Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, going with the stickbuilt is a lot more expensive than putting the panelized and the modular homes on the ground. But the opportunity that I wanted to explore was creating employment for the Northwest Territories. Through the delivery of the 60 units that we are working with the Eco Investment Fund, 40 of them are modular, and 20 of them are stickbuilt. And the opportunity, once again, is to create employment in the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Deh Cho.
Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for that. I'm glad that she's understanding construction and creating employment in the communities. That's good. The flavour of this government is about energy savings, to help combat greenhouse gas emissions by incorporating biomass boiler systems.
Will this new building be incorporating wood pallet boiler system. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have to get back to the Member for that further detail. I'm not sure if we have pellet boiler material available in his riding. I'm not too sure about that. So I'd have to reach out to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions, Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ITI. The earlier GRIT funding for tourism operators was a much needed, if somewhat delayed, relief for our tourism sector. This relief which includes money from CanNor has not been renewed for the upcoming year. With the easing of the restrictions delayed, it apparent that we will not see a viable tourism sector this year.
Will the Minister commit to providing a phase 2 of the GRIT funding or something similar for the upcoming year? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism, and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, no, the GRIT program isn't being renewed. But the good news is that a lot of work has gone into identifying what can be rolled out.
As we've been saying, I think, since early on, the role of the Government of the Northwest Territories is to complement and to help fill gaps when federal partners are not providing certain resources or have maximized what they are able to provide. And in this case, certainly have been waiting to see what CanNor would make available through or directly to Tourism or Hospitality.
As it is now, of course, I can say that we do have more coming. We have more coming, I think, I hope, this session. Certainly, the process of the consensus government model is one wherein we'll have to go through the necessary processes here in the House, but I think there will be good news in the course of this session. I know I've had a lot of conversations and connections from the other Members, and everyone in this House is recognizing the need to support initiatives for tourism. And, again, that work has been underway with ITI, with the Department of Finance for some time.
And also I would just last note that the industry partners, NWT Tourism, we are also certainly doing our best to keep them aware so that they can start to signal to their operators that they're far from forgotten, that, in fact, quite the opposite. A lot of work has gone into making sure we're ready to support them for this fiscal. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't need to remind the Minister that she definitely has to be very vocal at her federal tables to ensure that they recognize the time frames in the North and our very, very short seasons.
Onto my next question: Insurance is very expensive in the North. And with the economic downturn from COVID, rates are only increasing. For example, a remote lodge could have an insurance bill of $12,000 for this year with no revenue coming in.
Will the Department of ITI grant a temporary waiver on the insurance requirement in the Tourism Act if a business is operating at reduced capacity? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the insurance waiver wasn't intended to be a oneyear initiative; however, it was focused on those who aren't making offerings to the public. So there certainly are going to continue to be a requirement for some regulatory oversight and some insurance oversight for tourism operators when they are offering their services to the public.
That said, Mr. Speaker, there are, as I've said, programs that are imminently, I hope, going to be rolling out, other programs that I expect will that are ready available through various other, you know, funding pots, whether through ours or through CanNor. And if there are operators that are still struggling who are hoping to get back open this season, that I would encourage them to directly reach out to ITI, and we'll do our best to help them navigate what programs are available to support their insurance costs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm pleased with that response. I just urge the Minister to encourage her department to actually proactively reach out to some people because they don't always know that they should come and ask for help.
One of the biggest complaints we hear from small businesses is the amount of hoops that they have to jump through to access funding and government programs, something that was really a problem even before COVID.
Can the Minister explain how the work of the Red Tape Reduction working group is reducing the burden on small business and, in particular, for artists and tourism businesses?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this involves more than one department, including the Department of Finance, and my primary message, Mr. Speaker, please, if anyone out there has a specific example of red tape that is impacting on a small or medium sized business, please, please send that example to @email, and because, shockingly, we haven't received as many responses as we would have hoped.
So while the red tape committee is focused on, again, small, mediumsized businesses, you know, at this point, I would say just send the examples that you have, because I hear it too. I hear the sense that there's too many hoops; there's too many hurdles; there's too many paperworks. But we need to know what the paperwork is; we need to know what the disconnects are, and we need to understand them.
I mean, I can come I've you know, try and come up with a few; the department's trying to come up with a few. There's a working group composed of industry members. But, again, please, by all means, I would encourage everyone out there to send those stories in. There is a structure that's now been set up with the working group. There's a structure within government that the departments have to respond to the working group when they've raised an issue. So there is that structure there. But we will do better when we have more.
