand that people are fed up with the isolation, and they would like to be reunited with their friends and family, their former lives, and we look forward to a time when we can truly get this behind us, but that moment is not now. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Infrastructure about who exactly the GNWT pays its rent to. My first question is: how much a year do we pay in leasing to southern landlords?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every year, we pay approximately $18 million. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That's the $18 million that I really would encourage the department to look at and see if we can make that a smaller number and give that to some northern businesses. One of my concerns is that our Leasing of Improved Real Property Policy only permits us to pay a premium to a northern business, and if we are going to rent from a southern business, it actually has to be cheaper to lease as opposed to own. I am a little concerned that, as these buildings have been sold off, resold, merged, and acquiesced over the years, we have fallen out of compliance with our own policy. My question to the Minister is: is the Minister confident that that $18 million is, in fact, in compliance with our own leasing policy?
Yes, we are in compliance with the Leasing of Improved Real Property Policy.
I struggle with how that is the case. In a previous analysis, it showed that it's actually cheaper for us to own our buildings than it is, often, to lease them. This was part of the analysis that justified building the new government building and justified the GNWT building large office buildings in the past was that we could do it cheaper to own than lease. How does the Minister rectify saying that we are paying $18 million to southern landlords with the fact that we have previously concluded that its cheaper to own our own buildings as opposed to leasing them?
If the Member is able to share their document so that we can review it and perhaps be happy to respond because, right now, I am not sure how to answer without any context to this document that the Member is referring to.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The document I'm mostly talking about is the fact that we built a giant building, and we decided not to lease it. My final question to the Minister here is: if, in fact, we are renting any of this $18 million to a non-northern landlord, will the Minister commit to conducting the cost benefit analysis of lease to own versus the policy and make sure we are not, in fact, paying a premium to any of these southern landlords? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We will review these leases as they expire to have a look to make sure that there is the cost benefit. However, I do want to say that, in accordance with the policy, we undergo lease versus own analysis proposed on new lease contracts with terms of over 10 years. Currently we own 28 percent, and we lease 72 percent of our general office space, which is influenced by a number of things: location, local market conditions, operational needs, assessment, and also availability of capital. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. During my Member's statement, I referenced additional funding that was earmarked in the fall 2020 federal economic statement. I am wondering how much of the $181.5 million in additional funding for arts and heritage does the Minister intend to request from the federal government, and does the anticipated NWT Arts Strategy support this request? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. None and no. The reason for those answers is because we have been informed by the federal government that this money is not flowing to governments. It's not flowing to provincial or territorial governments. It will be distributed through the Canada Council for the Arts. What that means is that there are a limited number of organizations in the territory that will actually be able to access this funding. We have a lot of artists in the territory who are just individuals. It might be someone making slippers in their housing and doing beading. Those individuals can't access that funding.
I have had conversations with the federal Minister about this before. During some of the COVID relief funding that rolled out, they did have an application process where individual artists could apply, but that's not the case in this situation. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to request any of this funding. Therefore, we can't, obviously, build it into our Arts Strategy, but we will support artists in the territory in their attempts to access this funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That's not fabulous news, because a lot of the extra funding and grants that are available to northern artists do come through and are filtered through our government system. They either come from ITI or they come from the NWT Arts Council through ECE. I am wondering if the Minister can confirm or not if NWT artists would actually be better served by an NWT Arts Council that was independent of ECE.
I think that the Member might be envisioning a different body than what our arts council currently is. Our arts council helps make decisions about how to distribute the funding provided by ECE. I think the Member might be thinking of something like an artists' collective in the territory or something like that. While there is, perhaps, merit to those discussions, that's not really what the arts council is at this point.
If the Minister is wondering if I have big dreams for arts in the Northwest Territories, the answer is yes. I'm wondering if the Minister would be willing to have a conversation with the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment about kind of our disjointed approach to art within the Northwest Territories. We currently have culture and heritage housed under as well as the arts council housed under ECE, and then we have tourism, which has a huge cultural piece to it, and, I believe, a huge untapped market for arts in the Northwest Territories and on the global stage. I'm wondering if the Minister will have a conversation about how to really bring together arts within the GNWT so that we can better support northern artists and give them that stage that they rightfully deserve?
This is a conversation that's been going on for years and years. I think that, from the outside, ultimately, when it comes to programs that support our residents, there should be no lack of service or service disruptions or poor service based on how its distributed among different departments. Ideally, the GNWT should be working together, sort of an integrated service delivery approach, and provide services to residents with a resident focus. How the government does that needs to be coordinated. I think that there's this coordination between ITI and ECE, and it would be difficult to completely separate this file. ITI isn't the type of department that would take over responsibility for the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, for example; and ECE isn't necessarily the type of department who promotes and sells internationally. I think that the approach that we have now is to utilize the expertise in both departments and work together. That being said, I'm always looking for ways to do things better, and I'm happy to have that conversation.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to having more conversations about this with the Minister because I think it merits further conversation. My last question I really want to know: does the Minister intend to table the NWT Arts Strategy during this sitting? Thank you.
