Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it so happens as that report was being read in yesterday, I asked for a status report on action 2.2. I can say that the Department of Finance and ECE are working together with the Indigenous or interdepartmental Indigenous languages committee. We are on track to have that delivered sorry, to have the program ready for delivery third quarter of 20232024. So basically that would be this fall. I don't know obviously yet how many residents or how many employees would be participating in that, but would certainly be looking forward to promoting that to the public service in due course. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. Mr. Speaker, this is a good start but to reverse the decline of Indigenous language communities, the GNWT needs to do so much more. One key area for improvement is around the bilingual designation policy. The Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Action Plan talks about celebrating and recognizing employees speaking an Indigenous language but there's no reference to modernizing the bilingual designation policy, including to ensure that employees who speak or are learning their language are properly remunerated. So will the Minister make a commitment to revise and modernize the bilingual designation policy so that it better supports language revitalization as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I'd like to say is I'm going to make a commitment to looking at the impact of the policy. I don't know exactly yet what the parameters of it or a full review would be or where it might fit. But I certainly agree that if a public servant speaks one of our official languages, they should be receiving some sort of recognition for that. And if right now we're not achieving that through the way that the policy is being applied, then from what I understand of the policy and its overall intent, then I certainly do think that we can look at better achieving that so that everyone that speaks an official language are being recognized and that employees are encouraged to improve their skill set to be able to be recognized as speaking an official language. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And just so that I'm clear too, and I think that sometimes different words mean different things to different people, and one of my concerns there is that the word "recognition" could be, you know, we recognize and appreciate that you speak your language, and one of the things that I want to make sure is that the language spoken is valued by the GNWT in the form of remuneration. So, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to state that there.
But will the Minister also consider committee's recommendation to create a new category of bonuses for Indigenous employees who are learning to speak their language. So they might not be considered completely proficient right away, but they might because in order to be considered proficient, you need to be able to speak the language as well as write in the language. And there might be tiers or levels of where people fall as they're relearning their language and reclaiming their language. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not in disagreement and I don't think the department's in disagreement. I just want to figure out how to roll that out. As I said, I was listening, and the department was listening, I and was in conversation with them as we were listening virtually. So right now it's a $1,200 bilingual bonus paid to employees who have Indigenous language skills. But it's indelible employees, so someone who's in a position or a role where they can see some sort of benefit of speaking that official language.
Mr. Speaker, there's always a benefit in speaking that official language, and that's I think the point that we want to convey. That's the place we want to get to, is that when the policy's applied that that bonus can be applied to anyone that's speaking a language. And then where in terms of the language learning state that an individual might be at, when they should get some sort of recognition financially or otherwise, I certainly would like to take that away and look at it. I think we can do better to encourage employees to go out to get training, to participate in ECE's programs, to participate in mentorship, and ultimately to participate in the programs that we're looking to develop here so they could start to speak their own languages. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final sort supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I'll try to be very, very short. Does the GNWT plan to identify positions that can and should be staffed by Indigenous language speakers? Right now there are some French specific positions within the GNWT. There might also be a small number of Indigenous language specific positions but there's not a large number of them. And I'd like to know if the GNWT plans to be a lot more proactive in identifying positions where they'd like to see Indigenous language speakers and grow them in those positions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't know that that's a specific action item right now under the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework, but it is certainly in keeping with the spirit of that framework. So certainly, as I've said, we do right now track, through ECE's official languages guideline, a list of communities that have different needs for languages but our understanding of the role of language and the place of language as part of delivering public service, I think is only ever improving. We can certainly continue to do a better job of that and to expand. So I'll certainly take the committee's recommendations away and the Member's questions away and hopefully have a more robust place to go with this in the life of the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, these questions are for the Minister of health.