The one example I can give, though, is that recently on the theme of the Member's question is that, indeed, ITI has worked with MACA with respect to remote tourism lodge owners and some of the hurdles and hoops that they had been complaining of for some time, and that as a joint department initiative, we were able to work those things through and I believe I understand from the businesses in a way that is going to be functional for them and a lot less red tape. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It sounds like there's a lot of red tape around the red tape reduction working group.
So, again, I just want to put back to remind the Minister, which I know she's aware of, that, you know, it is really hard to always or it seems that the burden is often put on constituents and residents to come forward to complain, to identify the problems. And during COVID, I think that's just a lot more difficult for people to be doing.
So I will continue to encourage people now that I know which email address to send it to. My last question is around the Deh Cho region and the flooding. What is the Department of ITI going to do to specifically help those businesses in the Deh Cho region that are affected by the flooding to, first, survive, and then rebuild their businesses. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now, ITI staff in the region, not only are they, of course, themselves no doubt suffering and experiencing directly the impacts of the floods, but I know that they have been involved in the front lines of helping with the efforts to really just provide immediate necessities and having immediate needs addressed.
So, you know, a course of thankyous should be made as well to ITI staff there who I know are working very hard on that frontline. With respect to what's going to come next, Mr. Speaker, we've been doing a lot of relief and recovery effort in the last year and half now. That will continue, whether in the context of the pandemic or whether in the context of the floods.
And already I know of at least one example of where ITI staff from another region were able to ensure that programs and services and the needs of businesses were being met in a timely way, because they could step in even when the ITI folks in the region were unable to. That will certainly continue. So there will not be any delays, which is important, of course, applying for programs that may be in a federal nature.
I should mention BDIC which has also been over the last year saying to really take a client service approach. They contacted every single client that had outstanding loans to see if people needed to renegotiate things as a result of COVID.
And, again, I think that philosophy that we've seen will continue in the next year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment.
Education, Culture, and Employment income assistance policies not only play a key role in caring for Northerners, but they also play a key role in housing Northerners.
So I'm wondering if the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment will remove the requirement that NWT income assistance applicants must add their names to the NWT Housing Corporation housing wait list, public housing wait list. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake.
Minister responsible for Education, Culture, and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe. That you know, well, when I came into this role as an MLA previously, I received a lot of income assistance questions or concerns from my constituents. So I know there's areas that can be improved, and that's why we've initiated review of the Income Assistance Program.
And through that review, this is one of those areas that we're looking at. I have to say that the Member is correct that housing is it's a government wide issue, and for our part at ECE, we do provide housing in a sense where we will provide rental support to individuals who can't afford it essentially, or who are down on their luck, who are having a rough time.
And these individuals have to use all of their own financial means first. And one of those or one of those things available to them is the social subsidized housing through the housing corporation. And the reason that that is currently a requirement is cost essentially. Over the past three years, shelter benefits have been provided to around 2,000 income assistance applicants in the Territory to the tune of about $7 million. Of that, 40 percent of those individuals were in market rental units; however, that accounts for about 90 percent of the cost. The 60 percent who are in who have been public housing accounts for about 11 percent of the cost.
So it would be a great cost to ECE to provide that benefit; however, someone's paying that cost of the public housing. And so the money's being spent by the government.
And so is there a way that we can make things more efficient, reduce the burden on people, reduce the burden on administration? And if one of those ways is by rejigging how we provide housing and who provides housing, then we want to do that.
So I don't have a firm "yes" now, but I want to have a policy that makes sense by the time this Assembly is over. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I think I'd like to report something to the Red Tape Working Group. Right now and I understand what the Minister is saying, and I appreciate they're doing a review on the income assistance policies. It's very much needed. But hanging on to a piece of a policy throughout a review that really isn't serving the people of the Northwest Territories just doesn't make sense to me. We have over 900 people on our wait list right now, and not all of those 900 people need public housing.
For somebody to have to walk down the block and in Yellowknife, it's about a sixblock trek for somebody to make another trip down the street to go fill out another form before they can then come back and say, Okay. I did that part of it, and since they have no housing for me because our housing stock has not changed in decades, can I now please get the income assistance accommodation rent through ECE.
And so the wait list absolutely does not serve us at all. So while I appreciate that ECE is doing a review of the income assistance policies, I'm wondering if the Minister will commit to removing this portion of the policy that absolutely does not serve Northerners or the pocketbooks of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, no, I can't because of that money issue that I mentioned whereby we spend millions and millions of dollars on market housing compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars on the public housing. And right now, that's just the fact of it. That's just the budgets.
