Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for giving me these questions ahead of time because it's going to be pretty detailed on this one here. The range plan made nine recommendations to manage total disturbance on the range of the Bathurst caribou herd and to reduce and manage impact on the caribou and the caribou habitat. We are working on all nine recommendations and have begun. Habitat conservation is recommended in the Bathurst range plan, specifically in areas of importance to the caribou to maintain migration routes, such as key water crossings and land quarters. ENR is supporting Indigenous governments and organizations to document these key habitat features and to provide them for consideration.
As I said previously in this House, Mr. Speaker, we will continue to work collaboratively to identify appropriate legislative tools to advance the establishment of conservation areas, and we have established a new fire crew in Wekweeti to allow faster response to fire on barren-ground caribou winter habitat. We have established a caribou guardians program as also recommended in the range plan. Significant work has continued to develop a network of community-based programs that will monitor and report on caribou habitat. Mr. Speaker, it's all part of the picture. It's our wildlife. It's the conservation of our management of legal hunting, respectful hunting, the wolf program, and our habitat. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to thank the Minister for his Minister's statement there. No. Look, I do appreciate the work that he and his staff are doing on this. I just wish it was a little bit faster. I described some of the actions and tools that are supposed to be taking place as part of the implementation of the Bathurst caribou range plan, and the Minister himself mentioned the cumulative land disturbance framework. Can the Minister tell us whether this framework has been applied against the proposed Slave Geological Province road, and if so, can he share that analysis with MLAs and the public?
I will try to keep my Minister's statement short on this answer here, but we want to make sure we get that detail and that information out there. The framework was applied against the proposed Slave Geological Province road. A technical package was supported with the Bathurst caribou range plan, and yes, we will be able to provide is to SCEDE.
I appreciate the Minister's short answer yes there. That was great. The Minister obviously knows exploration and development in the range of the Bathurst caribou herd is probably at an all-time low since the 1980s as a result of the pandemic. Now would seem to be a great time to finally develop and implement mobile caribou conservation measures that would provide temporary habitat protection, so can the Minister tell us about the status of the promised mobile caribou conservation measures and when we can expect to see them finally implemented?
ENR will finalize the framework by this summer. A draft framework has provided guidance to a pilot project that was done in collaboration with our industry partner, Aurora Geosciences. Because of COVID, we had to do a desktop exercise. The outcome of the project was the need for an operational guidance document, and we are working on developing that with Aurora Geosciences. We plan to test this operational document this summer.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I look forward to seeing the results of that. Of course, what elders and biologists alike say is that we need to permanently protect key habitat for barren-ground and boreal caribou as part of a balanced program. With low levels of activity and interest, we have got things like land use planning, but we also need other forms of permanent land withdrawals or protection. Can the Minister tell us what our government is doing with regard to permanent protection of key habitat for the Bathurst caribou herd? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Key habitat is identified through a collaborative process with our Indigenous governments and organizations, and it helps us identify key areas that could be considered for habitat protection under the wildlife act. ENR has a series of workshops with partners to identify and prioritize areas of protection, and we are completing input from our partners and will collaboratively work on the plan to clarify key areas to be considered for habitat protection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister tell me how patients get from the health centre to the medevac flight in communities with no ambulance service? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I am sure the Member can appreciate, with 33 different communities, there are a number of different ways of getting there. One possibility is local emergency service providers, such as the fire department or the RCMP. In some places, there are ground transportation contracts that are available through a competitive bid. In some cases, community governments provide that service, and in some cases, in fact, people do it themselves with whatever equipment they have available. Thank you.
It would be great if the Minister could send me the breakdown of the different communities and their response plans for ground transportation. For question number two: when will paramedics be licensed in the Northwest Territories, and when will adjustments be made to the act in order to enable this service?
I welcome the opportunity to clarify the fact that paramedics are licensed in the NWT, and no changes are required to the act.
That is great to hear. Thank you. My next question may be redundant, but: community-based paramedics programs have clinical evidence of their success in Northern Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta. Why was the community-based paramedicine program discontinued here in the Northwest Territories, considering that the Canadian Armed Forces was willing to partner with the Northwest Territories?
I appreciate the opportunity to clarify here, as well. In fact, what took place in Tsiigehtchic was a pilot program to train local community members as first responders beginning in 2019. The good news about this pilot program is that 16 community members did receive emergency response training. That work, however, has not progressed from that stage. It is in the health Department's work plan to engage with MACA to discuss next steps on how we can build on this pilot, and the next steps are due by September of this year.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I have my facts wrong, but I will check back with my research and take a look at that. My last question is: would the Minister tell us her position on whether or not she finds the discrepancies in our healthcare system due to systemic racism? Thank you.
