Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to actually thank the department and the Hay River Health Authority for having people available right off the start to talk to people, because what I found is that, you know, a lot of the people that were impacted, they needed, you know, somebody to hear their story. So I'd like to thank the department for that, and the Hay River Health Authority.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister confirm how long we can except to have counsellors on the ground in Hay River to support those victims requiring mental health supports due to the flooding? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that long list of health and addictions counsellors and wellness workers and so on, these are permanent staff in Hay River. And so they are there indefinitely. The additional resources really depend on the demand. So we are expecting there could be a surge in demand tomorrow after the or Friday, pardon me, after the community debriefings.
At this point, we haven't had an overwhelming response to our offer. But the resources are in place, and we encourage people who need them to use them. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Housing NWT.
Earlier this week, the Minister made a comment to my colleague from Inuvik Twin Lakes that the strategy as it is right now does not come with any dollars for the homelessness strategy, sorry, Mr. Speaker. So I'm wondering will the homelessness strategy end up coming with dollars once it is tabled, or will it at least be costed? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Homelessness.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of today, the Housing is working with the social development deputy's table which consists of Health, ECE, MACA, and EIA, to come forward with a plan that can be actioned that identifies the resources required for implementation.
Part of the delay is bringing forward a final document that desires the social departments to bring forward an approach that can be resourced and be successful with its implementation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, across Canada unique barriers exist for 2SLGBTQIAPPA+ youth accessing shelter systems. One in three transgender individuals are rejected from shelters for their gender identities and gender expression. So was, or is, the Northern Mosaic Network included as a vital stakeholder in drafting this strategy to provide homelessness solutions for our territory? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today much of the work has been done internally within the GNWT. The intention of Housing NWT has been that the action plan would provide an opportunity for input on the strategy once tabled but also that it would include actions that could be put in place immediately while some of those border conversations take place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering if it's intended to be a fluid document that can be looked at and feedback provided and then changed? Why has Housing NWT, after nearly four years of committing to this strategy, not provided it to the Standing Committee on Social Development for review and input? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And in speaking with my department, this became a very complex document that identifies several different areas that involves several different departments as well too. So bringing it back, we're looking at bringing it to standing committee, I want to say, in the fall of this year. And I need to see movement on this document as well too. But once again, once the document is implemented, we need to find resources to making sure that we continue with the implementation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the saying "perfect is the enemy of good" comes to mind here. And sometimes you got to let something go and let people have a look at it in order to get some feedback and let it fly because right now, as of today, Members in this House have requested the homelessness strategy 65 times since September of 2018 when it was first committed to in the 18th Assembly. And it is getting frustrated at this point, and I understand that it's very important. But if it sits in Housing NWT, it will never get actioned. And so I guess I'm asking the Minister now, have any of the resulted feedback or information gained by working on this strategy for the last four years resulted in any kind of housing policy changes on the frontline of Housing NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, there hasn't been any policy changes at this point as a result of the strategy. The work with all social department partners is to ensure that we have an allofgovernment approach and to try to avoid any unintended consequences resulting from the strategy. And I do hear the Member that this document is taking quite some time, and I want to commit that we would be able to present this document in the fall of this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated in my Member's statement, my questions are for the Minister of Finance, which human resources falls under.
Does the GNWT have a document to educate hiring staff on how to measure education equivalencies? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly anyone that is involved in hiring does have opportunity to access training through the Department of Finance. There are information packages online that can describe some of this, and the Department of Finance is often, if not always, involved during a recruitment and retention process so that they can also provide some strategic advice on how to do the evaluation equivalencies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister for their response but I've been in hiring process through the education boards, I've been in Health, in other areas, hiring teachers, nurses, you know, and every HR person that I received information of gave me a different way to do it.
So there isn't one strategic way or document that everybody does it equivalently through the Northwest Territories. I just wanted to put that on the record.
Does the GNWT currently use lived experience and cultural experience into equivalencies and if not, will the Minister direct her department to find a way to do this equally across the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is one of the commitments that is under the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework. And I certainly recognize that the passion is being brought to it for exactly this reason, that there does need to be, you know, a better way of doing this to achieve the goals that we have of having more inclusive public service. So it's included already in that action plan.
There is the new job description guide. I ought to have mentioned it in the last response.
