Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I agree. The Taltson Hydro Expansion is one of four major infrastructure projects as a priority of this government. And in no particular order, but it's the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Tlicho AllSeason Road, the Slave Geological Province Energy Communications and Transportation Corridor. Also, Mr. Speaker, this is a mandate to advance any of the infrastructure projects as Minister of Infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the snowball effect that the Taltson Hydro Expansion will have for our economic recovery will be enormous since we know, that by 2030 all major auto companies will be going electric for their vehicle lineups. We cannot wait until the last minute to plan, assess, and complete this major consumer change without this project. Does the Minister agree with that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I agree again. The Taltson Expansion Project is a critical piece of our strategy to connect ten of our communities around Great Slave Lake to one hydro grid that will stabilize the cost of energy for all residents and also set the stage for more of a sustainable resource development so that we can rely on green energy to be able to grow our economy for the next 50years. In our time between the Snare and the Taltson system will provide essential green energy, infrastructure to fuel the clean electrification of the transportation sector here in the Northwest Territories for the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister must mediate a truly strong agreement with the Indigenous groups with majority ownership if possible. We must start walking the talk and show concrete action that the major shareholders are the Indigenous groups that are affected. Does the Minister agree with that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, this is three for four perhaps. I agree. And we are doing this. You know, we have the Akaitcho Dene First Nation, we have the NWT Metis Nation, and the Salt River First Nation have signed off on an MOU to work together on this project, which is very important milestone in moving forward to be able to engage with Indigenous groups along you know, along this project. So we are in the process of shifting our focus to the implementation of the MOU and also a key area of focus on the commercial structure and the business case for this project and ownership opportunities will certainly be available to our Indigenous partners, but we need more time to define the overall costs, the risk of this project, and also all the parties to the agreement that are prepared to accept this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Thebacha.
Mr. Speaker, to conclude, the Taltson Hydro Expansion will be and should be one of the major priorities in our recovery plan for the Government of the Northwest Territories after the pandemic. The Minister should be asking the federal government to fund this project 100 percent to stimulate the economy of the North and to ensure our Indigenous shareholders will benefit from this project. Does the Minister agree with that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are pleased to be operating right now at 100 percent funding for all eight for $18million from the Government of Canada to be able to support a feasibility stage of the project. Funding is being used to define the commercial structure, including costs, risk to the nature of public sector and our private sector to support that is required to make this project a reality. We expect that various levels of public sector support will be required, including the GNWT to be able to unlock the benefits of a longterm potential of this Taltson Hydro Expansion. So, again, Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to be able to agree with the Member on this subject, because sometimes we don't always agree on other subjects. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, COVID19 has created much anxiety and this has affected the mental wellness of the population. We're at a crossroads where it is possible to expect court challenges based on the premise that the public health emergency declared does no longer meet the test for "significant risk" and therefore the orders may be fine and reasonable.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Justice confirm his department's participation in reviewing those public health records created due to the current public health emergency to ensure they meet all legal requirements, and how far does that participation go with the Department of Health? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Justice has a division called legal division and that is essentially the GNWT's inhouse law firm, and legal division provides legal advice and services to GNWT departments and entities such as the Office of the chief public health officer. And since the beginning of the pandemic, the legal division has been working with the chief public health officer to provide advice in respect of the drafting of they will suggest wording. There's probably, I'm sure there's been some back and forths to ensure that, you know, the wording is what it should be. With that said, ultimately the final say on what an order says is that of the chief public health officer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister speak to whether or not the department has reviewed the relevant sections of the Public Health Act to determine what constitute and is the legal definition of "significant risk" as it relates to the current COVID19 public health emergency. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in the Public Health Act, a public health emergency is defined as something that presents a significant risk to public health, and determining whether there's a significant risk to public health is the determination of the CPHO. The Department of Justice's lawyers do what they can but ultimately, they are not medical professionals and there's a lot of science involved in determining risk and so ultimately they of course have to defer to the chief public health officer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister speak to whether or not the department's reviewed the relevant section of the Act to determine the legal definition of "reasonable measures" as it relates to the current COVID19 orders. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you can imagine, this has been a focus of the department for over a year now and the Public Health Act has been reviewed, other pieces of the relevant legislation, the everevolving case law, Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So, yes, all of these have been reviewed. And, again, this is similar to the "significant risk," the definition, this determination is made by the chief public health officer.
