Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
A couple of weeks ago I tabled redacted meeting summaries from the GNWTChamber of Mines COVID19 Working Group meetings. From the April 28th meeting, ITI states "allowing money from philanthropic organizations from the south is something we will be watching so it doesn't influence land use planning with more protected areas."
Can the Minister tell us which philanthropic organizations are being watched and what kind of monitoring or surveillance is being conducted? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is no surveillance being conducted. Mr. Speaker, I understand that these meeting minutes continue to be a source of great consternation. They are minutes. They are taken by a note taker, they are not transcripts, and they certainly are not something to which I would say speak on my behalf about what the department is or is not doing or the priorities of the department. So just to put that context on the quotes that are coming, again there are notes taken by someone at a meeting.
That said, Mr. Speaker, philanthropic organizations, this quote, this has long been a matter raised by certain members of the industry that we want to ensure that when decisions are being made about land use in the Northwest Territories that those decisions are made by members of the regions in which the matters arise so that they're decisions made by northern residents, by northern communities, by northern governments. And that's really the role of the GNWT here, is not to go spying on anybody but simply to facilitate land use planning by and for the benefit of Northerners. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. In October 2021, Alberta released the report from the $3.5 million Allan inquiry into foreign funded antienergy campaigns that found no evidence of wrongdoing by environmental groups.
Can the Minister tell us whether this government is going to hold a similar public inquiry in terms of watching philanthropic organizations, or does this government actually recognize the value that these organizations can bring to the NWT? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we very fortunately in this government have the LNR departments all working well together. That is Lands, Natural Resources, and Environment all working together. In this particular instance, ENR happens to be the lead in terms of trying to work through a process or governance where we might, if there were to be opportunities to work with large organizations, is to bring funding alternatives on conservation initiatives, then we want to ensure, again, as a collective and as the GNWT and as Northerners, that we'd be doing that within a structure that is for the benefit of Northerners.
So we don't share the concern that I believe was the impetus behind that study and behind that inquiry, that there was some sort of nefarious thing happening. We are quite trusting and quite happy to work with anyone who wants to come and be mindful of the benefits of the northern residence and northern communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for those words. As I understand, the Chamber of Mines has filed for a judicial review of decision by the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board not to issue unlimited extensions to land use permits. And, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to speak to the case in any way, but the meeting summary show that the chamber met with Ministers of this government about their application before it was filed. So can the Minister tell us what happened in those meetings? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I wasn't at the meetings but I was able to make inquiries, and I appreciate a bit of a headsup that these topics might be coming.
The importance or the desire of industry to ensure that they have access to leases that are effective has long been a matter of their advocacy. That said, this is an area where, although I understand CIRNAC on behalf of the federal government might have actually taken the position that leases should be extended, the GNWT has not taken a position. We have remained neutral and we continue to remain neutral, and whatever process might be happening before the courts with other parties, as the Member's already said, is not ours to speak to here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for clarifying that. So I've suggested a couple of times now there are a number of options to bring greater transparency and accountability to these secret meetings.
Can the Minister tell us whether these meetings are consistent with our open government policy and describe how she is going to bring greater transparency and accountability to these secret meetings? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given the multiple times we've now spoken about these meetings, I'm not sure I agree with the characterization of them as being particularly secret in any fashion. And indeed even after the last round of exchanges that the Member and I had on this, the Chamber of Mines themselves put a number of the meeting minutes onto their own website to demonstrate that they too are more than happy to make known the fact that they are working to advance the interests of the industry with the GNWT.
As for the ongoing work there, Mr. Speaker, I certainly took note of the concerns that were raised in the last time that this matter came before the House. The deputy minister and I are looking to have a new set of terms of reference issued. When I have them, I will certainly make them available to the Members so that we are able to, in fact, be clear and focused on the purpose here. And the clear purpose, clear focus, is that this is an anchor area, an anchor section of the economy. It's one that we want to see supported, and we want to work with those with their knowledge of that sector to see where we have mutual areas of interest. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Oral Question 863-19(2):
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Housing Minister who is also the Minister responsible for Youth.
My first question is will the Minister commit to touring Home Base and learning about the work and programs that they're providing firsthand? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. I have met with Home Base recently through zoom. And I have been able to receive a comprehensive understanding of the supports that they provide to the youth. But looking forward into the new year, I will commit to touring the facility with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that commitment to come and take a look at their operations. I think it's always good when you can see things firsthand. Let's keep it on vein of saying yes.
