Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are working with the community to look at this, unfortunately it's not going to be done this year. We all know how long it takes to be able to build infrastructure. So we are working with the community and working with the flood response to be able to, you know, have something in place for if there happens to be a flood again in Fort Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Lands. The department has placed top priority in our requests from the mining industry to use surety bonds as an acceptable form of financial security. Ernst & Young were sole sourced for $230,000 to tell the government that surety bonds are good financial security.
Can the Minister tell us whether the report is finished and will be released publicly? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Lands.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT led by the Department of Lands has hired a consultant, as the Member has said, EY Consulting Services, to conduct research on surety bonds as a form of reclamation security. This information will inform decisions on the form of securities that the GNWT may consider. EY has now completed their research and identified some draft findings, and the final report will be made available publicly once it is finalized by EY. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Of course I probably should have squeezed in when is it going to be released? But our government is poised to accept surety bonds without a real plan to prevent further public liabilities like Giant Mine, Cameron Hills, Mactung, Ptarmigan Mine, and more. Can the Minister tell us when GNWT will change its approach to financial security and regularly accept surety bonds? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, using EY's draft findings, the GNWT is working on guidance which will provide industry with clarity regarding the form of the security that GNWT will accept in the future. I will inform MLAs on this guidance when it has been completed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. It's been radio silence on any public engagement on the development of Public Land Act regulations that will deal with financial security and other matters. Nothing has been done on public engagement since the release of the "what we heard" report in May 2021. That's 20 months ago, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Minister tell us when his department will start the promised phase two of public engagement and finally set up the stakeholder advisory committees? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for the question. The Public Land Act regulations are near the end of the drafting process. The Department of Lands is working collaboratively with Indigenous or Intergovernmental Council Secretariat partners and the Department of Justice to prepare regulations that meet the needs and desires of the public in the Northwest Territories. Stakeholder engagement is anticipated to continue into the late spring of 2023. Public engagement and section 35 consultation with Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations, it's also anticipated to occur into the late spring of 2023. 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. I just don't really understand why the work with the Intergovernmental Council can happen in parallel with public engagement. This department and others just seem to leave the public engagement to the very end of the process. By then all the important decisions are made; it's too late.
So, you know, can the Minister tell us if there is actually going to be any meaningful public engagement on the development of the Public Land Act regulations including the forms of acceptable financial security? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, stakeholder engagement is anticipated to continue into late spring of 2023. Public engagement and section 35 consultation with Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations is anticipated to occur until the late spring of 2023. The public land use regulations will establish accessible forms of security for disposition of public lands. Mr. Speaker, we are working on trying to get this done by the end of this sitting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Last year, NTHSSA's oneyear deficit hit a record high of $33 million and yesterday the Minister confirmed that this year's deficit would be in the same ballpark. That would push our accumulated deficit over $200 million. The Minister also stated that the health sustainability office is dealing with the problem but that doesn't seem to be producing any results. So what are the challenges that the sustainability office is having to reduce this deficit, Mr. Speaker?
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Member for the question. The office is now fully staffed. For a while there was an issue with staffing in the office so that they could do their work but that is not an issue at this point.
The basic issue is that it's like playing whackamole in the Department of Health and Social Services. When we finish paying for one thing, another thing needs funding. And this has really become more acute in the time that I've been Minister of Health and Social Services. There are more calls for more services to be covered by our health system than ever before without any commensurate means of looking at ways to increase revenue, decrease noncore services, or in other ways to try and bring our finances into alignment. So the result is that we that the NTHSSA was not properly funded when it was created. It's still not properly funded. And the situation that we find ourselves in is that we run a deficit annually. And as the Member knows, the last deficit was $33 million. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yeah, so the Minister will the Minister commit to public reporting in the next NTHSSA annual report on what results the sustainability office achieves, because I know with what she's saying that they're fully staffed now, because that would have been my second question if they have enough resources but, can we know what their achievements are so that we can know if the work that they're doing is actually producing end results. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday during the mains examination of the department, I committed to a confidential briefing to the committee on accountability and oversight of the NTHSSA finances, what savings have been realized, what pressures are driving costs up, and so I'm going to repeat that here again today. At a very high level, it can be included in the annual report. But my caution about that is that the annual report won't be out until the fall, and it won't cover anything that happens after the end of this month. So the timeliness of that document is not great. