Merci, Monsieur le President. Of course it's question period; we don't actually expect to get answers here but, you know, I asked whether there had been any assessment of other conservation values. The Minister didn't respond. There are authorities and plans in the reindeer reserve area, including the Gwich'in land use plan and Inuvialuit community conservation plans.
Can the Minister tell us whether the reductions in the land withdrawal are in compliance and consistent with these plans and whether the Gwich'in Land Use Planning Board and the Inuvialuit Joint Secretariat were consulted? Merci, Mr. Speaker. And I did give the Minister the questions ahead of time. Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank the Member for giving the questions ahead of time. Sometimes he doesn't like our answers, but we are giving him the answers, so.
The GNWT recognized the land withdrawal order overlapped with some Inuvialuit community conservation plans and some special management zones in the Gwich'in land use plan. As mentioned, ENR worked with lands to engage with the Gwich'in, Inuvialuit land claims organizations and the wildlife comanagement boards to consider a size reduction to the reserve. This engagement included Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Inuvialuit Joint Secretariat, Inuvialuit Game Council, YMAC, Gwich'in Tribal Council, and the Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board. 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. Of course they didn't talk to the Gwich'in Land Use Planning Board, but that's okay.
Now that the land withdrawal has been significantly reduced, our government appears to have completed the work of the Conservatives in 2014 to open up this area for oil and gas. So can the Minister tell us when these areas slashed from the land withdrawal will be made available for oil and gas development and calls for expression of interest? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That wasn't our intention. I don't know if oil and gas wants it there. He has an article from 2014. The Liberal government is in power right now in Ottawa so I don't know what's going on there. So, Mr. Speaker, the land withdrawal change was completed in September of 2022. This means previous withdrawal land was returned available public lands. So it's public land. If people wish to use it for healing camps, cabins, tourism opportunities, that is available. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Order. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the need to maintain safe passage for marine vessels is not limited to Hay River but along the Mackenzie River as well, and it's all the more need to address this issue as soon as possible.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Infrastructure confirm the status of the bathymetrics survey completed last fall on the channel and harbour in Hay River? And I do appreciate the fact that she actually had her department do that which is a lot more, I think, than past Ministers have done. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I'll take that compliment when and where I can. We didn't forget. You know, we have bathymetric survey data from the coast guard in the fall for the navigable water of the channel. We also implemented this with our own data, as the Member is aware that we had some work done in Hay River. As well, Infrastructure has worked with many departments such as ENR, Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, MTS, and other people. So we are doing this engagement so that we can better understand the potential implications to the navigation.
I want to say that as a result of this, we have established volumes and locations of the sediment that is required removal. So there is approximately 200,000 cubic metres in total that needs to be looked at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that answer. Can the Minister tell me what the status is on the development of a business case to access federal dollars for harbour remediation? Has that business case been completed and submitted to the federal government and, if not, why not? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Lots of questions in there but I'm happy to say that we have developed an application for multiyear federal funding to restore the harbour under the Federal Oceans Protection Plan. Harbour restoration will cost millions of dollars, Mr. Speaker, to implement and then ongoing funding to be able that is required to maintain the channel and the harbour into the future. This application to Transport Canada is at the end of this we're submitting by the end of this week. Meanwhile, there is work done to continue some of the regulatory and permitting requirements.
And I do want to note, Mr. Speaker, we had good uptake from a variety of communities up the valley, those that are impacted, to be able to support our application. I want to say thank you very much for those that were able to support this very important application funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm pleased to hear that there is support from, you know, people along the Mackenzie River. And, you know, when we see oil and gas return, it'll be great.
Can the Minister tell me who in Ottawa she met with to discuss harbour remediation for Hay River and what was the outcome? Were any commitments received from the federal government? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I most recently met with the Honourable Omar Alghabra who is the Minister of Transport Canada while I was in Ottawa early December. I also plan to have further discussions with him while I'm in Ottawa next week for a federal-provincial-territorial Ministers of transportation meeting. These discussions will not stop. My department's analysis is being used to inform ongoing discussions with federal counterparts as well as funding proposals. We continue, and we will continue, to lobby the federal government to stress the importance, Mr. Speaker, of this marine supply chain hub, including the need to avoid any interruption of essential resupply and to maintain safe, secure, commercial marine shipping operations here in the Northwest Territories. While, Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful that our federal partners will recognize this as a critical need for the work and to be able to help us address this issue here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're closing in on spring. We're closing in on flood season. So let us hope that if no dredging takes place this year, let us hope that the ice, as it moves through the channel, scours the bottom of the river, gives it the six feet that we need to get the marine vessels safely through that channel. So that's what I'm hoping for. But failing that, can the Minister provide me with a realistic timeline as to when harbour remediation will take place on the Hay River? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Minister's statement today I talked about how there's a lot of regulatory process that needs to take place, permitting requirements to be able to remove large amounts of sediment. These approvals cannot be avoided and will take months, Mr. Speaker. If we can obtain the required permits anticipated, we can get on that water and dredge as early as July 15th, which would result in a small channel by September.