The department does provide advice on the risks associated with specific measures and orders, that is to say the legal risks. But in terms of the risks and what is reasonable in response to those risks in terms of the public health orders, that is, again, under the authority of the chief public health officer. But Justice does examine those and provide advice and opinion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it appears the risk of COVID19 and variants have subsided due to the introduction of vaccines along with the health safety measures in place. Can the Minister confirm if his department has considered the possibility that a rights infringement court challenge may be forthcoming that seeks to have the court vacate the public health emergency and on all related CPHO orders? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure government lawyers are always worried about court challenges coming and so, yes, they have definitely considered the possibility of a court challenge since day one. You know, this is a very unique situation and no one knew how far orders could go at the beginning. There has been case law around Canada, not necessarily in the territory, that has tackled some of these issues and the department is watching that. But it's always on the radar. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ITI. Can the Minister confirm whether ITI has applied for a reserve on the lease containing the Con dock?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, indeed, ITI has applied to Lands for as a reserve of the Con dock mine area and the purpose being to create a new boat launch and the associated docking facility mentioned with respect to the commercial fishing industry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does part of that, then, also include the fish transfer facility itself, or will that be located elsewhere? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just by way of preface, there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of any kind of design, the final design, which could look a variety of different ways. But in short, the main access, or the main interest area, indeed, is to create a fish collection station so that fishers can offload from the lake and have it shipped down to the, but then, hopefully, constructed plant in Hay River. And as such, this will be one of the associated sites that fishers around the lake can be attending. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so I'm glad to hear that it is about maintaining the public access. I'm going to throw the Minister a little bit of a curve ball here. There isn't a lot of room down at this location and the area adjacent to the dock and the access point for it was a former tank farm, tank fuel facility. So, maybe the Minister will have to get back to me but I'm curious to know if the plan is to expand, then, into the old fuel tank facility area, and if so, is that area remediated? And she can get back to me if she needs to. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's always nice to have a bit of an out, to be able to get back to the House with respect to detailed information. What I can say, Mr. Speaker, at this point is that any of the work that's involving the lake is going to have to involve the Department of DFO for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, small craft harbour specifically. And at this point, what I understand they are looking at is at least three different potential designs and as such that it my understanding of them, not being someone who's designed this type of facility, is that it likely will still be surrounding on the dock area specifically and not into the tank sites. But what I can do is say that once they are ready to have that feasibility study done, that work done, we'll make sure to communicate that with the Members so they can understand what they will entail. And last comment, Mr. Speaker, I understand too that the fact of us seeking this land is actually out for a public consultation right now. So there certainly is more available information with respect to the land that is at issue, and there will be more information available once we are at a further advanced stage. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has provided me with a lot of information. I did hear somewhere in there then it sounds like the dock is actually going to get repaired then. If they were going to put all this facility down and not in the fuel tank area, then that means a large expansion for the dock would be my guess. So I'm very excited for that to come and be part of my constituency. I guess the Minister has mentioned and again I am a little off script here, the Minister's mentioned to me or mentioned that there's public consultation ongoing. Could the Minister commit to providing me with the information where my constituents could then be involved in that? I understand that they are meeting with the City of Yellowknife however I'm not sure if I'm constituents understand, or I understand, how they can feed into that stakeholder engagement. And also, will the Minister commit to coming and having a meeting with residents in that region? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, there have been meetings with the city already, between the city and ITI, and I understand that those discussions have been positive. I understand there is public consultation now, I suspect with the Department of Lands so I'll certainly confer with my colleague and get that information out to be sure we can share it publicly. And then lastly, Mr. Speaker, it would be again with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who would have the final sort of critical role to be playing in terms of the repair work at the Con Mine dock. But indeed have been engaged with us thus far and have recently corresponded to confirm that they'll be working in collaboration with ITI. So, again, we will ensure that that information gets out to. And I would be more than happy to walk down the street and meet with the folks in the riding of Great Slave. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe it was yesterday in the House, the Minister of Justice was talking about integrated service delivery and the goal being to, you know, make government processes designed for the people and not necessarily what is easiest for government. For almost a year now, the Yellowknife department of motor vehicles has not accepted walkin appointments. You have to get an appointment. I've had numerous constituent issues regarding this. So my I believe this is clearly easier for the department to run it that way but not necessarily the public. So my question for the Minister of Infrastructure is when is the Yellowknife DMV going to be reopened for walkins?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Yellowknife DMV office, like all government offices, has an approved exposure control plan in place to be able to protect the staff and the general public. So this plan was was limit the number of clients allowed in the DMV office, are no more than eight at a time. So in order for us to ensure compliance with this exposure plan, the Yellowknife DMV had to implement appointmentonly service and have a security person onsite. The DMV will not be able to reopen to walkins until the COVID19 restrictions are lifted, or even reduced. The chief public health officer we are very hopeful that the updated Emerging Wisely plan document will be able to address this or at least provide us with some timelines so that we could be able to be reopen to the public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I'll save some of my questions for Dr. Kandola when we can reopen the Yellowknife DMV.
