Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and bear with me. It takes a disaster to spur government to action which, at times, there's a play book and other times there is none. A question being asked is could we have done better? The answer is almost always yes. However, when we are dealing with a disaster as it unfolds, we need to rely on those schooled to the type of disaster at hand, who have firsthand information of what is actually taking place on the ground as with this fire that happened in the South Slave. Having a front row seat to the fire on the K'atlodeeche lands, I was impressed with the responsiveness of the department to placing personnel and equipment on the fire at the outset. Without it, damage could have been much worse along with potential loss of life. Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister of ECC, were firefighter and emergency personnel, equipment and aircraft in place and ready to be deployed at the time news of the fire was received by the department? Were contracts in place and certification of personnel and equipment completed? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for MACA.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before I answer that question, I have to thank the Member from Hay River South, Hay River North, the Deh Cho, as well as Chief Martel and her council and Mayor Jameson and her council. They showed strong leadership. There was a number of volunteers that helped here in various other communities. So, again, I thank them very much for this.
In regards to the questions, given preseason forecasting for high conditions in the southern NWT this summer, the GNWT took a number of actions to be prepared for an earlier and challenging fire season. We brought on more fire crews this year and testing and training for fire crews in the south NWT has been completed by the time fire had started. We added additional aircraft support for this season and had them start two weeks earlier.
When the KFN and Hay River fire started, we already had an Electra air tanker and helicopter on the ground in Hay River to begin the work on the fire on that first day and brought in additional helicopters from Fort Smith and the second Electra aircraft from Alberta. A second ECC contracted NWTbased Electra and four Fire Boss air tanker, which had also been brought on strength earlier this year, started working on the fire that next day. As well, we had crews that were on the reserve with Evergreen. There was four of them, and we were able to the next day, we had six crews there right away. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm the department was prepared to immediately action the fire on the K'atlodeeche lands; and, how long did it take to mobilize upon receiving word that there was an active fire that was becoming out of control; and, how effective was the response using ground crews and equipment, helicopters, 802s, Electras, and I understand they were even considering bringing in C215s. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said previously, ECC was prepared for a possible early start to this fire season and had crews, helicopter and air tanker on strength in Hay River. ECC staff were able to respond to the fire on the morning it started with the information of the smoke. A helicopter and initial attack crews responded from Hay River immediately. Another Electra from Alberta arrived mid afternoon to assist. But the evening of the day the fire started, four crews and three helicopters were also working to contain the fire. Crews from Wood Buffalo National Park also assisted early in the response. An incident management team, additional crews, and additional air tankers were also on site the next day. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this fire is still being actioned although it's being held. We know personnel time out and replacements are needed. I ask the Minister, did the department bring in replacement personnel equipment from other regions or out of territory; and, what is the department's longterm plan for personnel and equipment considering the potential for fires this season? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The first transition of overhead and crew have already occurred and allowed firefighters to have some much time needed off. Overhead and crews from around the territory serve as the original responders and 24 extra firefighters from across the NWT have been hired and are assisting.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, knowing that we have had an early start to the fire season, I ask the Minister what plans are in place to help communities with fire smarting, such as building fire guards around the community, or is that responsibility placed squarely on the shoulders of the community governments and who would fund such initiatives? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the responsibility for fire smarting in NWT communities is shared by all. And you heard me in my Minister's statement here, it includes the public, homeowners, local, territorial, and federal governments. All 29 forest communities in the NWT have community wildfire protection plans that help guide them in preparing and responding to wildfires. ECC has worked with communities to make sure their plans are updated and continue to provide ongoing advice and assistance to help them implement their plans. The NWT Association of Communities recently received $20 million in federal funding which can assist communities in implementing part of their community wildfire protection plan.
Mr. Speaker, as I said before, it is a collective group approach to it and so we all need to take responsibility to make sure our communities and our residents are safe. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Can the Minister give us any further updates on the secret spills and compliance with the transboundary water agreement by the Government of Alberta? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for ECC.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, since the spill and seepage were reported, Imperial Oil has been providing regular updates to the GNWT on its mitigation and redemption work. The Government of Alberta has undertaken monitoring near the spill and has not found evidence the drinking water sources in Lake Athabasca have been affected.
I met with the Alberta Minister of Environment and Protected Areas in April. The Minister agreed to notify the GNWT on any spills as soon as Alberta is aware of the spills as agreed in our transboundary agreement. The federal Department of Environment and Climate Change and Alberta established a notification and monitoring working group to discuss and improve spill notifications. The GNWT successfully advocated to become a member of the working group along with NWT Indigenous governments and representatives. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. As skeptical as I am about whether there will be any real changes, I do appreciate the efforts of the Minister to resolve this important matter.
