Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, this engagement is about transforming of technologies and thinking outside the box for what we want our communities to look like here in the Northwest Territories. How will the Premier ensure that departments integrate their approach to infrastructure? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, all departments get together, and we talk about our infrastructure needs. When we put in the request to Canada, it's various. It's not only on ideas like this, such as the public engagement on the national infrastructure assessment. We meet with them. In fact, through COVID we're meeting with them every two weeks, usually, with the Prime Minister and all Premiers. At those tables, we talk about the deficits and the infrastructure needs. We search every Minister here works on their infrastructure needs with the appropriate Ministers. I carry those forward at the Premier's table. And we also look at ideas of when the federal budget just came out. We become as flexible as we can. We look at our needs and we look at their mandates, and we try to make them work together. So that's Canada has a win and the NWT has a win. And that's what partnerships is and that's about being flexible, and you need to be flexible when you're working in anywhere. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, the honourable Premier. Oral questions. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, case studies show that on the failures of infrastructure strategies, the focus is on governance and regulatory regimes that don't keep pace with technical and social capacity or our needs. One example of that, Mr. Speaker, here in the Northwest Territories, is we can say we're sitting at all these table and that we're partnering together and we're really working forward or moving forward in order to make change, but then we can't make policy changes at the basic levels of our departments to make people work together and make our policies work for the people of the Northwest Territories. So I'm wondering how does the Premier intend to respond to transformative technologies with modern governance structures that allow us to evolve to the North we want to be? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not aware of the case studies that the Member is speaking of so I can't really speak on those studies per se. But what I can say, Mr. Speaker, is that the GNWT has learned very quickly to be very flexible in technologies. Climate change's impacting the North more than any other jurisdiction in the world. So with climate change, we're looking at all of our infrastructure, our oil fields, our housing projects, everything. And we bring those forward to the federal government at all asks, so. So we need to be flexible, Mr. Speaker. And we need to be aware of the impacts and the technologies that will help us to deal with the impacts. We've been doing that for many years because of climate change and we will continue to do it as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Health explain to my constituents what does "significant risk" mean to her department? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this term is not defined in the legislation. And it is the judgment of the chief public health officer about what "significant risk" is. She is a medical doctor who uses resources from the public health community to determine significant risk, and she advises myself and others about what that risk is and how to mitigate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister explain to my constituents what does "reasonable measures" mean to her department? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm getting a workingover as a nondoctor/nonlawyer. So reasonable measures are those measures, as I understand it, that will mitigate the risk of disease and other unwanted outcomes of a public health emergency. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm the basis for her decision to continually extend the public health emergency as it relates to COVID? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, public health is about balancing the public health emergency and the risk to the public with the mitigation measures that reduce that risk. That is something that is an ongoing process. It's a judgment. It's based on science but ultimately the chief public health officer has to try to strike that balance. And I heard my colleague, the Minister of Justice, say that they were involved in looking at that as well. What I recognize from my inbox today, and most days recently, is that people are not satisfied with that balance any longer. They feel that the mitigation measures are too harsh for the risks that are posed now by COVID, especially given the increased vaccination rate. And that's the reason that we are revising Emerging Wisely, or the CPHO is revising Emerging Wisely. We recognize that things have changed and we need to catch up. And so by this time next week, that document will be public and everyone will see how we've addressed that. And no doubt, my inbox will fill up again. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm if her department, with respect to the public health emergency and orders, is to only provide a rubber stamp with no discussion with yes, when the CPHO provides her direction? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the decision to renew is the chief public health officer's to provide, and I sign off on it. So the thing is that advises me about what she thinks is necessary and then I agreed up to this point. I guess at some point I could disagree. But the point here is that the chief public health officer has sweeping power under the Public Health Act to evaluate things like risk and reasonable measures and to decide on what kind of public health orders would address those, and so the public health emergency comes out of that. And I am keen to see the public health emergency retired, and that is something that I hope that Emerging Wisely will point us in the direction of so that we no longer have these states of emergency in place that continue month in and month out. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker I thought you forgot me. Or are you just favoring my colleague there?
Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, you know, this a long ongoing issue. This is something that I talked about even in my campaign. You know, this is not something that's new with the difference between locum nurses and indeterminate nurses and the unfairness and how it creates this unhealthy workplace. You know, when working with the people and you're having to have each other's back, you know, and you get frustrated. So I think one of the first questions I have is will the Minister commit to having an NTHSSA hire an independent party to hear from the nurses who are indeterminate, locum, do exit interviews with all health care staff, make that mandatory, and to report back to the staff that have put that information forward and to the NTHSSA on the findings and then make it public so that this House and everyone else can hear it? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes that she is in fact unforgettable. And I do appreciate her advocacy always about nurses. And I'm alive to the issues around job satisfaction. They've been reported to me personally and reported publicly that there is dissatisfaction within the NTHSSA, and some places, about working conditions, compensation, and so on and so forth.