Mr. Speaker, every day when I'm back in Hay River in my home office, the issues that I deal with are or many are related to addictions. It's quickly destroying individuals, families, and it's only getting worse and we're seeing more people dying. So, Mr. Speaker, the 2022 Auditor General's Report states the importance of equal access to addiction and aftercare treatment. Can the Minister of health confirm what initiatives and progress has been made in this area when it comes to residents of the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the questions. So in the work plan attached to the response to the Auditor General's Report that was tabled in May of last year, we made a commitment to engage with Indigenous governments and communities to inform approaches. First of all, to define what is equitable and what do people want in more detail. So I've met with the NWT Council of Leaders to begin that discussion. And in the next year, according to the work plan, we will be establishing a territorial addictions working group with key stakeholders and to develop a work plan to implement activities that will reduce barriers and improve service delivery. So that is not a commitment to building a treatment centre.
A treatment centre, I want to strongly urge everyone who's listening, should be a priority in the next Assembly, or at least if not one treatment centre, which we have had trouble sustaining historically, then multiple regional approaches to treatment so that people can achieve treatment closer to home which is something we hear consistently that they want. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Colleagues, before we continue, I'd like to recognize Chief Danny Gaudet from Deline. Also former Chief Leonard Kenny, also from Deline. And also Joseph Kochon, president from Colville Lake. Welcome to the Chamber.
Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, an important component is northern culture is a northern culture treatment component for Indigenous persons is vital to success. And that cultural component must be based on the person's traditional culture and not that of another Indigenous person's culture.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister confirm what southern treatment facilities under contract with the department provide the cultural component that best reflects Indigenous peoples northern culture? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to take the liberty of recognizing my constituent Stephanie Irlbacher Fox who is in the gallery today with the Indigenous leaders.
Mr. Speaker, we do not have a treatment facility that is based in Indigenous culture. We do have treatment centres that provide Indigenous content in their treatment. All of our centres are AA 12step-based facilities, which would be very familiar to people in the North.
I think the Member is aware that Poundmaker's withdrew from providing treatment last fall and that we have been on a journey to find a new treatment centre. We didn't receive any successful proposals in our last round but that doesn't mean we've given up on it. And I hope to be able to report progress on this in our next session. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Clause 21 of the TRC Call to Action states: We call upon the federal government to provide sustainable funding for existing and new Aboriginal healing centres to address the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual harms caused by residential schools and to ensure that the funding and healing centres in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories is a priority.
Mr. Speaker, has the Minister's department begun the process towards meeting objectives of this clause; more specifically, establishing a healing centre or treatment centre in the NWT? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's my view that this recommendation to the federal government by the TRC should be pursued by the Indigenous governments. That's what's happening in Nunavut, and I would encourage the same thing to happen here. Instead of having us interpret what the Indigenous government organizations want for treatment from this TRC recommendation, I think it would be more effective if they took the lead and we worked with them. That's something we have talked about at the NWT Council of Leaders, and I look forward to progress on that in the coming year. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the North, we have access to those persons that can bring cultural suitability to treatment programs. What we are missing is a certified or licensed health component due to recruitment issues.
Mr. Speaker, is the Minister willing to consider establishing a treatment centre, whether in the NWT or in the south, that provides clients with treatment that reflects northern appropriate culture in addition to services provided by licensed health workers? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know that the Member would like me to say yes, and he wants me to leave the past behind. But I think that when we're looking at spending tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, I think it's really important that we take away the issues from the previous treatment centres. Most importantly, that they were never more than they were never filled to capacity, that there were issues that related to staffing, that related to the programming, that kept people away. So the idea of committing tens of millions of dollars to do the same thing again simply doesn't make sense to me.
What we've heard consistently from Indigenous governments is they want a regional approach so that people in the Gwich'in settlement area can deal with a Gwich'in healing camp. Likewise, the Tlicho and so on. So I think that one treatment centre for the whole of the NWT is not something which I'm confident will work but I think there are other approaches that will, and I look forward to working on them. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are related to my Member's statement regarding diagnosis at small community health centres. I note the vision of the health department is for best health, best care for a better future. One of the values is caring, which states we treat everyone compassion, respect, fairness, and dignity. Another value is accountability, which states system outcomes are measured, assessed, and publicly reported on.