During COVID, the DMV was completely closed for a period. But they were actually offered more and more services online and some of the traditional inperson services were being done by email. I guess my question to the Minister of Infrastructure is what is preventing all services from being offered online? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT has a robust online service menu, which includes things like renewing and replacing driver's licences, general ID, book/cancel/reschedule driver exams, renew/print/cancel vehicle registration, commercial truck permits the list goes on. So because of the nature of these some of these services, they cannot be completed online. Transfer of a driver's licence or ID card, obtaining new vehicle registration require inperson verification of documents for the authenticity of the as well, just to be able to identify person requesting this service. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I guess I one day hope that there's a path forward where the Yellowknife DMV can look to do what most capitals across Canada and most, you know, government service officers in other jurisdictions do, which is have a portion of their hours be available, either on evenings or weekends, just for a small few hours for those people who cannot get time off work to make normal 9to5 hours. Is there any possibility of that happening, Mr. Speaker?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have reviewed the possibility of extending hours of the YK issuing office. As the Member mentioned, he's been trying to get this office open evenings and weekends for the past year and he has not had any success with several DMs and several Ministers. Because, and I want to say that there are many different factors considering, including the costs, staff safety, cost of services. Also the UNW Collective Agreement. Opening we did analyze the cost of opening on Saturdays and it was about a $170,000 a year. So these costs would have to be passed on to the clients, resulting in increased fees, and no one wants that. We also would be able to require to have a client program officer in headquarters be able to provide overrides or authorizations as well as require system support from the Department of Finance. The staff at the issuing office have to deal with sometimes irate clients on, you know, perhaps a regular basis, and these clients are usually dealt with by the manager. So that means the manager would have to be onsite after hours as well, so putting additional stress on some of our staff. And, this is very important, the UNW Collective Agreement defines a regular workday as Monday to Friday between 8:30 and 5. And any change to this requirement would mean that the union it would be an agreement with the union and the employer.
So I'm sorry, I mean, I agreed plenty times with the previous MLA but this time, there is no plans to extend the hours of operation at the Yellowknife issuing office. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Costs, irate clients, union barriers, that could have been an answer to pretty much the reason why we can't do anything in this Assembly, Mr. Speaker. I guess I would like to speak to costs.
Right now the DMV is not even open 9 to 5. It closes at 4o'clock or 4:30, depending. Is there a possibility where we actually reduce the weekday hours to be open parttime on weekends? I think we could actually reduce the overall hours, or give some people a window outside of that time, and maybe we can go we have a new Collective Agreement coming out, maybe there's some sort of path to allow flexible hours, you know, for our workers. Is there some sort of path forward where we get around the cost obstacle by changing the hours of the DMV? I'm settled to being closed Monday and open Saturday; whatever is possible here, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member's very adamant to get this office open. He's even willing to settle for less weekday for hours for half a day to be open, thinking it's still not going to cost us money. It's going to cost us money, Mr. Speaker. So however, you know, on a flip side, we are looking at, you know, willing to direct some of the department to look at options perhaps, as a path forward to be able to increase hours during the work week. But any potential solution for this, Mr. Speaker, would be dependent on discussions with the UNW and our employees and the department to see if we can make this work. Little light at the end of the tunnel but not yet. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier. My first question is will the Premier commit to an allofgovernment response to Canada's first national infrastructure assessment engagement called "Building the Canada we want in 2050" and will the Premier commit to sharing the GNWT's submission with standing committee?
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, whenever we do any submissions to Canada for such projects, we try to do an allofgovernment approach. Right now, currently, our departments are reviewing the Canada's engagement paper and will be consolidating and submitting a formal response to that. But I do want to highlight as well, is that's not the only chance that we get.
This government has taken a strong stance in building partnerships, relationships with the federal government. Every chance we get, Mr. Speaker, we are lobbying the federal government to increase our infrastructure, not only the amount of infrastructure but the cost of infrastructure for us. And we will continue that throughout this term. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT's housing deficit, and given that the NWT has a large housing deficit and that housing is a priority of this government, will the Premier commit to highlighting housing within the engagement response to ensure we continue to moving the housing needle in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Housing was identified within our priorities at the beginning of this government. It's always been a priority of mine and many colleagues around the table, how housing was an issue for. I've heard housing over the last year and a half coming from the other side of the House constantly.
The pandemic actually, we had we didn't have enough housing before, and the pandemic brought it to the forefront that we don't have enough and we're moving backwards instead of frontwards. So, yes, absolutely, housing has become a priority for us. It's one of our main priorities. In fact, we're working on it. So not only are we bumping up the staff within the housing departments, one position specifically, to look at the federal engagement and to look at our policies within the housing thing. We've also been working with our federal government. We've earlier this year, the GNWT proposed to the federal government to establish an intergovernmental working group of officials, with Canada, that would bring together all players in housing, including Infrastructure Canada, Innovation Canada, CanNor, Indian and Northern Affairs, Indigenous Services Canada, and CMHC. Now, this is kind of a new thing that we haven't tried before, but I am pleased to report, Mr. Speaker, that Canada is on board and has agreed to doing this working group with us. So we are if we're all at the table and we're meeting with them regularly, I am hopeful that housing will be a priority in the GNWT for the federal government as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