I am very interested in hearing from the nurses. I can say that it is easier to retain a nurse than to find a nurse and get him or her to move here and take that job. We have an overall vacancy rate in the NTHSSA of about 17 percent. So anyone that we can keep rather than see out the door, this is a victory all around.
So we have been trying, in fact, that work in our mandate by saying that we would take measures to recruit and retrain resident health care professionals in the time of this Assembly. So I am going to commit to working with the department to gather the input of the nurses and to find out what we can do to understand why they do leave and whether there are things that we can do that would make their job satisfaction better. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. I believe she was talking about me. Sorry, I messed up on my list so I'll put you on the top tomorrow. Top of the list, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And yes, I was talking about you; that's okay.
So will the Minister also commit to, if we're going to do this kind of work and she's going to talk to her department and hopefully that, you know the thing like I said in my statement, you know, you're not going to bite the hand that feeds you or, you know, and so some nurses fear because, you know, when you live in a smaller community or you're working with a tight group of people, you're all friends, you know. And I managed the nursing units in Inuvik, and they were my friends. They were my colleagues, they were my staff, so, how do you come forward and really say what you want to say when you can't do it anonymously? So I think that is one of the things that I would like a commitment, if they could come forward and do this anonymously so that their words can get on record as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand the point that the Member is making, and I can commit that information collected will be reported in a way that can't be attributed to any individual. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for that to the Minister. I think the nurses in the territory will be happy to be able to provide input into this. And I feel like this is something that should happen sooner than later. When we come back after this session, it will be starting our third we'll be going into our third year, right? Yeah, second, yeah, third or yeah, we've got two years done. Wow, the pandemic has gotten to my brain. So we are going into our third year. So I would like this work to be done sooner than later, if possible, so that way we can actually try to meet that priority in this government. So will the Minister commit to that? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a new idea that the MLA is presenting today so I can't really commit to how long will it take to make it operational and to provide the results to her. But I have committed to looking at some of the ideas that she raised that are, it seems to me, quite simple to implement things like exit interviews and job satisfaction surveys and so on. So I will do my best to provide this information as soon as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the last commitments that I would ask the Minister of is if her department has been working with RNANTNU to see where these if these concerns have been raised with them within, you know and how the department can work with RNANTNU to possibly get a lot of the information that's coming forward. And if that's just another commitment that I'd like to ask for today. Thank you.
Yes, thank you. The NTHSSA has a territorial nursing council and they meet regularly with the Registered Nurses Association and they seek their advice on all kinds of issues, including recruitment and retention. And, you know, if we're going to develop ways in which to survey nurses about job satisfaction, we would certainly turn to them and ask their advice on that. I want to say as well that nurses are unionized. They belong to the UNW. And they also have the option of pursuing their issues through the Union of Northern Workers and we have a regular working group with the Union of Northern Workers where we where we hear the concerns that are brought forward and try to resolve them. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I've been talking to a few constituents over the last few weeks and sitting at home, we've been really having an increase in cancer, stage 4. I hear a lot of stage 4 cancer in my constituents. I have people that are you know, that need a little bit of help here.
Mr. Speaker, I'm asking the Minister if she could start doing again, I guess prescreening of cancer patients in the riding across the NWT if she can for, you know, colorectal cancer, any kind of cancer, that's higher rates in our territory. If that's possible to start providing, I guess, checkup, checkups prior to being told they have stage 4 cancer. Our constituents need help, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine a worse situation than being told that you have stage 4 cancer. And that's certainly something we want to avoid at all costs. Screening is something we could do. We could certainly do more of it. We've tried new approaches, specifically with colorectal cancer. There's a FIT test, that's an acronym, and it's a selfadministered test, and we've sent FIT tests out throughout the Beaufort Delta where there's a high incidence of colorectal cancer. And we have pretty good uptake on that. It's a very preliminary screening tool. There could be a more sophisticated screening done. And we recognize the cancer rates in the NWT are high in some areas, that colorectal is one area where screening is very important. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, if we could get I guess work together with the Minister's office to start getting prescreening for my constituents across Nunakput. She said that, you know, it's colorectal cancer. Lung cancer's most common diagnosed in women and long cancer,we just need a little bit of help because our whole region, the Beaufort Delta, people are, someone in someone's family's fighting cancer, and they need a little bit of help. So Mr. Speaker, I just wanted, you know, a commitment from my Minister to make sure that we could make a path forward to get prescreening tests done sooner rather than later. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have information to hand about how prescreening is decided now in Nunakput. But I'm certainly willing to ask questions and understand how it's done and to see whether there are ways in which we can make it more widely available and get back to the Member for Nunakput. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's why, Mr. Speaker, I brought up my Member's statement this last week in regards to travel for medical, medical travel. And this is a part of it. So somebody misses this is a chain effect. And, you know, if we could stop that, it would be good. I know our staff works hard, her staff works hard in regards to making sure that people are getting out there and getting served, but there's got to be a way that we could work towards it again to make prescreening, because we're losing a lot of people, a lot of good people that shouldn't be. It shouldn't be having to take that stage 4, you know. Again yesterday, I just lost a friend, stage 4 cancer. And it really hurts. And when you're seeing it like that and when we can try to make a difference, Mr. Speaker, we should try to make a path forward. Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sorry to hear about the Member's friend. Unfortunately all of us know people who have cancer or have had cancer and have lost people we love to it. It is very difficult.