Mr. Speaker, I have repeatedly been asking the health department if they would consider conducting professional evaluations on the delivery of health care, especially in all the small centres, to no avail. I ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if she will give direction to the department to begin to develop a system to conduct professional evaluations of all small health centres and that these be conducted on a yearly basis. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we have to take a step back from this question and the efforts that this Member has made, and which I appreciate him making, to try and improve the quality of health care in small communities like his.
What I see is that there is a historic mistrust of the health and social services system, which I understand. It has very deep roots and despite our best efforts at cultural training, cultural sensitivity, and antiracism training, those problems persist. And it is my goal to live up to those values which the Member enunciated in the preamble to his question.
What I have seen work in the time, that I have been health minister, is developing relationships between the chief operating officers of the regions and the people in the communities that those regions serve. And so it's my hope that the Member will reach out to the chief operating officer of the Deh Cho region, get to know her, and to talk to her about his concerns so that relationshipbased care has a place to start for him in improving the relationship between the health and social services system, himself, and his community. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Of course it's another case of passing the buck, getting me to do the work of her department. The Minister herself should be relaying these messages to all the health and social services authorities.
Mr. Speaker, one of the values of the health department is accountability in that system outcomes, and I'm stating it again, are measured, assessed, and publicly reported on, and that sounds like an evaluation type of value.
Can the Minister apprise this House and the residents of the Northwest Territories when we may see fruition of the department's value of accountability? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have layers of mechanisms to ensure that the services that we deliver are appropriate, culturally safe, and effective. We have, of course, the new patient advocates. We have the office of client experience, which will look into particular complaints of the kind the Member has brought forward. The people who work in the health centres are licensed by regulatory bodies. Those bodies have complaint processes. We also, of course, are accredited on a regular basis. The next accreditation exercise will take place in September. So accountability is happening at many different levels in the health system, and we strive for continuous performance improvement to better meet the needs of the NWT. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the young person I spoke of in my Member's statement is one example of how the health care system is failing our residents despite the vision of best health, best care for a better future.
Can the Minister explain what the health department is doing to provide the best care, the best health care that speaks of compassion, that speaks of respect, that speaks of fairness and, most of all, that speaks of dignity of our residents. Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a department with over 1,800 staff and a $610 million budget. So I don't know if the Member really wants me to explain everything that we're doing to serve the residents of the Northwest Territories. I support, and our staff supports, the goals that he has enunciated that people are treated with respect, with dignity. They are provided with effective care that resolves their issues.
Diagnosis is a really complicated process. It can vary between a practitioner being able to look at somebody and diagnose an ailment almost immediately to something that is much more complex beyond the skills and equipment available in local health centres, and that's when people are medevaced or referred to Yellowknife for additional treatment.
We, I think, are trying our best. We don't always get it right. I really encourage the Member, as I did previously when he brought this case to my attention, to contact the office of client experience. We want to learn from things, which people are dissatisfied with or consider mistakes, so that we can improve the services we provide to all NWT residents. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final short supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I realize the health care system is stretched and that health care professionals are in short supply, including doctors and registered nurses. Can the Minister update this House in its efforts to attract health care professionals to the North? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that information to hand so I will write the Member a letter. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've been at this Taltson thing for about two decades now and tens of millions of dollars in engineering studies, and I guess my first question is can the Minister tell me how much this Taltson Expansion is going to cost? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the I just before we I don't have the cost right in front of me but I do want to add that we have numerous discussions with industrial companies regarding the Taltson project. These companies have expressed interest in the project. They have stated that they that the investors want to invest in project that use green and clean power. At this point in time, we are examining the potential for ten candidate mine customers to be able to support this project, which will start in 2033. We will need at least two or three reasonable, foreseeable mine customers in place to proceed to construction in 2027.