The job description guide is meant to be a place where there can be more cohesive approach to how, in fact, job descriptions are being done and where evaluation of the combinations of education and experience can be considered and some guidance, indeed, on how to achieve that through job descriptions now, again, utilizing that guide in the context of the framework. So once that is now underway, Mr. Speaker, that will be part of the commitments that we've made in that framework and hopefully we'll see success in that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and the Minister's answer, thank you for that. And it leads kind of right into my next question.
Is the GNWT reviewing all job descriptions to remove barriers and add cultural and lived experience to be measured when a job evaluation is scoring how they rate the pay? This is something that must be valued in our territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's Action 1.1 of the framework where it speaks to the importance of the job descriptions and, specifically, that all departments and agencies are now expected to conduct a detailed review of all job descriptions specifically with keeping in mind systemic barriers that may exist. And the point is to precisely do that, to remove those systemic barriers.
Every department and agency is responsible for their job descriptions. They certainly can seek strategic advice from human resources. But that is the individual requirements for each department, knowing themselves some of the particularities of those jobs.
But of note, in terms of when we're going to get there and how they're going to do that, we are now all collectively expected to be reporting annually on the completion of those tasks, including job description reviews. And performance measures for the framework includes having job descriptions reviewed over the next two to three years so that we get through, indeed, all of them just as is being asked. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister. And I'm glad that you added at the end that there is kind of a timeline that these need to be done so we're not sitting here and some of our pages are the MLAs at the time asking the same question 20 or 10 years from now.
Will the Minister commit to creating these documents, like I had mentioned in my first two questions, for hiring staff to measure education equivalencies and cultural and lived experiences into equivalencies, and will the Minister commit to releasing these documents for the public and hiring managers and any staff that are involved in hiring on their websites to be more transparent and to commit that ensuring that HR ensures the departments are reviewing all their job descriptions. And you said that already so I thank the Minister for that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is one resource that I would certainly encourage prospective applicants to take a look at. It is on the website. It's GNWT hiring Q and A. It describes some of the information about who's on a hiring committee, what equivalencies what kinds of equivalencies might be considered, how that's defined. But it does not go through job by job providing individual equivalencies.
I had the opportunity to speak with the Member before sitting today. I understand, we don't want people to selfscreen. We don't want people to think that they won't meet an equivalency and not even apply. That doesn't benefit the process. It doesn't benefit the public service. You know, the ideal is to have folks coming forward because they think they have the right equivalencies and then we can go through that process of the hiring process.
That said, Mr. Speaker, I can certainly go back and see if we can get a bit more information on to this Q and A so that people have a sense of where they stand and so that they aren't screening themselves out and they are applying to jobs to which they had a proper equivalency. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Education assure me, and the constituents of Thebacha, that Fort Smith is still the intended location for the main campus and headquarters of the future polytechnic university? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since the time that our Premier was the Minister of Education, the messaging has been that the idea of a main campus is outdated. We have three campuses, and we have a number of community learning centres that all form one organization.
That being said, there is no plan to move the administrative headquarters from Fort Smith to Yellowknife. I think that some people perhaps, you know, saw that there was something happening with the campus in Yellowknife and assumed that everything was getting sucked into the capital. That is not the case. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please provide some clarity regarding the meeting that took place on May 30th at city hall of Yellowknife about the polytechnic university. What is the intended purpose of that meeting? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The City of Yellowknife, ECE, and Aurora College have been working together to, you know, identify a site for the future polytechnic university campus in Yellowknife.
If anyone is familiar with the current campus in Yellowknife, you would know that it is small. It's cramped. It is in a location that is inconvenient for many people. There's limited parking. And there's no possibility for growth there. And so there is a need for a new campus in Yellowknife. That has been, you know, discussed many times here. And there's also need for new infrastructure in the other campus communities of Inuvik and Fort Smith as well.