I am not going to offer an opinion. Thank you.
Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I brought up my Member's statement in regard to elders staying home. You know as well as I do: we take care of our own, and we take care of our elders. I want to know: what care facilities are currently available in our communities of Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok right now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Member is talking about long-term care facilities, there are none in his riding. If he is talking about homecare support so that people receive services while in their own homes, every community in the Beaufort-Delta and in his riding has homecare services available. They are usually provided by the healthcare centre, and they work with elders and their families to deliver the services that are identified as required under a nursing assessment. That could be a full range of things from help with bathing and mobility, light housekeeping, meal preparation, and so on. Tuktoyaktuk, as well, is one of the sites of the paid family caregiver program where this pilot project is providing up to four hours a week of additional supports to five elders in the community. We are very interested to see the outcome of this, whether it's a way forward to provide more community support. There is quite a bit of homecare, but long-term care is only available closest to him in Inuvik. Thank you.
The next steps are working with our housing Minister and Health Minister in regard to getting elders facilities in both Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok, which we need. Like I said before, flying to Inuvik is over $1,000 to go see one of your loved ones. The only time you'll get to go there is if you are going there for medical. It really hurts and impacts families deeply when they are sending an elder to Inuvik for long-term care. We need to fix this problem. We could find money for anything when it comes to bigger projects and stuff like that, but something like this, working with the Inuvialuit Development Corporation, the community corporation, and our government: are they willing to work together to take those next steps in regard to providing elders facilities in those two communities?
The issue here with long-term care is economies of scale. There are 12 elders in Sachs Harbour who are 60-plus, 43 in Ulukhaktok, 31 in Paulatuk, and 139 in Tuktoyaktuk. That's a very small population from which to build a long-term care centre that benefits from the economies of scales. I think the minimum size is 16 beds. I don't think that it's feasible to do long-term care in those facilities because of the size of them. However, we have heard from Mr. Colin Okheena from Ulukhaktok, and he has requested that we meet with him and his community corporation to talk about elders facilities in his communities. We have agreed to that. We wrote to him at the end of February and suggested that he call the office and set up a meeting.
I thank the Minister for that, for reaching out to Mr. Okheena. I really think the demographic size of a community or distance from Inuvik to Ulukhaktok or Ulukhaktok to Sachs Harbour or to Paulatuk or Tuktoyaktuk, it shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter for the money that we are spending. These elders were here first, born and raised. We have to take care of our elders. Money shouldn't be the main issue. I know we are stretched like a rubber band, but the thing is: my elders deserve this. My elders need to stay home. Our families need to be kept together because you know it as well as I do: as soon as they go to Inuvik, they don't last long. I don't mean to say that, and I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings or nothing. At the end of the day, our elders were born and raised in the Northwest Territories, and we demand service.
I appreciate the Member's passion on this topic and the desire to keep people at home. It is our mandate to help seniors age in place with dignity, and of course, that's every senior in the NWT. The way that long-term care works is that people don't go in to long-term care unless they have 24/7 nursing needs or chronic conditions, complex conditions, that need full-time nursing care. Unfortunately, the reason that people don't last a long time after they go into long-term care is because they are already pretty ill. The average stay in long-term care is around two-and-a-half years. I appreciate that that is not an outcome that anyone wants. The outcome that people want is for elders to stay in their community.
As I have said previously, there is a combination here of homecare support, which is provided by the Department of Health and Social Services, and a facility in which the elders can live, which is within the NWT Housing Corporation. I have committed, and the Housing Corporation Minister has agreed, that we will work together to sort out how we can make this aging-in-place pledge a reality.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just for the record, will the Minister and her colleague in housing commit to working with myself, the community of Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok in my Nunakput riding, to work together to try to see if we could get long-term facilities? Would she commit to that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have articulated my commitment, and that is my commitment. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Mr. Speaker, the starting point in any conversation about our municipal powers is that they are presently a mess. Twenty-four of our communities either fall under the Cities, Towns and Villages Act, the Hamlets Act, the Charter Communities Act, or the Tlicho Government act. The remaining nine communities are designated authorities and fall under the Indian Act. I am surprised the NWTAC can find agreement on anything. As such, whenever a problem falls that only applies to one of those specific pieces of legislation, there is no support for the other communities. Six of our communities administer their own taxes; 18, MACA does it; and a remaining nine pay no tax at all. My main concern is getting the Department of MACA to bring forward some legislation that sorts out these various pieces and the powers. My first question is: will the department bring forward the Cities, Towns and Villages Act and some of the other corresponding legislation during the life of this Assembly?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, first of all, want to comment on the history of the Northwest Territories, and the way that we operate is in a very unique, dynamic way of administrating throughout the territory. We do have designated communities. We do have communities that are acquiring self-government. We do have settled land claim areas, as well, and we have such a strong, rich history here in the territory. Looking at the Cities, Towns and Villages Act and when it was established to create the municipalities of the Northwest Territories, we have kind of evolved with the legislation but also knowing that the Indigenous groups have come forward to create their own set of governing aspects.
