Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of May 31st, 2021, we have a total of 192 summer students currently hired. There's an additional 53 who have pending offers. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that response. The numbers are much better than the last numbers that I have from the Department of Finance, and so that is good news to start us off with today. And so I thank the public service and the Minister for that.
But this number is still lower than previous years, and I'm wondering if the GNWT has plans to beat their numbers from preCOVID times. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, there's been an effort being made to keep numbers updated. Indeed, it's been a bit of a rally of late. So I am pleased to say that the numbers are improving. We're still a little bit behind where we were in 2019. I won't use 2020 as a comparator given what was going on a year ago with COVID.
But with respect to the 2019 comparison, Mr. Speaker, we're actually pretty close right now, whereas in at this time in 2019, we had approximately 247, and if we include the pending hires, we're only at 245, if I'm reading correctly on my numbers. So we're not doing too poorly, Mr. Speaker, but, really, the goal is to continue to hire and to continue to hire all through the summer. Maybe we can beat our numbers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, by my numbers, the GNWT is still off by about a hundred fabulous students that would love to work for the GNWT. So I'm wondering if the Minister will make a commitment to at least hire another hundred students before the end of June. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, but that it was so easy. So the summer student program, it doesn't have a separate line item or budgeting item to it, as I think was mentioned earlier in Members' statement. The way that it works, though, Mr. Speaker, the Department of Finance, of course, can coordinate the support hiring of summer students and can coordinate and support training programs for the summer students.
Every department has a responsibility to determine what their needs are, to find special projects that they often do, and often do rely, indeed, on summer students who are coming in to fill gaps over the summer period.
So, you know, opportunities such as this one, to be in the House, to be speaking to all the departments, who I know are listening, reminding them of the opportunity to bring in students, creates a succession plan for them in their departments, creates an opportunity to educate members of the public about the work they do, and to have ready and willing students available to do projects for them over the summer.
Again, this is an opportunity to essentially speak to the public service and to the departments and say, Please consider hiring a summer student. And, hopefully, we will get to that hundred mark by the end of June. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final Supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as it stands right now, the last numbers that I saw, I saw a lot of summer students really concentrated in Yellowknife. And there's a great deal of need in our communities as well. If we look at what's happening in the Northwest Territories to date, there's tremendous amount of flooding that leads all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. I'm sure that there's students that would love to be on the ground and helping out with that too, with cleanup opportunities and being able to see, you know, a different community or being able to help out their own community. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity.
But my question for the Minister today is currently the GNWT has a program within Human Resources that's called Building Capacity in Indigenous Governments, and as a cost sharing program, that allows the GNWT to play role in building capacity within Indigenous governments. So I'm wondering if the GNWT would be prepared to put together a summer student program that also costs shares summer students with Indigenous governments, municipalities, notforprofit organizations going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the question began with a discussion of outofYellowknife hire. So just to give some sense, about ten days ago before the rally, the numbers, we were already at 71 regional hires, and that's hires I think not pending as compared to 2019 when we were at 80. So, again, we're not tracking too badly just yet. And, again, the numbers have, indeed, gone up even in just the last ten days.
As for entirely revamping the summer student program and modifying substantially how we will fund it, I'm certainly not in a position to give a firm yes on that standing in the House but always open to new ideas about how to support students, how to support succession planning in the government. And how to support, indeed, may well be the regional government's, nonforprofits, municipal governments and so on and so forth.
That conversation, though, Mr. Speaker, is one that I think would have to begin with those other entities and organizations, as well as looking at each department and the kind of connections that they have.
So, you know, I think that's one to take away and to see what kind of conversations we might be able to have and what ideas and inspiration it might lead to. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd first like to start by thanking the Minister of MACA for the opportunity to travel through to Fort Good Hope on Saturday and meet with the community and residents and victims.
And the other thing, I was very impressed with the preparation the community had in place with respect to the flooding. But now it is time for this Government to actually step up. The community has done their part.
So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of MACA confirm who from her department is or will be taking the lead on flood recovery. The question has been asked by those impacted, and I guess for my information as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Disaster Assistance Committee oversees the governance and coordination for the GNWT recovery process. It is also responsible for assisting the GNWT to make a claim to Canada for assistance under the Federal Disaster Assistance Fund. The two GNWT staff that have been hired, they are navigators. They are currently supposed to be in Nahendeh this week, and they are to be providing immediate assistance in answering questions about the process for further information.