The meeting that took place with the City of Yellowknife was to discuss the MOU between the City of Yellowknife, Aurora College, and ECE regarding the Tin Can Hill site as a potential future site for that campus and just to discuss how everyone can work together to work through the process to transferring that property. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to have ECE and Aurora College staff meet with the mayor and council of Fort Smith to have a similar meeting, as they did with the Yellowknife city council, to discuss plans for the future polytechnic university. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A similar meeting isn't necessary because it's not a similar situation in Fort Smith. That being said, I was on the phone with the mayor of Fort Smith and a number of councillors on Friday discussing this very issue. I wanted to give them assurances that this was not a situation that, you know, some people are now assuming that it is, that there is going to be a single campus in Yellowknife or Yellowknife is absorbing all of the campuses or anything like that. I wanted to let them know that this was part of the ongoing process of developing a facilities master plan that will guide infrastructure investments in the polytechnic university for decades to come. And in order to do that, we need to have sites identified as well as the needs of the polytechnic and the students identified. But that being said, if the mayor and council want to meet and have a discussion, I'm happy to do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to provide this House with an updated status on the polytechnic university at its earliest possible time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I gave an update last week with one of my Minister's statements, and I'm always happy to discuss this exciting project. So yes, I will provide an update to the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I've raised the issue of our failure to prevent liabilities at Mactung, and Cantung, and our inability to sell the Mactung property at least 11 times since I've been an MLA. I can't quite match the 65 times raised by my colleague here. But can the Minister tell us how she can improve communications with MLAs and the public on what is happening with this mining property? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect to any sort of sale program or process that may be underway, it would not be unusual for that to involve confidential discussions. And if that's the case, it's very difficult, if not impossible, considering legal obligations, to be displaying that out publicly.
That said, Mr. Speaker, we are a consensus government and there's been a lot of work done in this Assembly in terms of understanding better how to communicate between Ministers and MLAs when it comes to the development of legislation and the development of regulations, and perhaps there's an opportunity to here to consider what other processes we might have in place to improve communications on confidential items.
We've seen some other communication improvements in that regard here and so this may well be one of those opportunities to look here and see what might be done in the future, to find avenues by which we with communicate information that may be quite sensitive and have legal requirements or obligations attached to it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I'm happy to talk with her more about that and get more information about Mactung in a timely manner.
The GNWT decided to try to market the Mactung property with the Cantung mine site with the federal government but all attempts seemed to have failed. Can the Minister explain what is going on with proposed sale of the Mactung property and when the taxpayers of the NWT can expect to recover their investment? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a joint decision made, quite some time ago now, between GNWT and Canada to attempt to market those two properties, Cantung and Mactung together. And that effort was underway to have a joint effort and a joint RFP out seeking to seek prequalified proposals. I believe that is the item that the Member was mentioning earlier with respect to the publication on the Supreme Court of British Columbia's court filing with respect to that not having yielded any positive results. But there do continue to be discussions by the GNWT, and we are stay remaining hopeful that ultimately a sale will be concluded. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I'm actually getting more information out of the Cabin Radio story than I guess what I've heard so for about what the process is going to be, but.
These Mactung and Cantung properties are 140 kilometres away from each other by air and 700 kilometres by road. It was always extremely unlikely that some buyer would ever take these on as some sort of a viable mining operation without significant concessions and subsidies.
So can the Minister tell us what incentives, concessions, or subsidies will be offered to sell the Mactung property this time around? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've had it described to me that when the decision was made, before my time here, to purchase the property, that it was thought to, in fact, be a good maneuver and, indeed, that it would in fact not have difficulty being sold. So regardless of that, at this point I will still note, Mr. Speaker, that the two properties, although being 140 kilometres apart, were jointly owned previously. They remain high grade Tungsten properties. Geopolitical events and the critical minerals and metals discussions suggest that there may well be a good opportunity right now for these particular properties.
There are no subsidies being offered, concessions, or incentives. There is, of course, the mineral incentive policy that we have that applies for anyone who might be seeking to apply in order for some supports when they go out to do exploration. But as far as the sale and the RFP process, that is not subject to subsidies, concessions, or incentives. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that.
In my view, the Cantung and Mactung saga is another example of postdevolution mismanagement of our resources. When I asked the Minister for lessons learned last time, she spoke about hope for a solid proponent to take over the property. I'm going to try the question again, perhaps a little bit differently.
Can the Minister explain what lessons have been learned about financial security and public liabilities from the Cantung and Mactung saga? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, we are characterizing the events differently. I wouldn't characterize it as a saga nor would I say that the story has ended or is closed. As I had mentioned at the beginning, there are still confidential discussions underway. I am still hopeful to have a positive update here at the end that might close out the chapter. And at that point whether there are lessons to be learned in one direction or another, that would be the time to do that consideration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