Based on the questions that I've gotten in the House, the feedback that committee has provided during our main estimates review, both in camera and in public, there's additional work being done on the Arts Strategy. I think it's incumbent upon us when we hear things to incorporate that feedback. We will do that. We will be providing standing committee, both, I believe, Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment and the Standing Committee on Social Development with copies of the draft for additional feedback in the coming weeks and likely will table at the next sitting of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to ask some further questions of the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment on this significant discovery licence that she seems to be poised to issue to Husky Energy. I heard some very disturbing things from the Minister, but I think I'll try to boil it down into fewer, simpler questions, maybe, and see where we get here. Does the Minister have the authority under the amended Petroleum Resources Act to issue significant discovery licences that contain any other terms and conditions? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister of ITI.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Section 30.3 of the Petroleum Resources Act does state that the licence "must be in a prescribed form and may contain any other terms and conditions, not inconsistent with this act or the regulations, as may be agreed on by the Minister and the interest owner of the significant discovery licence." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to thank the Minister for that excellent reading of Section 30.3. Does this mean, then, that an applicant for a significant discovery licence has a veto over terms and conditions?
It doesn't say a veto. It doesn't say that the party must, shall, but it does say, as may be agreed to. Mr. Speaker, as I had said earlier, when the processes come through, if indeed there are to be new calls for bids, which would then move through exploration licence, significant discovery declarations, and all the way through production, this act now governs that entire evolution. This act will create a system, one that is reasonable, one that is certain, one that people can actually understand what is expected of them, and including the fact that you do now have the ability to make these types of additions to the significant discovery licence.
Mr. Speaker, I wasn't a Member at the time when this new act was. I know the MLA certainly was. I'm sure they're familiar with the vision here, which is one that is meant to give more tools to the hands of a Minister before issuing a discovery licence. Look, at the end of the day, it is to be as agreed to. Again, that is why, now, when issuing a call for bid, it's going to be very clear what the expectations through that evolution will be.
I want to thank the Minister for that. I've heard lots of references to what happened in the past by the feds. I don't really care what they did. They didn't do a good job, and it looks like we seem to be bound by that for some reason. In the current exploration licence, this exploration licence covers 175,000 hectares. In there, there's the ability to charge a rental, and the rental varied from $3 up to $8 per hectare. That means, at the end of the exploration licence, we're getting $1.4 million a year in terms of a rental for that exploration licence. That's the same amount the Minister is going to give away with the reduction in the small business tax. Here's a way to make up that revenue. Is the Minister going to impose a rental fee in the significant discovery licence equivalent to what's already in the exploration licence?
This particular discovery licence is the last one that is grandfathered. That was the point I had tried to make earlier. I think I wasn't, perhaps, putting it all together very clearly, but it is a grandfathered one. It's the last one of its kind. Mr. Speaker, I, also, would prefer to look forward into the future and not be talking about items that come forward from the past. Because this particular one and all of the things that it's associated to in the other licences it's associated to don't have a rental fee put into their significant discovery licence, out of simple fairness and out of simple fact, it is not appropriate to take something that was under a previous legal regime. It's already been wedged into this new legal regime where it's already not going to have an indeterminate significant discovery licence. It's going to have only a 15-year licence, and it's going to come with the expectation of having benefit plans if, in fact, there's work. There are significant new benefits under the new regime, but some things, putting in the rental fee, which others that it came up with, didn't have -- Mr. Speaker, on full reflection and the legal review, that's not a fair way to proceed. It's not a good way to show ourselves to have a good reputation for fairness, and it certainly exposes us to legal risk. That's the challenge that I'm faced with, Mr. Speaker. Going forward, this act does give the ability to, from day one when there's a bid, set up a system where there are bids, where there's rental fees and fees that will bring in, hopefully, a better sort of revenue into the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I'm not interested in waiting 15 years to reopen the significant discovery licence. The Minister has the ability now to include terms and conditions that will benefit Northerners. She doesn't seem to be prepared to exercise that discretion. My question to the Minister is: in whose interest is she acting in issuing this significant discovery licence, the company's or the public's? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
I take my responsibilities as a Minister very seriously. I, certainly, am not going to stand and act in anything other than in the interests of the public of the Northwest Territories, but that includes, Mr. Speaker, an understanding and awareness of the rule of law and legal advice that we might receive as Ministers. I don't act on my own. I don't act without advice. I don't act without looking to the department. I don't act without looking to the Department of Justice when the time is appropriate. This was an usual legal problem. I could see that from day one when it came to my desk. We sought legal advice on how do we proceed fairly as a government? How do we act fairly as a department? How do I take something from the past regime and put it into the new one? I'm acting, in part, on the legal advice. Yes, I have powers to do things, but I am not going to act in a vacuum; I am going to act on the best advice that I have around me. That, Mr. Speaker, is what I am doing here. It is always with the interests of the people of the Northwest Territories, to demonstrate to everyone that we act fairly and in process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