Staff will also be travelling in to Fort Good Hope as well, too, to conduct a further assessment and looking at what would we need to provide to the communities at this time to further support and assist them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure if that answered my question or not because I didn't hear the name of anybody. So I suspect there should be one point person, whether it's the Minister herself or somebody else, and I'll touch base with her later.
And, Mr. Speaker, right now is an uncertain time for many of those victims who have been displaced. So I'd ask the Minister to confirm if and when financial support will be made to flood victims who are struggling with meeting everyday bills and living costs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to elaborate on the first question, I just wanted to go back to that. Is that, you know, we're moving very quickly as a department, but it seems like very slow progress because we have to be preparing this disaster committee as well, too, in looking at our financial response and what we can submit to the federal government. The navigator for the community for the disaster has actually just started today. We just hired the person on Friday with the request from the MLAs as well. So we have two people that are working, that are going to be our main contact in the flood risk communities.
For the supports, the financial supports for the individuals, we have provided the evacuation centres for the individuals. We continue to have the one operating in Fort Providence and providing meals as well, too, and also in Inuvik, and, you know, for the flood victims for Aklavik.
By looking at the assistance that we are providing, housing right now is our main priority in looking at how we could return people to those units and to their homes, whether it be public housing or whether it be private. We're looking within our department or the Housing Corporation on what further supports we can provide, what type of programming we can provide, you know, if we're going to be getting into a partnership with the Indigenous groups, and looking for local contractors to also work on the boilers and the heating systems as well, too, specifically right now with the in Fort Simpson.
There's a lot of information I could provide to the Member, and I will follow up with him as well, because there's a lot of information that is flowing right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, she answered question the first question and the third question. So I'm going to ask the second question again. Can the Minister confirm if and when financial support will be made directly to the flood victims who are struggling with meeting everyday bills and living costs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for MACA.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're looking at the recovery for the disaster of the homes and returning people back to their residences. I don't have an answer I mean, I guess, an answer for the basic needs of food and clothing for the individuals. I'll have to get back to the Member as we are addressing the housing need right now, which is the priority, is to get people back into the their homes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT when at the start of the flooding there, we felt we fell short on communications and with respect to acknowledging that the flooding was actually occurring. And so I think what we have to do is in our messaging, we've got to be concise and precise. When we're talking to people in the communities, you know, they're looking for answers and not a story. So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm what communication strategy her department has in place to keep the flood victims updated, how is it being achieved. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Direct contact for our communities is our regional offices and also the active EMO office EMO officers as well too and getting into the community and looking at further communication with the mayors and the chiefs and leadership of those communities. I've been meeting with the flood risk communities for the past four weeks, providing them information and updates, and also looking at the river flow and how it would affect the communities coming forward. We had started the meetings with Fort Simpson and Hay River, and we continued on with Aklavik and Fort Good Hope, also inviting McPherson and Tsiigehtchic as well too.
So through those meetings, there is adequate information that is being provided to the individuals. And we are provided we are available as a government to the leadership at that table as well, myself and the Deputy Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to thank the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment for reaching their discussion paper on early childcare and the great work they've been doing to date. I'm happy to see the funding for increasing education in that. But I think the big announcement is what's the ambitious words coming out of the federal government, where they've been committed to having the cost of childcare. I know there's $30 billion federally over the next five years.
What I'm looking for from the Minister is do we have a sense of how much that money we will see in our bilateral agreement and whether it will be enough to actually get us universal childcare in the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Education, Culture, and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The bilateral agreement is still being negotiated. So I can't give the Member a number on that. However, the federal government, in addition to that 30 billion they announced from 450 million in workforce development, and we expect maybe 2 and a half million from that, and hopefully in addition to what we're getting at the bilateral. So we have been receiving about 2.4 million a year. And so in worst case scenario, we would get that in the first year of that agreement.
But the federal government has made an announcement. I'm not confident that they have ironed out all the details at this point. And I frankly, I doubt it, given that childcare isn't something the federal government does. It's the provinces and territories. And so their plan is dependent on our plans. And that's why we are positioned well, considering that we're developing our 2030 Early Learning and Childcare Strategy right at the same time they are developing their national childcare strategy. So the plan will be, you know, developed in conjunction with the federal plan, and we will keep the Members updated as soon as we learn any of the news. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate we're negotiating the plan. And I guess I've got to try and squeeze a few more details out of the Minister if I can. And hearing from what the other provinces and territories have said across Canada, there's a big debate about cost sharing and I think fears from a number of provinces that Ottawa will fund us for five years, and then the provinces are going to be left with, you know, a giant childcare bill at the end of that agreement.