Can the Minister tell us what discussions he had with either or both the Alberta and federal ministers about the secret processes of developing tar sands discharge regulations? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank the Member for the question. Both Alberta and Canada are considering the development of regulatory guidance or regulations to allow for discharge of treated oil sand tailings water to the Athabasca River. Alberta's conducting scientific studies to support the development of regulatory guidance which will outline requirements for oil sands and operations to release treated oil sands tailing water.
As I've stated previously, the GNWT I repeat the GNWT will not support the release of oil sands tailings affluent unless rigorous scientific science demonstrates a safe way for it to be done.
I met with the Alberta Minister of Environment and Protected Areas in April. I've asked the Minister how GNWT's comments on the key knowledge gaps reports will be addressed. I also continue to advocate that Alberta engage and consult with NWT Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations as well as the public on the development of any regulations. Officials have met with Canada to receive an update on their regulation development process. Canada's planning to release a discussion paper and conduct consultation with NWT Indigenous governments and organizations this year. The public review period for the federal regulations is anticipated in 2024.
Mr. Speaker, I can also tell you that it's not the only thing Alberta is looking at. They've looked at a variety of things and, again, we weren't able to get the concrete information what they were doing, but they did say that they were looking at other alternatives as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that; I learned a lot. When we develop significant environmental regulations or review and license proposed developments, our public and Indigenous governments have come to expect that these processes are open and transparent. I see no reason why our government cannot make its reviews of documents and submissions on the development of discharge regulations public, especially when it's public funds paying consultants to do the work.
So can the Minister commit to make our submissions and reviews related to tailings discharge regulation development public for the residents of the Northwest Territories? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can advise you that Alberta has asked we keep the key knowledge gap reports in our review confidential at the time while they complete their analysis. Noting that transparency is our interest, we've asked Alberta when they will be making the reports public as well as how they will be dealing with our comments. As I mentioned, we will also continue to advocate that Alberta engages and consults with NWT Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations as well as the public on the development of regulations. And I can honestly tell you, Mr. Speaker, I've made it very clear that we want to be able to get this information out publicly as soon as we can. 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. And I hope we get the Alberta government's permission to release information that our citizens should get very soon. I'm worried, though, Mr. Speaker, that there may be some important events or milestones that are going to pass with the development of these discharge regulations during the upcoming territorial election.
Can the Minister commit to keeping the public informed of any significant events on tar sands spills and discharge regulation development during the upcoming election, and how would he intend to do that? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, should there be any significant incidents upstream or advancement of regulation development, the GNWT will inform the public as part of the caretaker's role during the elections. So if there's information that needs to be shared, we will make sure we get it out there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, under the new Disaster Assistance Policy, if a home was built in an area after it was designated as disaster prone, unless mitigation measures were taken to reduce the risk then disaster assistance is not eligible.
Can the Minister explain how many NWT residents live in a disasterprone area? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for MACA.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, disasterprone areas are those that are identified as susceptible to certain risk. For example, flood risk mapping identifies area that are increased risk of flooding. MACA does not keep account of residents living in a disasterprone area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, if the home experiences two different types of natural disasters and sustains damages in both times, does that still limit that household to accessing disaster assistance one more time? For example, the people of KFN experienced a flood last year and now wildfires this year. How does this policy apply to situations like that, especially in nonreserve circumstances? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intent of the disaster program is limited to the number of times a property is eligible for disaster assistance through mitigation. Disasters are more and more common and very costly. This limitation is to ensure that mitigation is undertaken where possible. Emergency recovery assistance for KFN is provided under the federal government Emergency Management Assistance Program and not through the GNWT Disaster Assistance Policy. Individuals on KFN Reserve, whose homes were affected by the flood last year, will still be eligible for assistance under the federal program that is specific to onreserve disastrous events. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't think the Minister answered about the second part of that question; I'd appreciate an answer. It was especially in nonreserve circumstances, was the ending of the question. Mr. Speaker, could the Minister explain why under the new Disaster Assistance Policy, eligibility for assistance is excluded for an event affecting a single sector or property? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Disaster Assistance Policy is a governmentfunded assistance program that may be implemented after a widespread disaster to ensure essential community functions and cover the essential basic needs of residents and businesses. Events affecting a single sector or property are not widespread, nor do they impact essential community functions.
