Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A key objective of the Taltson Hydro Expansion is to provide access to affordable and reliable energy sources for Northwest Territories residents and businesses. Ultimately, it is our vision that the project will benefit Northwest Territories in the ways that have positive impact on residents, businesses, and our future economic prosperity as a territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also for the Minister of Infrastructure. Can the Minister please tell me why the air support for the fires near Hay River and the KFN are not utilizing the Fort Smith Airport for the efforts? It's my understanding that they are unable to land there and instead come to Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware of that operational detail however I can look into it and get back to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, but I'm sure the Minister is aware of the fact that the repaving done by her department in the last while has resulted in a ridge in the runway that does not allow for the Electras to land. Could the Minister speak to that, please? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware. Is the Member speaking about the Fort Smith Airport; I just need clarification. I don't feel like that question was clarified. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will check Hansard later but I'm pretty sure I said Fort Smith. Mr. Speaker, I'll just be blunt.
I know that the Fort Smith resurfacing of the pavement did not go properly and the airport is now not fully useable by airplanes supporting the fire efforts. Could the Minister please comment on whether or not she knows about this and if she doesn't, why she doesn't know about it? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Fort Smith runway did have some work done. You know, we had questions from the Member from Thebacha asking questions on the Fort Smith. The Fort Smith Airport is fine. You know, there are airplanes that can land there. I'm not very specific to which airplane the Member is speaking of. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Great Slave.
Mr. Speaker, I think it needs to be said this Minister is completely unaware of what is going on in her department. This is a resurfacing issue with the contractor that I've been made aware of by several people. So I'm unable to understand why the Minister would not be aware of this herself, and I have to question whether or not this is just deflection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do want to let the Member know that there were minor deficiencies in the apron which has been addressed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a Point of Order. The Member is imputing motives on the part of the Minister and I just don't accept that as proper conduct in the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Order. Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. We'll take a short recess. Thank you.
SHORT RECESS
Colleagues, we will continue. The Member for Frame Lake rose on a Point of Order stating that the Member for Great Slave was imputing motives to a Member. Rule 3.2(3) states that the Speaker will call a Member to order if they make allegations against another Member or imputes false or hidden motives to another Member. I have reviewed the video of the exchange and noted that the Member said, I have to question whether or not this is deflection.
The guidelines for oral questions, in the rules, notes that questions should deal with a matter reasonably assumed to be within the present knowledge of the Minister and not to be an argument or contains interference, imputes motives, or casts dispersions upon any person. In this case, the Member's comments were out of order. The comments were not consistent with the rules, and they did cause disorder in the House resulting in a Point of Order, and I will ask the Member for Great Slave to withdraw her remarks. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it was not my intent to impugn any motive on anyone. I think what you heard today was the frustration of a lack of answers that we get from Cabinet. It is not this time only, it is continuous, and I do apologize. I will withdraw that question to the Minister however I do not believe my intent was of out of order here. I think we should be allowed to have political debate and people need to be able to hear the truth. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. We do have a ruling, and I ask you to withdraw the remarks. Thank you. So do you withdraw the remarks?
I said that in the statement already.
But then you're questioning the Point of Order?
I don't understand. I stated that I withdrew my remark, so.
Member for Great Slave, you will have to withdraw your remarks and apologize and not question the ruling. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I apologize and withdraw my remarks to this amazing Minister. Thank you.
SHORT RECESS
Order. Colleagues, we will continue. Member for Great Slave, you're not apologizing to the Minister; you're apologizing to this House. And whether you agree with the ruling or not, please be respectful to the Members and also to the residents of the Northwest Territories. So I'll give you one final opportunity to apologize and I'll continue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I apologize to you for disorder in this House, and I apologize to the House for my comments, and I withdraw them. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
The Evacuee Income Disruption Program that was announced yesterday meets some of the issues raised by the Union of Northern Workers in its letter regarding the creation of an evacuation relief fund. And, Mr. Speaker, I'll be tabling that letter later today. But I would like to know, can the Minister say how the government will provide wage loss relief beyond the $750 announced today possibly through permanent changes to the Employment Standards Act? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member said, yesterday this government announced the first ever Evacuee Financial Support Program, and so I think that's a big step forward. I get that the Member wants to build on that momentum and ask what's next. So I can say that in the Employment Standards Act, there are emergency leave provisions but that's emergency leave without pay, and so I think the Member is looking for something beyond that. But as of right now, there is no other emergency relief program. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that and, yes, so I think he's confirmed that unpaid emergency leave is within the scope of the Employment Standards Act. But is the issue of paid emergency leave within the scope of the current public engagement on the Employment Standards Act and how does the Minister propose to ensure amendments deal with future evacuations and similar emergencies? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's a pretty wideranging review of the Employment Standards Act so I wouldn't say that anything is out of scope. The questions that have been put to residents and businesses haven't specifically spoken to paid emergency leave. But residents are free to give their opinion on anything related to the Employment Standards Act. The online engagement survey is available until, I believe, June 18th, so there's a few more weeks, and so we'd love to hear feedback on this very timely issue. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. You know, looking across the number of other Canadian provincial and territorial jurisdictions, it looks like there's a patchwork of disaster and emergency relief supports that are available. So as part of the Employment Standards Act review, can the Minister commit to carrying out a jurisdictional scan, including lessons learned and sharing that publicly? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, absolutely we can, and we will report that publicly in the "what we heard" report that we develop based on this engagement. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I'm hoping that maybe the jurisdictional scan can be completed to enable a better discussion during the public engagement, but I'll leave that with the Minister.