Mr. Speaker, we do not control the federal and territorial regulatory processes, and this also assumes we secure funding as the cost to dredge this harbour is in the millions. This is a significant project, Mr. Speaker. Once we have a response from the federal government on our oceans protection plan application for funding, we can better determine next steps. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, as I was explaining in my Member's statement, of the 38 current SNAP students in the Northwest Territories, many of those students are located here in Yellowknife, or what is referred to as the North Slave, and only four are located outside of the Yellowknife region. And so I'm wondering what has been the barrier to ensuring that there is a SNAP student in every NWT community or at least regional centre, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And just to correct the record, there are 24 SNAP students in the territory and 14 SNAP apprentices. After a student graduates from being a SNAP student, they can become an actual apprentice in the SNAP program. So some of the barriers are the fact that we only have so many employers and so many students in the territory. It is not always easy for employers and especially small employers to take on apprentices, although the government does provide funding for that. There are issues around and I'll say that we've had trouble attracting people in the trades for a while. And so that's part of the issue as well. You know, there's been a big push over the past few years to get more students in trades. And ECE has been doing their part. The SNAP program recently got a revamp. There's been new guidelines and handbooks. There's been additional outreach. So we are trying to there are barriers and we are doing our best to break them down, and we've seen those numbers increase due to those efforts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I absolutely hear the Minister that there are only so many employers in the Northwest Territories willing or able to take on this work and that it is a significant investment to be able to take on a high school student in this kind of capacity. One of the things that the Minister has at his disposal is an entire government, which is one of the largest employers in the territory and actually employs red seal apprentices and skilled trades people in multiple regions across the territory; in fact, Mr. Speaker, in all the regions across the Northwest Territories. And so what I'm asking is for the GNWT to actually recognize itself as one of the employers that can take on SNAP students and apprentices thank you, Minister, for correcting my terminology there. So is ECE willing to commit to ensuring that a youth from every NWT community, or at least region, is enrolled in the SNAP program before the end of the 19th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A lot of assumptions in that statement there. One of the first assumptions was that I have the whole government at my disposal. And I wish that was the case but that is not the case. And the other assumption is that I can make something like this happen. The fact is that we need students and we need employers to get together and work on this. And we are making efforts. There have been advances in the past few years; we've seen the numbers increase. And we are now working as a government to explore how we can get SNAP students into employment with the Government of the Northwest Territories and working with my colleague from the Department of Infrastructure. The Department of Finance is involved because, you know, hiring, it needs to conform to the collective agreement. So we are taking an allofgovernment approach to this and I'm happy to see it's invigorating. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if we were taking an allofgovernment approach to this, we would see summer students in every region outside of including outside of Yellowknife. We would see SNAP students and SNAP apprentices in every region. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of those opportunities are often seen being taken advantage of solely or predominantly by students in Yellowknife. And I get that there's more population here. I absolutely get that. I get that there's more that there are more students here, that there are more employers here; I absolutely understand that. And I get that the Minister also can't force the government to do anything. But an example as housing, who is willing to put an apprentice in their contracts, there are departments out there willing to partake in these opportunities. And so I'm asking the Minister if he will especially work with Ministers of Infrastructure and Housing to tell them about the SNAP program because yesterday I heard in housing, in an exchange between a Member and the Minister, that they wished there was an opportunity before the apprenticeship program. This is it, Mr. Speaker. So I'm asking if the GNWT will be one of its own clients and partake in the SNAP program? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, that work is underway. As I stated, the Department of Infrastructure is actually looking at a couple students in different regions to take them on as SNAP students. So that work is happening. And, again, I'll say that when I came into this role I really did start pushing apprenticeships. Not that the department wasn't pushing them before but it really was one of my focuses. And, you know, we've seen more efforts gone into this area and we're continuing to see that. You can see it through the collaboration between ECE, the Department of Infrastructure, and other government bodies as we try to get more SNAP students. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final short supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that commitment from the Minister. I think this is an excellent program and a really big opportunity for northern students.