And this Assembly is the one that appropriates money, and we would have to come back for a large appropriation if this was the case. And so I can't commit to spending millions of dollars that, frankly, we don't have at this moment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I guess I just disagree with the Minister on this one because we don't have enough public housing stock in order to put people in. So whether or not we're pretending we don't want to spend it because we want to put people into public housing, we don't have the public housing units. And so whether or not we want to spend it, we're still spending that money. We're just creating red tape in the process of spending it.
My next question for the Minister, though, is private sector and nonprofits and Indigenous housing providers want to work with the government to create secure housing options for northerners through longer term lease and program agreements. Access to ECE's accommodation allowance is only available on a monthtomonth basis, creating uncertain tenure for landlords and residents.
So will the Minister work with these stakeholders to increase housing allowance flexibility and create certainty through lease agreements with northern landlords? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for ECE.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
ECE doesn't have lease agreements with landlords month to month. ECE provides benefits to individuals, and those individuals can then pay their rent with that funding.
What the Member is talking about is more what the housing corporation does. It provides housing. That being said, there are clients who are pay rolled, meaning they don't have to report their income month to month. So they are getting income for three months straight being cut off, if that's the case. Six months, maybe a year.
And so there are situations like that. And since the pandemic, you know, I've given direction to be much more liberal with pay rolling so that we have more individuals like that.
But, again, I recognize the issue here, and this is one of the reasons we are doing this review, which will be completed and implemented by the end of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a lot of the work that we're discussing as wanting to put forward from the standing committee on social development has to do with being able to change policies so that we can see real change in housing in the Northwest Territories.
Some of those policies are in the housing corporation, but some of them are in the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment. Some of them are in Finance.
And so I'm wondering based on the timeline that the Minister just gave us as the end of the assembly, if the Minister is willing to work with standing committee and with regular Members to change some of those policies that really don't make sense before the end of the review. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm always happy to work with the standing committees. But to make changes in the midst of review, it kind of defeats the purpose. What are you reviewing? If the program isn't the program that you're reviewing, then what do you do with those results.
So I'm happy to work with the standing committee, but we have a process in place. And I also want to say that the Member mentions a number of different departments, and one of the things that we're also working on is an integrated service delivery model that really looks at the needs of the individuals and not the needs of government. And housing department is or housing corporation is working with Education, Culture, and Employment, is working with Justice, is working with Health to begin developing programs and policies that make sense.
And I think that is really the key to a lot of these issues, because we see these individual problems that would be solved if we actually developed the policies in the first place with the clients in mind.
So that's the direction we're moving in. And I just want to make sure that everyone's aware of that because that is one of the I believe going to be one of the key initiatives of not just this government but the future of government in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm hoping this is the last time I have to ask this question. When will the Emerge Stronger Plan be complete.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'd like to say the Emerging Stronger package will be done now, and it could have been done two months ago and put out there if I was going to take 100 percent control. And that would not be appropriate. We've talked about partnerships.
So I do know that people are waiting for it. I want to say that on March 26th, quite awhile ago actually, we presented the draft of the Emerging Stronger to the Accountability and Oversight Committee. So I'm hoping that all Members had seen that draft at that time.
We got a response back, and a revised document was sent to Accountability and Oversight on May 11th. If you don't have a copy, let me know, and I'll get it back again to you.
After that process was done, that we worked with Regular MLAs on what they wanted to see in it, then we worked with the Indigenous governments, because those are critical partners.
So we provided all of the document to the Indigenous governments. And we just closed the feedback on that last Tuesday. This week, we've been providing it to the Association of Communities for the Municipal Governments' input and the Business Advisory Council, and their input is being incorporated.
We will be, as I said in my sessional statement, tabling a draft in this session within these seven days, and it will still be open for public; it will still be open for feedback. This is going to have to be a living document. We don't know when this is coming. So this will always be changed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess my other concern is that we have a number of different documents that speak to different areas of the economy. We have film strategies, art strategies, agricultural strategies, mineral resource strategies. We have a number of different documents, and I know there are many areas that the government is working.
So to me, I view this Emerge Stronger Plan as really new items, things that we are doing that we have not already done. But in order to do that, it really comes down to money, Mr. Speaker. There's no point of creating another plan without some special funding towards it.