Can the Minister commit to providing Home Base with emergency funding to expand support hours to 24/7 and to keep their shelters open? The reason that this is so crucial right now is the temperatures are dropping, and they do provide a very important service for youth. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To date, the Housing Corporation has supported Home Base with capital funding under our shelter enhancement fund to do minor retrofits to the building. Their operational funding has been provided by Health and Social Services. I understand the emergency shelter funding within the Northwest Territories has been fully subscribed and allocated to all seven current operating shelters across Northwest Territories.
I can ensure the Member and the House that the Housing Corporation is in further discussion with Home Base. After our recent meeting with them to see how the Housing Corporation can work with them, and the Housing Corporation will invite other social program departments to participate in these discussions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister's answers sort of speak to my next question as well.
Can the Minister commit to assisting or working with her colleagues to look for core funding for the Home Base program so that we can keep youth from not experiencing homelessness as well as ease the burden on social services? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand that there is a need and importance of the service they provide. We are currently in conversations with other social development departments after our mutual role and responsibilities when it comes to funding and supporting the various shelters and accommodation supports across Northwest Territories. The support provided to youth is one of the specific target groups. We are also in conversation with Canada and to access programs like the federal Reaching Home initiative to support programs and facilities within the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm glad to hear the Minister speak about working with other departments. I think that the way that youth are being dealt with definitely crosses multiple departments so we do need to keep breaking down those silos.
My last question is will the Minister commit to touring other buildings in my district, such as Norseman Manor and Simpson House, to see where we are placing the vulnerable youth and committing to developing an action plan to end youth homelessness? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department does have a working group with the various lessees that we hold in Yellowknife. And also I will be making sure and commit that we reflect the youth homelessness needs in our homelessness strategy that will be tabled in early 2022. 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 Minister for Education, Culture and Employment.
My first question is what is the challenge to making the NWT Arts Strategy arm's length and why was this not initially just put into the art strategy as a deliverable? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The type of arts council structure that the Member's speaking about, they are usually born out of a grassroots organization, a group of artists that get together and has a vision, has a plan, and it's an organization that then can be supported.
There is currently no organization in the territory that has that ability at this point. There's a number of different organizations, and maybe if they all combine their power, that might be an organization that we might be able to support. But that's just not the case. These are generally grassroots organizations. And while the GNWT has been asked to start a grassroots organization that could turn into an arts council, but that's just not the way things work. So is one of the impediments.
The other impediment is the fact that the O and M for such an organization would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that is the money that currently goes directly to artists. So we would have to take that from artists, put it towards office space, executive director, travel, all of those types of things. So those are a couple of the impediments. I'll just leave it at that for now. I know the Member has more questions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's another way that we can do this. We could drive it from the GNWT outwards. It doesn't have to be, you know, continuing on with the whole notion and the age-old anecdote of the "starving artist." We can actually prop our artists up, give them an opportunity to bring in huge amounts of dollars into the territory, and go at it from a GNWT perspective, which I think is what a lot of people are asking for given the GNWT already does have a program that supports artists, and we want to be able to see that organization grow.
And so I'm wondering how long will it take the GNWT to complete "the action," explore the creation of an NWT arts association, and what are the measurable deliverables that the Minister sees coming out of that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work has begun under the arts strategy to look at the programs, look at how we fund different organizations, and that is the work to determine whether or not something like an arts council would be the way to go.
We provide more funding for the arts and culture in the Northwest Territories than any other jurisdiction in Canada per capita outside of the Yukon. So it's not like we are not providing these supports. But we also provide we spend twice as much on education per capita as the rest of Canada, three times as much on policing. I don't know how much more on health. So there's not unlimited money to go around and get everything we want. And I've had conversations with the Member recently that, you know, we need to really look at what we want to keep, never mind what we want to add. So there are very real budget discussions that we need to have about how we spend our money, and we are doing the work right now to inform those discussions. I don't want to commit half a million dollars to support an organization without some real solid grounds to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I agree with the Minister, the GNWT cannot continue to grow its budget and expand its wallet a whole heck of a lot more than it already is doing. And this is what this organization would do, it would give the artists of the Northwest Territories an opportunity to bring in private and federal public dollars so that we can grow this wallet, so to speak, of NWT artists. And so I'm wondering how the GNWT intends to support northern artists to fulfill this work of the deliverable from the strategy to explore the creation of an NWT arts association. How is ECE going to include artists in this conversation to help propel it forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There will be engagement that's going to happen to get that feedback from artists, and that's going to begin likely early in the new year. So we are going to engage, and we're going to talk to them, and we're going to listen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I could well, a lot of my colleagues could probably attest to the fact that I'm slightly hard of hearing, but I'm pretty sure I heard a sigh from a lot of artists of the Northwest Territories on that one.