One of the things that I also mentioned today in my questions was summer students. Summer is coming. Now is the time where summer students are hired. And I would also like to see an effort on the part of the GNWT to also make sure that summer students are being hired across the Northwest Territories. And so will the Minister of education also commit to talking to his colleagues about ways to make that happen? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Summer students falls under the I guess the purview of the Department of Finance. That's generally where those types of questions go. Nonetheless, I'm happy to promote the idea of hiring students to my Cabinet colleagues, and I'll do that wholeheartedly. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in June 2022, I tabled Motion 5419(2), improving healthcare in small communities, calling for the Government of the Northwest Territories to conduct an external audit of client treatment records and client satisfaction. The response to the motion stated: Regular audits are undertaken at each health centre to ensure health services are delivered according to clinical practice standards and guidelines.
Can the Minister of health explain what a clinical audit in the small community health centre includes? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have only highlevel information in this area. I can't answer that question. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister commit to prioritizing client satisfaction of Indigenous persons in the audit? And I'll still keep speaking to the audited. Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the response to the Member's motion, there was quite an extensive section on cultural safety and how it was being pursued through initiatives such as the Indigenous patient advocates who were introduced today, as well as through cultural safety training, the living well together curriculum, which all civil servants are required to complete, and through to the office of client experience. Pardon me, the Office of Cultural Safety which provides inhouse training on cultural safety to increase confidence of Indigenous patients using the healthcare system. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in a preventative maintenance program, you fix the small problems before they become too major and costly. And in this situation, you know, it can cost people their lives. And that's why I've been after getting an audit almost like I don't know what you would call it. It's an internal audit, like of the services within the health centre what the person the ailment going into the health centre, how it was diagnosed, what was the outcome of the diagnosis, and what was the remedy for it. Those are becoming very important as we're hearing more and more all the time about misdiagnosis.
So I'm wondering if the Minister can commit to prioritizing the standards for diagnosis, rates of correct diagnosis, and the rates of misdiagnosis in the audit? Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't make that commitment to go over each patient's file and determine whether they were appropriately diagnosed. Audits generally are samples. They don't look at every single file. If somebody has a specific complaint about the way they were treated, concerns about the way they were treated, that they feel they were misdiagnosed, this is what the office of client experience is for as well as our other quality assurance processes. It's there to make sure that patients have a venue in which to make their concerns known and, more importantly in some ways, have them resolved. And so if the Member knows of people who are suggesting that they haven't been treated appropriately, then I encourage him to provide them with the information for the office of the client experience to resolve their issues. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the response to the motion, and it's written, is regular audits are undertaken at each health centre. Now, we don't know what the audits include because our concern, as residents, is they're not addressing the root issue of the problems. People are going in there multiple times with the same ailment and they're not being diagnosed properly at the outset. And I've always said if they don't know what is wrong with the patient and he's severely looking like he's in distress, they should be sent to a specialist ASAP. But as, you know, we're Indigenous so they won't spend that money on us. I'm really hoping that the Minister would explain to us what they mean by regular audits are undertaken. What audits are undertaken compared to the ones that I'm requesting? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll just start by saying that we run a public health system. It's for all residents of the NWT. It is funded to provide care by doctors and nurses in acute care settings and health centres and to provide for medical travel to people who have to travel. So to make an outrageous statement like nothing's going to happen because they're Indigenous is offensive to the people who work in our system every day to provide the best quality care to residents.
In terms of what's included specifically in an audit, I will ask the department to provide more information on that point and send that response to the Member when it's available. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of MACA. Has the Department of MACA submitted, within the life of this Assembly, any forced growth submissions to increase the funding for our communities and, if so, were they successful? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for MACA.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we will be putting $5 million into this. We do work with the communities of NWTAC through that process, so we do have a process that we do submit stuff to Cabinet. Decisions are made by Cabinet and to this House and that's how we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad the Minister reiterated my Member's statement, but I've asked the question whether or not the department has submitted any forced growth submissions and, if so, were they successful? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, yes, there has been stuff and water and sewer is one of them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I'll have to follow up later on to find out what "stuff" is.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT is predicting a $178 million operating surplus for 20232024. Can the Minister commit to allocating some of these federal resources to address the NWT community funding needs? We don't even have to go outside of our door very far to see people and the impacts of the underfunding of our communities. This morning I dropped off coats to people at the solid waste facility who are striking because their community can't afford to pay them properly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member helping out people. That's greatly I think that's awesome.
In regards to the budgeting process, committee has the opportunity to bring forward requests for increases. We're more than willing to do that, but they need to work with the Finance Minister on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