And I know a number of provinces have are quite opposed to this idea of Ottawa kind of imposing childcare. So I was hoping the Minister could speak to our views on any cost sharing requirement on childcare, if the federal government is going to require us to put up 50 percent of the dollars in this bilateral, are we willing to do that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The question is is Ottawa willing to put up 50 percent of the dollars. We already put in a substantial amount of money many times more than Ottawa puts into childcare. So if Ottawa was to match what we're already spending, we would be almost where we need to be. There would probably be additional funding required, but that 50 percent from Ottawa would be great.
So, you know, of course, appropriations are voted on by this House. So I can't commit to any future funding. But I think it's fair to say there is a commitment to ensuring that we are partners with Ottawa as we work towards rolling out universal childcare in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the discussion paper, the department points out a number of barriers. You know, I think a lot of them are monetary. Costs is simply subsidization. The infrastructure is the funding of money to build the infrastructure. But the report says we need between 221 to 299 trained educators in childcare. And then to me, this seems the biggest barrier we're facing is that I know many operators today can't hire qualified staff. I'm hoping to get a sense from the department how realistic, you know, even in the next five years or in this 2030 strategy getting that hundred percent increase in educators actually is. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have an over/under on, you know, how realistic that is. But the fact is that we recognize that we need qualified early learning childcare educators, not just people to, you know, watch the kids while they watch TV. We need educators if we really want to give children the best start in life. So there's a number of initiatives taking place. There are early learning and childcare scholarships for people who want to learn. There's a pilot program right now in person. You can do the first year of the diploma online. We're hoping to expand the number of dual credit courses so that the students in high school can graduate high school with credits towards their early learning and childcare diploma. So in addition, this is all before the additional workforce funding from the federal government. So there's a lot of big things that we can do and really are pushing to do. And it goes hand in hand with the transformation of Aurora College into a polytechnic university. So this is on the forefront of everyone's minds. In addition, I'll point out that it's not just hard to hire qualified staff. It's hard to keep qualified staff because, of course, these aren't government jobs; these are communityled jobs; they're nonprofits. And if you have the right qualifications, you can also teach junior kindergarten, which is a much more lucrative position than being an early childhood educator. So finding the funding to ensure that those educators stay in those positions is also part of the bigger picture that we're working on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister led into my last question, which is that a number of models exist for universal childcare. The cheapest model being essentially the day home model. But we ran into issues with that. In that, in some communities, it's just not ever going to be profitable to run a day home. And in some communities, you can't find a nonprofit willing to step up and run those programs. On the higher end of that spectrum is making those jobs government jobs where the GNWT would actually hire early childhood educators.
Do we have an idea what kind of model of universal childcare we're working towards and would it include those jobs being government jobs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There have been a number of engagements happening. There's a number still scheduled to happen. And through those engagements, we are hearing what the communities, what the childcare providers, what Indigenous governments want as a model. And we're hearing all of those options that the Member just identified. There's some communities, as he points out, where it's difficult to find a group or nonprofit to provide childcare. And in some communities, there's not enough children. Some communities, there's not a desire. So we'll never get to I don't think we'll likely ever get to a hundred percent of communities having childcare all the time. But I'm open to all of those options. Whatever fits a particular community, I think is what we need to look at. So we're still early in this engagement, and I look forward to being able to, you know, present to the committee and have some good discussions about what this could look like based on all of the feedback we're getting. And I have to say I appreciate the effort that the early childhood educators have put into providing this feedback. They have been a part of a lot of different symposiums, a lot of engagements. And, as well, Indigenous governments have been engaging with ECE on a number of different issues. So I want to thank them all for their participation as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake, round 2.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I don't want to go back to watching bad movies. But I think I have a solution here for the Minister of Lands. I continue to raise this issue with the federal government not living up to its obligation to fund land use planning under the Tlicho Agreement. If we can't get the federal government to the table to contribute, there is a dispute resolution process laid out in the Tlicho Agreement. Can the Minister tell us why GNWT has not invoked the dispute resolution process to get land use planning finally underway and have the federal government pick up its share of costs. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Lands.