Before I was even elected, before any of us were elected into the 19th Assembly, ITI and ECE did engage with artists across the Northwest Territories. They invested a lot of time and a lot of effort, and it was very well received from the artists of the Northwest Territories. And so I think people would be frustrated in order to go back and say the same things: We want independence. We want infrastructure. We want core funding. These are a lot of the things that we hear. We heard from the Member from Yellowknife North say the same thing. And so I'm wondering from the Minister, then, what will be different this time? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, what the Member's talking about, it might be, I'm not going to infer too much, but I think the engagement on the arts strategy, and she's right, what we heard, we want more funding, more infrastructure, more of basically everything. And the fact is that we can't build a plan based on just more of everything. So we need to go out and say this is what we have now. These are the pots of money that we have. This is how we fund artists. Is this working? Is this pot of money working? And then from there we determine perhaps we can put money elsewhere, and it might be in an arts organization, to help us access third party funding. But we need something a little more structured, a little less high level. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. These questions are for the Premier. They are easy ones.
Laughter
Can the Premier confirm the hours and what days the border crossing on Highway No. 7 is open?
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, I thought that was going to be easy but it's not quite as easy as I thought. I'd have to get back to the Member and find out the exact hours of operation, because we have three border crossings so I'm not a hundred percent sure. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know you can leave any time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know there's limited hours at that crossing. So when can we see those or when can we expect that the hours would be increased so that they're open you know, it's opened seven days a week for however many hours a day? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The determination of when borders open and when we'll need enforcement is a determination made by the CPHO. However, I can say that the CPHO has been vocal in saying that we're suspecting that by spring that we will be calling off the public health emergency and if do that, then there will be no border patrols. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now for the million dollar question. We have businesses in the southern NWT working further north, and they're travelling back and forth in, you know, through BC or the Yukon and working up north and then coming back. And they're finding it costly to go through Grande Prairie and come around. And you know, they have an idea of when they're leaving the they know when they're leaving the North to come back this way, and they would like to have access to that border to come through, through back into either whether it's Hay River, Yellowknife, or Simpson. So I'm wondering if there's any way that those hours or they can be accommodated and supported so they don't have to make that extra trip and live with those extra costs? And some of them even said, you know, if there was a little cost to have the person go out there and open the gate, they'd be willing to pay for it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know that the community was very concerned about COVID, and so I do know that once we reach a certain population that we opened it up a little bit more. But people businesses do have to reach out and let us know when they're coming. So we're trying to work with them as much as possible but we're also trying to make sure that communities are safe. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during the winters you'll usually see work on the pipelines, and I'm not sure if there's going to be any work this winter but I suspect there will be, and there's equipment, you know, coming in from the South and, you know, some of it comes around through Highway No. 1 while other equipment and goods come through Highway No. 7. So has Premier has the department I guess, or the secretariat, looked at how they could support that by, you know, extending those hours at that border crossing when there's a large movement of traffic coming north? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, the border open was specifically made to address the needs of truckers coming into the communities, needing to drop off supplies, etcetera. So that's been taken into account. Most of the trucking companies, speaking of almost two years, are well aware of the times of operation. If there's anyone that is not, they are required if they're an occasional user, they are required to file a selfisolation plan and therefore hopefully will identify what they need and we can get back to them on that. But if anyone has issues and can't access it and can't get information, let me know because we're here to help. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For Minister of Education.
Since 2018, how many Northerners graduated from Aurora College specifically in nursing, teacher, and social work program?
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I try to stay up on my files but I don't have that level of specific information for the Member right now; I apologize. Thank you.