So my question for the Premier is when we release the Emerge Stronger Plan, will there be funding associated with it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member is aware in seeing the draft document, that some of the things, absolutely, have budget lines to them. There are some things that are and were not priorities. Universal Childcare, we never had that before. Those things are in our priorities already. Those things have action plans. They have things attached.
Some of them, Mr. Speaker, will not be, have budgets attached to them at that time; they will have to go through the process that we all go through, the mains and the infrastructure or the capital. So until those processes are done, you won't see.
But, Mr. Speaker, not everything takes money. And some money is not going to be ours. Just because we have to go through processes does not mean that I won't stop lobbying support from the federal government. Like I said, the Federal government, their budget aligns quite well with what our needs are. And we've worked hard over this last year and a half to build strong relationships with the federal government, and that work has paid off in seeing what is in the budget.
So we will continue to have strong relationships and strong talks with the Federal government to get as much support as we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Sorry. I didn't give the Minister and Municipal Community Affairs a headsup, but I've received a number of calls, emails, about the briefing that we had on flooding, and I wanted to take this opportunity to follow up on some concerns that have been raised with me.
First off, I've heard a number of concerns around how the assessment of damages is being done or could be done. And can the Minister tell us whether communities have the ability to hire their or a First Nation would have the ability to hire their own assessors, get the work done, and seek reimbursement. Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsibility for Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MACA has hired an assessor that will be starting early next week. So we'll be going into Jean Marie, and we'll be going into Fort Simpson. They will be working in collaboration with the leadership in those specific communities.
And also the this is a team that has been hired. It's not an individual. And they are northern based. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I don't think I got an answer to my question. Great to hear that there's going to be a GNWT team that goes and does this.
Do community governments, Indigenous governments, have the ability to hire their own experts, their own some of their own staff or staff that they already have in place, do the work, and then seek reimbursement from our government to move this along more quickly? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have that level of detail. But, you know, we will be working directly with those affected communities in order for us to making sure that we submit this disaster application correctly to the federal government, but also recognizing that we do have communities north of the MacKenzie River as well too that we're looking at if they are going to be if they do suffer the amount significant damage as well too due to the flooding season. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Mr. Speaker. I know it's a question period, and I don't have to necessarily get answers. But I still don't have an answer to that question. So I'll give the Minister the opportunity when she answers my next questions to say that she'll actually respond to the first one I asked.
But, Mr. Speaker, I've had some concerns raised with me about the qualifications, perhaps some of the work that might have been done by some folks that may be doing some of the assessment.
Do homeowners have the ability to seek a second opinion, or if they disagree with the assessment, what is the process for resolving such a dispute? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is quite the level of detail that I don't have with me right now. And, you know, I just want to reassure that the department is trying to work very strategically with the affected communities.
And looking at just going back to the question of if the communities can hire their own assessor, if MACA or the government would reimburse, I don't have that level of detail. We haven't submitted a disaster application yet, and our conversation with the federal government is ongoing.
But then also looking at, you know, whether we would be able to offer this type of assistance, I don't have that level of information right now. MACA and Housing are currently in the affected communities. They should be returning today back into Yellowknife. And then we are going to be travelling into Fort Good Hope as well too. Making sure that when we submit this application, if there is further support in the smaller communities, how can we work effectively together in making sure that we do have the submission.
I know this is a long answer. But the other thing is that we're looking at positions to uphold this responsibility in making sure that, you know, we work very effectively at the ground level.
Receiving the information, how do we distribute the money, how do we reimburse the individuals, I don't have that level of detail, but those are questions that we are working on as well within the department. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le Président. I want to thank the Minister for that. I really do hope that she gets back to us in the House about these questions soon and makes that kind of information available to the public, because as a Yellowknife MLA, I'm getting questions about this now.
So my last question, though, on this topic, Mr. Speaker unless I put up my hand for a third round is, you know, the cost of construction materials is going is escalating exponentially right now. A sheet of plywood has gone up at least three times in value.
What is our government doing now to preposition or secure construction materials now while we can actually still get them to help make sure that the work that's done for these homeowners gets done this summer. Minister's promised sorry. Not allowed to point.
The Minister's promised that she's going to have everybody in their homes by this winter. What is our government doing to secure construction materials now to make sure that that work can actually get done. Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know but with my other hat as Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, this is why I do have staff at the ground level. I need our department to conduct their own assessment. I need to look at the level of damages that are existing in the community, how many houses have been affected so we can put in that order for the material that is required to rebuild those units and get more of a I guess more resources happening at the ground level to work work with the communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