With that, this is a very unique approach that does not exist in the northern part of the territory and the northern part of Canada. We don't have a charter that is currently established, but the City of Yellowknife has not designated this as a priority. We are looking at the taxation, and we are looking at the Fire Prevention Act right now. The conversation continues, but just to answer the Member's question: no, this will not be brought forward in the lifetime of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the complexity here. My concern is I want to find some work to progress the work on the Cities, Towns and Villages Act and surrounding it. I note the department started work on the Fire Prevention Act back in 2008, and hopefully, we see that in the life of this Assembly. I recognize that there were years of work to actually get this done, and it gets to the heart of the NWT: are we going to have public governments in the future, or are we going to have more private governments? Presently, we have legislated that there are public governments across the Northwest Territories, and I would like to see that debate happen. To do that, I need the department to begin some of the work on these various pieces of legislation. Is the department ready to begin that work, and maybe the next Assembly can see some legislation?
With the legislation brought forward and with the support of NWTAC and the City of Yellowknife, we are concentrating on the property taxation, as I've stated, and also the fire prevention. They have listed these as two priorities. With that, I am confident that my department will bring those two forward and we will see those changes. Also, looking at the involvement of the Northwest Territories, as well, and looking at the municipal governments, I honestly want to say that conversations do happen with the Indigenous governments, as well. Whether we're going to see self-government during the lifetime of this Assembly, whether we're going to see agreements going forward, it really changes the direction of Municipal and Community Affairs and how we are going to be working with the smaller communities.
One of the reasons the City of Yellowknife wants to see a city charter, and I want to see it, is it's a fiscal arrangement. The City of Yellowknife is the only jurisdiction where a percentage of their taxes have to fund the education system. It's the only city that has a property tax base that could actually fund municipal services. There's a reason we have tax-paying communities and non-tax-paying communities. Whenever the City of Yellowknife asks for a change to how they can administer taxes, they are told no because the conversation is only relevant to the City of Yellowknife. In part of the Property Assessment and Taxation Act conversation, which we will see, is it possible to have a separate fiscal arrangement and some different tax powers for the City of Yellowknife?
To have a submission brought forward that is going to separate, and looking at the Indigenous groups within the City of Yellowknife, as well, this is a really sensitive topic, and I would have to bring this back to my department in order to make sure that we are productively moving along. Also clarifying, is this a priority for the City of Yellowknife and the Indigenous groups within the city, as well? Then it would change the approach of MACA and our involvement, as well, to better support what are the priorities for the city.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A head's up: during the Property Assessment and Taxation Act, I am going to be requesting the ability for municipalities to implement vacancy taxes, to have land value taxes, to have different tax tools that the department won't let them. Can I get the Minister to commit that they can go away and educate themselves on what city charters and these fiscal arrangements look like in other jurisdictions, in preparation for further questions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I hear the Member's passion, as well. This is not the first time he has brought this up with the charter for the City of Yellowknife and reflecting and elaborating on the taxation, as well. I want to really emphasize that this is a very sensitive issue, and it involves more parties than just the City of Yellowknife. I will provide the Member with a current update and the current status of the ongoing conversation with the Department of MACA and the City of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 2017 NWT Midwifery Stakeholder Engagement Report was 75 pages long. Can the Minister tell us if her department is ready to implement all 10 recommendations to ensure that all communities have access to births in their home communities within the life of the 19th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. As I said in February, we, the Department of Health and Social Services, have been successful in completing five out of 10 recommendations. The department continues towards moving to the completion of the remaining five recommendations, and we previously committed and continue to commit to coming up with a preliminary plan on how to implement these recommendations in June of 2021. The next phase of this plan is phase 2. If it has funding, it would provide four midwives in Yellowknife, one in Hay River, and one in Fort Smith. It would not provide a way for women who live in small communities with health cabins to have their children in their own communities. Birthing is really a centralized process. Thank you.
Can the Minister tell us how her department will implement all 10 recommendations of the 2017 midwifery report?