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So if the Minister won't be able to commit to the because of the timing, then can the Minister commit to some type of public I mean, different departments have different ways to show this publicly. Maybe, like, my colleague always asks for it online so we could see how they're it's like the child and family services, you could check to see how you're doing and what things are being done. So will the Minister commit to something like that so the public knows that you're doing the work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure what exactly is possible. But I believe that it's important to provide accountability to the public for both our spending and our debts. And so I will work with the department to develop some kind of public reporting. I can't say right now whether that will be online or not. But I will work towards public accountability on this public reporting. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for that, to the Minister. Is the Minister confident that the NTHSSA deficit will be less than $30 million next year? Is there a target as to what they're hoping to be under or I guess that's my final question, because I'm not sure much more I can ask on this topic. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you. Mr. Speaker, I don't have a firm idea of what the deficit will be. I know that we're paying more for travel; we're paying more for freight; we're paying more for drugs; we're paying more for staff, especially because we have so much temporary staff and they are expensive to acquire and work here. So I am very concerned about all those things that are driving costs up. And on the other side, there is uncertainty about the revenue that we're going to get from Canada through the CHT and the tailored bilaterals, whether they're going to renew the Territorial Health Investment Fund. So there are just so many unknowns at this point that all I can say is I will buy the Member lunch if we don't have a deficit. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, it's kind of been a long march to one day the GNWT would have a plan to address homelessness. You kind of think it would be something we'd have in the first place, but I'm hoping that the Premier could give us some good news and update the House on when the strategy to address homelessness will be complete? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This strategy to address homelessness is a pretty important document, in my personal opinion, based on my professional experience before coming into the ledge and my personal interest in politics as well. When it was first brought to me and said we need to change the strategy, one of the first things I looked at when looking at it is the stakeholder engagement which, Mr. Speaker, I felt was a little bit lacking. So we have provided a “draft” draft that we are seeking feedback from MLAs to see if we're on the right track. We will be doing engagement with the sheltering agencies and other agencies that are directly impacted by homelessness. And we are expecting that a draft, final draft, will come to the Assembly, be tabled in the House here within this sitting, so towards the end of March. Again, there will be work after that. And so the final strategy, not in draft, will be tabled in the May, June session. But hopefully the draft will be at the end of this month. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I'm hopeful too that at least a draft will get tabled. I think at some point we seem to have kind of lost sight of the goal, which is, you know in our mandate we're committed to adding a hundred new public housing units, which certainly helps, you know, with homelessness. But the goal is not just to add and maintain our public housing stock. The goal is to actually end homelessness, and I mean that under the definition. I often point to the Yellowknife tenyear plan to end homelessness. I point to the fact that Medicine Hat, which has far more people than the Northwest Territories, has ended homelessness, meaning that when we go out and count, there are less than three people who identify as chronically homeless which is the goal, Mr. Speaker. It's the goal we should be working towards. So can the Premier confirm whether our strategy will actually be one to end homelessness? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm just going to be honest here, Mr. Speaker. In my 20 plus years of being a social worker and working directly with homeless people, I cannot make a commitment that says we will end homelessness. I think that's a fallacy, Mr. Speaker. So our goal is to end longterm chronic homelessness. There are situations every single day, and this is based on 20 years of working with people, that today you might not be homelessness; tomorrow you might lose your job; you might have a bad relationship; you might end up homeless. So, Mr. Speaker, the goal is not to end homelessness. The goal is to end chronic longterm homelessness within this plan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know what, I'm actually glad to hear that. I think we're getting into semantics. When people say end homelessness, they mean that when you go out and count the people on the street, they haven't been chronically homeless usually for a period of about three months. You know, you want to try and get someone back into housing in some sort of form, whether it's transitional, in three months. So I don't want to get into semantics of what ending homelessness does as long as we're somewhat in the same ballpark.
My real question my next question, though, Mr. Speaker, is we love our big strategies, but we don't necessarily like funding them. Can the Premier inform this House of whether the draft strategy or the final strategy or some point the final strategy will actually be costed and have some money with it, Mr. Speaker?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's a couple of things that I am trying to get done within this homelessness strategy. One is to have some costing. Of course, some things, Mr. Speaker some things I'm hoping to have a logic model because I've heard that from Members right across this Assembly about measurable outcomes, etcetera. And we had no measurable outcomes or even baseline data for homelessness at this point, Mr. Speaker. We don't even know how many people are homeless. So data collection is a part of the homelessness strategy that we'd be looking at. Some costing initially. But this strategy is not going to be done in six months. And my guess is not even in six years. I think this will be a longterm strategy. So some costing will be done but not the whole costing for the whole strategy, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to make sure that we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We know that a number of our communities have housing plans. We know a few of our Indigenous governments are working on housing plans. I mentioned earlier the Yellowknife the City of Yellowknife created a tenyear plan to end homelessness, which was costed. They really fell behind and then required a lot of federal and GNWT funding to do it. But I think that the framework is there, at least in the Yellowknife model.