The Disaster Assistance Policy is not an insurance program or a compensation program to recover all losses or to be applied to events affecting single properties. Property owners have a responsibility to protect their own property and obtain insurances where available and if they are able to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If a natural disaster occurs but only one house sustains damage from it, does the Minister believe it is okay to exclude the household from recovering any disaster assistance funds? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to give you my opinion but what I can tell you is the Disaster Assistance Policy is not designed to assist from recoveries from all events. It is designed to protect against those widespread events that affect many individuals and properties in a community. Across Canada, disaster assistance programs are not applied to events affecting single properties. The intent of the Disaster Assistance Program is to ensure the continued functioning of a community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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 Education, Culture and Employment. I'm wondering, point blankly, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister increase the total number of eligible semesters for all NWT students given that what we're seeing as far as trends of who's accessing SFA. The students that are accessing beyond a bachelor's degree for graduate students is less than 4 percent of all of the students, and students that are accessing even more than four years is limited to under a total of 9 percent. And so I'm wondering if the Minister is willing to look at expanding who can apply for additional funding for SFA in the territory? Thank you
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we haven't even rolled out the first set of significant changes yet, and the Member's already asking for another set. So I can't commit to doing that. What I will say, as the Member has noted, you know, the SFA program was undersubscribed and so we looked at what new money we can find, what money is available internally, and what we could do with those funds. And so what we did is create a program that we could afford in that envelope. I do recognize what the Member is saying. There are still barriers that exist for some people to, you know, advance their education, especially when you're talking about getting a master's or similar degrees like that. So I am live to that but right now we are sticking with these set of changes that we are currently in the process of implementing. And in the future, we can look at even further enhancements. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I wanted to save the Minister some printing and get those changes in before he printed his new rules.
I think there's a lot more focus that's needed on this one because I think that there's something that can be done here in order to include more students in this in the Northwest Territories without it meaning more money from student financial assistance in big dollar amounts given where we're at.
Mr. Speaker, back when I was a student using student financial assistance, I was walking around with my flip phone, I was T9 texting or whatever you used to call it, and so times have changed since then and now we can do a lot more on our phone, we can do a lot more from our computer. But SFA is still using the forms they used back when I was using them and still requiring people to go in with a paper copy to their university and then come back and bring it in to student financial assistance. And so I'm wondering will the Minister work with SFA to move more services online for students so they can spend more time studying and less time doing administration. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So actually you can apply for SFA online. That is an advancement that has happened in the past few years. I think what the Member is referencing is that there is one form, the student enrolment form that needs to be filled out by the school, and so that is still a paper form. However, we have been and in terms of the ability to check your loan balances online, we don't have that; we are working with the Department of Finance to see if there is a way to make this happen. But I'll say that, you know, we don't have the IT infrastructure that you might see in some other jurisdictions. It is expensive and instead of investing in that, I guess we've been investing actually into the programs and that's why we're able to have the most generous student financial assistance program in the country. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, there's also the travel form that students need to fill out online and share there.
So, Mr. Speaker, in addition to the online services, what students are also looking for and it's not just students; it's potential employers, postsecondary institutions across Canada, as well as even the polytechnic here in the Northwest Territories, people are always looking for information because information allows us to make strategic decisions, it allows us to know what's going on in the world, and especially with our own students here. And so I'm wondering if the Minister will commit to doing a little bit more data sharing when it comes to student financial assistance and putting out an annual report that speaks to who is using student financial assistance, where they're going to school, what they're taking at school, completion rates, and also the number of students who are returning to the North to come back here and work. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a long list of things to include. So I can say yes, I will commit to annual reporting and I will commit to seeing how many of those items that we can actually get on the list. But I think it's a great idea, and I'm happy to action the Member's request. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. I very much appreciate that.
Mr. Speaker, the last change that I highlighted in my Member's statement today was the change for remissible loans. It added that for the eligibility requirement of students, I would like to understand why the GNWT wants to remove the eligibility requirement of students being schooled in the Northwest Territories for remissible loans without adding a return to the North clause for nonNWT schooled students. This has been one of the strongest retention tools that the NWT has, and I'm wondering why ECE is choosing to remove that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So by linking the number of years of schooling to the remissible loan program, I'm not sure if that is necessarily a retention tool because you have to go to school first before you get the SFA. The remissible loan actually is remissible if you move back to the territory. So a resident, and I know some people who moved here when they were 17, 18 so they didn't actually do school here, but now they have families here. But, you know, they've made comments that I would have liked to have been able to access some sort of student financial assistance. So this is an opportunity for those individuals as well. But make no mistake, the idea of the remissible loan is that after students complete their education, they come back to the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to miss questioning the Minister responsible for Lands, but I hear this new Minister for Environment and Climate Change has got some great answers for me.
Firstly, Mr. Speaker, I just want to confirm whether we are on track to finish the Public Land Act regulations and get the Public Land Act implemented in the life of this Assembly. I note it's been four years to develop those regulations, and it seems like it's about time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Environment and Climate Change.