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's not a bad movie. We're trying to actually move forward. So I keep on saying we're moving forward, and we're making progress. So a dispute mechanism is when we're not get moving forward. It may be not at the speed that the Member wants or I would want but we have a process in place that involves the GNWT, the Government of Canada, and Indigenous governments working together trying to get it resolved. And the challenge that we've seen right now is Section 35. We've seen some hiccups. Now we're trying to deal with that. And like I said previously, the federal government has looked at potentially bringing a facilitator nation to nation working together to get this resolved. And that's what we're trying to do. So a dispute mechanism does not need to be put in place right now because we are moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. If we're moving forward, why have I been asking these questions for the last year? I just don't get it. If you can't get someone to pay their fair share, Mr. Speaker, that sounds like a dispute to me. Can the Minister explain to me why this is not a dispute and shouldn't be brought to the dispute resolution process, as set out in the agreement? Look, first stage of any dispute is usually you've got to get the parties to sit down and talk about it. You can then go to mediation. Then you can go to arbitration if they can't sort it out. It's a long process. But why will this government not take the first step to invoke the dispute resolution process? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't talk about the past. That's gone. What I can tell you about right now is the Government of Canada, the Tlicho Government, and the Government of Northwest Territories are working together. We're talking about facetoface, bringing a facilitator. So if they're willing to do that and our Indigenous governments are willing to do this process, why do we as the Government of Northwest Territories need to bring in the dispute mechanism? We don't need to do that unless it's our last resort. So right now, the Government of the Canada, the Tlicho Government, and the Northwest Territories are moving together trying to get this resolved. We are willing to work with them within the system, and that is our last resort. And right now, we've been told by Tlicho, by the Government of Canada, and our officials that we are moving forward. So we are trying to get this resolved in a process that works for everybody. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Look, I think I'm going to be here a year from now asking the same questions. But I'll keep pushing this a little bit further, Mr. Speaker. There's two separate issues here. One is overlapping traditional land use, interest in the Wek'eezhii Management Area. That's one issue. The other issue, though, is one party refuses to start to pay for its portion or all of the portion of the process. Those are two separate disputes, Mr. Speaker. I'm talking about our government starting to initiate dispute resolution on getting the Feds to start to pay their fair share. Will the Minister commit to invoking the dispute resolution process around that issue alone, getting the Feds to pay their fair share? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I guess my colleague's not going to like my answer. No, we're not going to invoke the dispute process right now. We're not going to do that. I totally agree that the federal government needs to pay for their fair share. And we're working on that right now. So if it's working and we're moving forward, then why would you invoke this process? So I cannot in good conscience invoke something that's not going to help the process. That, to me, is our last resort, and that's what we need to do. So I understand the passion of the Member. And I'm hoping that within a year's time when he brings it up again, we can have a finality to it. We can have the answers. We can show the progress. But right now, the answer is no. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of human resources. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister acknowledge the hiring culture in the NWT? It is not accountable and transparent. Complete denial of this culture is not acceptable. Would the Minister agree?
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, no, I don't agree that the entire hiring system of the GNWT is not transparent. It is certainly a complex system at times. There are quite a number of pieces of legislation policy that need to be adhered to and followed. The Collective Agreement has to be adhered to and followed. And in doing so, that, again, that does require a fairly rigorous process and a fairly sometimes one might think of it being a complex process. If it's not always very well understood, just as the Affirmative Action Policy is not always very well understood. And all of those things together do lead to a number of questions that come forward. But that's not a lack of transparency. That is a complex system that perhaps we need to do a better job of explaining. It's also an opportunity, as I've certainly said before, to look again at the Affirmative Action Policy that we had in place and ensure that people understand it and determine whether or not it's meeting the needs that we all have and if it's not, to look back and see if there's a better way of doing things. That's a lengthy investigation and a lengthy piece of work. But, again, it doesn't speak to the fact that the process right now is not transparent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, does the Minister believe in the truth and reconciliation in changing this culture of 'who you know and not what you know'? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, those are two separate questions. Mr. Speaker, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is one of the core and founding things that every government in this country right now needs to be paying attention to and acting upon. And I firmly and personally believe very much in what is spoken of the calls to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Speaking separately about the work of the Department of human resources and the hiring practices of human resources, again, there's quite a lot that's going on to improve what we have in human resources here in the Northwest Territories. There's labour force in there's a labour force survey being done right now to understand what population it is that we want to be better serving. At last information from census, the 2016 census, the labour force was comprised of 41.6 percent individuals who are Indigenous, and, of course, our hiring is usually down in the 30 percent. So we do have some work to do. We acknowledge that. And that's one of the reasons we're rolling out the Indigenous Recruitment Retention Framework, to put targets on every department so they can really do a better job of achieving that level of being truly representative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