Can the Premier speak to how all of those other plans will work into our strategy? I want to make sure this is truly a wholeofgovernment and a wholeofterritory approach. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I do think that it does need to be looked at not just from a housing perspective. A lot of times people think that homelessness is just a lack of housing. That's not that's, again, a fallacy, Mr. Speaker. In my personal opinion, homelessness comes from many factors. It may be situational, bad relationship today. It could be mental health and addictions. It could be other factors that some people prefer to live in different ways. And so it's important that we not reinvent the wheel. And that's why I'm looking for the stakeholder engagement which is critical. That'll involve the sheltering agencies. It'll involve all the agencies that are involved in homelessness, including the City of Yellowknife who is very active in addressing homelessness. We need to look at what their plans are and incorporate into ours. Reinventing the wheel is not the way to go.
One other point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is that I've realized over my seven and a half years of being in the Assembly is that homelessness is a really hard topic. People are not really comfortable with it. Better get comfortable. The reality is is that we tend to shuffle them from department to department, and you can't do that with homelessness. It does take an integrated approach. We're looking at depending on the draft and the feedback we get, we're looking at actually taking that and actually having a division within the GNWT that addresses homelessness so that it can be an allofgovernment approach so it's not shuffled from department to department within this Assembly, past Assemblies and the next Assemblies to come. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Oh Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry, I'm operating out of my computer today. There we go. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Mr. Speaker, to calculate the annual funding it provides to LHOs for repair and maintenance of its public housing portfolio, the corporation uses a formula that multiplies a fixed amount by the number and type of housing units. The LHOs are expected to allocate the funds according to the needs identified in the annual property inspection and condition rating process. So I'm wondering if the Minister can let the House know if LHOs are adequately funded as per the Housing NWT formula? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question as well too. You know, since I've had the housing portfolio, I've had the opportunity to travel to the majority of the communities throughout the Northwest Territories. I've met with the local housing authorities. I've met with the board of directors as well too. Also with the district offices to really thoroughly understand the housing delivery program right at the grassroots, right at the ground level, and what I was able to see and understand is that no, the local housing authorities are not adequately funded. And through that, we've created a housing strategy as well too where we are going to be identifying those impacts that we need to address. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering if the Minister responsible for Housing NWT can let the House know what the current difference is between what is funded and what is actually required? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for this question as well too. What I've come to understand is that we need homes throughout the Northwest Territories. We need a lot of homes. But also with our constant advocacy with the Indigenous governments, stakeholders throughout the Northwest Territories, with the federal government as well too, to put houses on the ground. Mr. Speaker, there's a huge difference. When we're looking at putting homes on the ground, we need to address the social impacts of that program delivery. We also need to provide adequate programming as well too to support our local our homeowners in our smaller communities for our seniors, for our youth, and for me, Mr. Speaker, that is the huge difference. But what is required throughout the Northwest Territories is we need more homes, and we need more houses on the ground. We need operational and maintenance funding. We need more money coming to the Northwest Territories. And by that, working with Indigenous governments, stakeholders, nonprofit organizations, we've seen a huge address to housing needs throughout the Northwest Territories with our work with the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think this side of the House is well aware that the Northwest Territories has a housing deficit and needs more homes. My question was what is the current difference between what is funded and what is required? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just bluntly, I want to say that we need more operations and maintenance funding for our public housing for our public housing units throughout the territory. But through our strategic renewal as well too, these issues are going to be addressed and it's going to provide us a further guideline on what we are going to be expecting in the months and the years to come as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Mr. Speaker, we sit on this side of the House when we go through budgets and we ask these questions about what budget do you need in order to operate a housing corporation? What budgets do you need in order to be able to do the minor and major repairs of public housing so that you can deliver safe housing to northern residents? So I'm perplexed as to why the Minister cannot tell me how much she is underfunded in order to be responsible to her mandate. And it's frustrating to me because on this side of the House, we keep saying to Housing, what do you need; what do you need? And so I'm still asking, what do you need? If I can't get the question here today, what I would like to ask, Mr. Speaker, is the current Housing NWT annual report does not give an adequate snapshot of Housing NWT assets, their condition, and asset maintenance costs. In 2008 so many, many years ago, Mr. Speaker, 15 years ago the Auditor General recommended that the corporation regularly report on the condition of its public housing portfolio.
So will the Minister ensure because she cannot answer the question here today that the corporation's full list of assets by community, their condition, and required asset maintenance costs be included in Housing NWT's next annual report? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. And I don't feel that I'm not able to answer the question adequately. We are in a housing crisis. We have lobbied with the federal government as well. You can see construction happening throughout the Northwest Territories. We've enhanced those opportunities at the local community level. We've engaged with the stakeholders throughout the territory as well to address adequate housing throughout the Northwest Territories but also trying to find solutions on how to address housing throughout the territory. And looking at putting a number on it, we're looking at millions of trying to address housing needs throughout the Northwest Territories. And right now, working with Indigenous groups is key, is how you know, we have the same lobbying efforts as they do as well too. We need to get more housing into the smaller communities. We need to have adequate programming. But we just do not have the funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