I'm interested in screening because it is a means of preventing further interventions by the health system. It's better quality of life for the patients themselves, and it's just better overall if we can provide prevention in the form of prescreening rather than addressing problems when they get to such a severe stage. So that is something that I'm personally very interested in, and I'm willing to take up with respect to the Member's questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. February for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I have further questions for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment on the GNWTChamber of Mines COVID19 working group. Can the Minister tell us whether there's a terms of reference for this group and if so, could she table that in the House tomorrow? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly there's some parameters around what the goals of the group would be, and I will make sure that we have something that I can bring forward to explain the goal and intent of the group. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I thank the Minister for that and I look forward to the information being tabled in the House tomorrow. But I can tell the Minister I've reviewed the meeting summaries very closely, and there's things being discussed in there, including a workshop on the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, the Geoscience Forum, the Fraser Institute rankings of jurisdictions, the Chamber of MinesCity of Yellowknife Memorandum of Understanding, and many more items. So can the Minister tell me how these matters relate to economic recovery for the mining sector? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I managed to write down two of the items that were listed. With respect to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board workshop, there was a workshop that was held; I believe it was hosted by the land and water boards and it was attended by, if I recall correctly, a hundred or a 150 different representatives from governments, from industry, so, you know, I am not particularly surprised that they'd be talking about that since both parties would have been in attendance at that.
With respect to the Fraser Institute, that's an annual report that's put out. Some say, you know, again, say what you will about whether or not it is an accurate representation of our industry or perhaps we're doing better than they're saying that they are. The point is, it's an industry publication that is looked at by the industry. And, again, in general, we haven't always done or fared as well as I would like to see us do.
Again, not surprising that we would want to look to the members of the industry who respond to that and say 'what can we do to be better' so that we can rank more highly. And, again, Mr. Speaker, there was a number of items listed there. The point of these meetings, at the core, was to find areas of common ground. They are not entirely overlapping. There are going to be things that the Chamber of Mines raises that the government can say, thank you, we will take that away. And there are going to be items that may be an interest to the government to pursue that the Chamber of Mines say, go ahead, do as you will. But that is the nature of tension between industry organizations and government that exists, whether I'm in the tourism sector, the agriculture sector, the fisheries sector, the film sector. It's a healthy tension, and it has too be there. So we should always, in my view, be having these conversations with the industry that we represent or that we work for, to grow the economy. We don't we are not run by them but the conversations need to be had.
So I'm happy to go through the other items on that list and ensure that in fact the conversations are clear, that the you know, the position of the government is made clear and, you know, can do that, whether that's one by one now or whether that's later with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that commitment to ensure that the scope of these meetings is confined to its original purpose. It appears as though, and I want to draw the attention of the Minister to one particular meeting that was held on November 4th, 2020, and there was a discussion there of the mineral tenure relief package. And that certainly does have something to do with economic recovery. Information, though, shared appears to have included considerations and the decisions made by the Financial Management Board and Cabinet. Regular MLAs, we were not provided an opportunity for input into the relief package. Can the Minister explain whether the Chamber of Mines was provided with information on how the FMB and/or Cabinet made its decisions on this relief and how that relates to Cabinet confidence? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have only scanned notes in front of me, but I am confident that nothing that is confidential would have been shared. The meeting minutes simply are indicating that, in fact, although there were ongoing requests as to whether or not the mineral relief would be extended, this is of course just several months in, wondering what would be happening for the next year, the statement simply is that it has to go through Cabinet and FMB before such a decision is made. That is an appropriate response. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the business advisory council certainly, once they got going, were meeting very regularly; I think at one point weekly with representatives of the Department of ITI. But before the BAC, or the Business Advisory Council even existed, this group was put together as a working group to start to talk about economic recovery at the tail end of the closure there was still Ekati I think was still closed at the time. It was clear that there was going to be a tremendous economic recovery. There was great fear and uncertainly and so this group came together and said what can we start to do right now, and they've continued to have regular meetings.
As far as others, and setting the Business Advisory Council for the moment, I believe there are regular, if not weekly or biweekly meetings with NWT tourism. That is another major sector that we have regular meetings with. And it's actually been my request that we start to have more regular meetings with the representatives of the fisheries sector given the momentum that's behind the revitalization of the fishing industry.
So, you know, again, Mr. Speaker, this is a sector that represents a third of our GDP. They are certainly spending more time at developing a recovery plan because of the impact that it has on the economy but that is by no means exclusive, and it certainly would be my hope that as we make the decisions about economic growth and about economic recovery, we are doing so in a way that is responsive to what is happening on the ground in the industry and in the business community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