I'd also like to add, Mr. Speaker, that linking these two grids will improve redundancy, power reliability. We would always realize significant savings when we are faced with low water levels and we have to rely heavily on diesel generation, which comes at a significant cost. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't hear how much the project was going to cost, which seems like a pretty fundamental thing you would want to know, is how much is this project going to cost. We have an MOU to build it. We were asking the federal government to give us money. Certainly we must know how much we're asking for, Mr. Speaker. But apparently not.
Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that this project has fallen through in the past is that we just can't quite get to a rate of power that is competitive with the price of diesel, and so mines do not want to enter into a longterm power purchasing agreement. I know some of the social governance and the desire to be on clean energy is changing that math for mines but, really, at the end of the day it's going to come down to what we think we can sell this power at. So does the Minister have a figure of what we can expect to sell Taltson power at? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Of course, Mr. Speaker, our goal is to sell all the power we will produce from this project. 60 megawatts is the current proposed expansion at the site, on top of what we're producing existing generation. The final install capacity of the facility and annual water levels in the Taltson system will ultimately dictate how much power we'll be able to sell. Mr. Speaker, we are currently estimating in the range of about 420 gigawatt hours of additional energy we'll be able to sell. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Selling 60 megawatts in this territory is no small feat. You know, we're definitely going to need quite a few mines and they're going to need to operate for multiple decade with longterm power purchasing agreements to sell 60 megawatts of power. And I didn't hear how much the project was going to cost, and I didn't hear how much we actually expect that power to cost. I'll note that a lot of these operations can look to Alberta that sell at about $0.12 a kilowatt hour power, which is a lot cheaper than what we could ever hope to get to.
Mr. Speaker, I'm hoping, perhaps I can get a bit more detail there. I heard the Minister say there's ten potential mines. I'm wracking my brain to even picture two mines that are on a potential route. Pine Point is an obvious one. But can the Minister tell me which potential mines these are that would actually be on the grid? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me take this opportunity to let the Member know the hydro price we will charge will need to be competitive with other power alternatives for remote mines such as an LNG and diesel at the time we proceed. You know, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that's probably not you appreciate it's not in our best business interest to be able to list a price today for power that will be sold to a project that won't come on line in the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I don't actually know whether we should build Taltson, and I don't think I should even have an opinion on it. I think the power corp needs to have a business case, and it needs to be evidencebased, and we need to crunch the numbers to see who's going to buy our power, for how much, and if it makes sense then most certainly we should do that. And, really, it is an evidencebased decisionmaking, and we shouldn't be here on the floor of the House asking basic questions such as how much is this whole thing we've been talking about for decades actually going to cost. And all of that would be done in a business case, Mr. Speaker; a business case that we have been promised over and over.
And so my question for the Minister of Infrastructure is when are we going to see a public business case for the Taltson Hydro Expansion? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are on track for the completion of a detailed business case for this project within the life of this government. This document will not be made public. As a general rule, Mr. Speaker, detailed business case information is not made public; you know, to preserve the financial that's in the context of a major project for which we are going to be seeking competitive bids for this construction. We will be working with our partners to provide compelling case for Canada and the GNWT to invest in significant dollars for this project.
Mr. Speaker, a key part of this work is to demonstrate specific benefits for the Northwest Territories in terms of growth, construction jobs, stabilized power, power rates, specific conditions, risk, that must be addressed prior to the GNWT investing in this construction dollars. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, Mr. Speaker, the Premier brought up COVID19 lessons learned. Mr. Speaker, with the CERB payments that were all given out, all the with the CERB, the Canada Canada Recovery Caregiver monies that were given to the communities and to the people across the territory given by the federal government at that time, would the Minister would the Premier be will be able to talk, I guess, to the prime minister in regards to waiving those fees for the people in the Northwest Territories to see if we could give them a little give them a chance. People are suffering right now under our government. People are being penalized with no food.
Would the Premier commit to me on trying to work with the Government of Canada to see what she could do for the betterment of our people, all our people in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Madam Premier.