As I said yesterday, the climate emergency is going to increase disasters and evacuations in the NWT. How is the Minister working with his Cabinet colleagues to ensure a comprehensive climate emergency action plan? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I will say I'm not the lead on this file but of course it takes a wholeofgovernment approach. So GNWT departments are working together to implement actions in goal 3 of the climate change action plan, which is focused on building resilience and adapting to a changing climate.
In preparation for the next climate change action plan, the GNWT is leading a territorial risk and opportunities assessment to help focus actions to address key risks like flooding. The GNWT is working to ensure the national adaptation strategy and its implementation provides resources to better address the NWT's adaptation priorities. And I can say that, you know, based on my experience as MLA I also have a number of recommendations that I will be making directly to the Ministers in my role as MLA. So we're all working on this, and I appreciate the Member bringing attention to it. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Finance commit to bring back a geographic tracking of expenditures report so that all Members of the Legislative Assembly may be fully informed of Government of the Northwest Territories expenditures in their individual constituencies, communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the report at issue here was discontinued after 2008. It was extremely labour intensive and didn't necessarily capture all of the procurement that was taking place. It involved a lot of manual recoding of things which really you know, having to manually recode (a) takes a lot of effort and isn't always the most accurate. What we have replaced it with most recently, within this last year, Mr. Speaker, is the contract reporting dashboard which does breakdown current years by type of contract, by region, by jurisdiction, by the nature of the contract. But I will acknowledge I don't know where the questions are going but I will acknowledge the Tlicho region is not separated out in there, other regions are, whereas it was in that 2008 report. So I acknowledge that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Regardless, Mr. Speaker, Tlicho region should be identified. Mr. Speaker, what are the barriers to making Tlicho an administrative region? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that probably falls more within the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs. I can certainly, from at least the perspective of Finance only, say that right now the organization of the different regions, with superintendents and associated administrative responsibilities, certainly would involve a reorganization of various, you know, each department's organizational charts, each department's reporting hierarchies. So there are some administrative barriers to doing it. That doesn't mean that this can't be done. It's certainly been done before, but it's something that would have to be looked at by the Department of EIA. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is about time Tlicho region is recognized. Does the Minister agree that having a Tlicho region would improve decisionmaking? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to hope that the decisionmaking is not impeded by the lack of having a specific region. There are superintendents in the region for certainly I know ITI as well as other departments have superintendents there. And we also, of course, have, this is an entity that is a selfgoverning region and there is a Tlicho child and family services, Tlicho services agencies, so there are a number of organizational structures that are distinct and unique to the Tlicho region. If there's some specific areas where that is not working well, I would love to talk the Member more about that. As for what the future might hold in terms of organization, as in any other organization the government does find itself changing and adapting and, again, certainly the Department of EIA may want to look at whether it's time to reorganize that once again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I talked about some of the statistics of driving in the Northwest Territories and with the proper lighting in junctions, etcetera. Mr. Speaker, when we all drive to places like whether you're coming to Yellowknife, you have proper lighting. You go to Behchoko, you look at Rae or Edzo, they got nice proper lighting. The same thing in Fort Providence. And then you go all the way down to Hay River.
Mr. Speaker, at my constituency meeting on May 11th in Fort Resolution, this issue was brought to my attention in regards to proper lighting at junctions. Right now on Highway No. 5 going to Fort Resolution and Highway No. 6 going to Fort Smith, that junction there, we don't have no lighting and my constituent Members are asking if we could get some lighting in that area. Also on the Dettah junction, on Highway No. 4 on the Ingraham Trail, we probably we do need proper lighting in that area.
So, Mr. Speaker, I had a question for the Minister for her response Diane Archie, responsible for power corporation, if they could take a look at this and if they could make a commitment to help us out in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
