Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will certainly make a point of looking at the website agedout.com.
In terms of the Child and Family Services Act, we have received recommendations from the Member and from the social development committee. I'm not in a position to make a commitment that binds the 20th Assembly to what will be in the revision of the Child and Family Services Act. But, of course, we will be doing a transition document and I can include it in that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final short supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Short is not my skill set, Mr. Speaker. No, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that we can't bind the next government but this is an opportunity to really call on the government to focus on housing and addressing youth homelessness for youth aging out of care in the legislative proposal that comes forward from the government. And I think that this is something that's needed when asking - you know, we heard a question today about whether or not this homelessness strategy is actually going to solve homelessness. This is something very specific and very strategic that the government can do to address homelessness. And so I highly recommend doing this.
I guess what I'd like to leave this with is will the government, as part of their business plan that's coming forward in August, include a youth aging out of care focused portal where youth can actually access resources, information, applications, in order to have control in their lives as they're aging out of care and understand what they are able to access in order to make that transition smooth and successful? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that would be a great topic to bring up with the 20th Assembly who will be doing the next business plan for the 20242025 fiscal year. I think that some of this is a coordination effort. I know that Home Base Yellowknife does enable people to get into leases with landlords and sets youth up in their own housing. I'm not sure whether there is enough of that to make a difference. I think that some youth need significant wraparound resources to be successful as tenants. And so I think all of those are very worthy of consideration. I think for youth as, with any other person, that having housing stabilizes their situation and enables them to deal with some fundamental issues that may be disrupting their lives and to put them on a path to greater success, and I think that that's what we all want. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's been a lot of work done to date in regards to dealing with Aboriginal people in Canada, and we have the Royal Commission Report, we have the Truth and Reconciliation Report. There's a lot of recommendations that were brought forward and recommendations that talks about reconciliation and public apology. And right now my questions are to the Honourable Premier and as follow up to the unresolved matter of the federal Indian Day Schools that I raised in March of 2023 here in the House.
Mr. Speaker, will the Premier acknowledge that abuse continued to happen after the federal day school program was transferred to the GNWT on April 1st, 1969? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. Madam Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't acknowledge that because I haven't - this is the first I've gotten that question with no head's up so I don't know the experiences of students after the GNWT. So what I'd like to propose is that the Member perhaps sit down with myself, and preferably the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, maybe the three of us, to discuss the issues and see what the solutions might be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I look forward to sitting down and having a good discussion on this because, you know, you already know that the Prime Minister of Canada already apologized, and we also had the Pope also apologize, for what happened at the Indian Day School here in Canada. And so we need to talk about that and we need to look at a process, but at the same time if we could have that discussion and agree on doing a public apology. You know, this is a good time to do it because we have Aboriginal Day coming up on June 21st. We have all the assemblies happening already throughout the summer. And I think we should maybe really take a look at that.
So anyways, I think maybe my question is to my other - sorry, the Premier is just exactly what I just said, is that maybe somebody could work together and try and look on those dates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I can't give a commitment to offer any kind of an apology or set a deadline when I'm not aware of the issues concerning. So, again, I'd go back to my first offer to have a meeting with the Minister of education and myself and the Member to discuss what the concerns are and move forward from there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm surprised that, you know, it's 1969, it's only, like, 40 some odd or 45 years ago that nobody in the GNWT system, or in this House, has ever raised this issue. It's an issue that's outstanding that needs to be addressed. And it just boggles my mind that, you know, here I am talking about it today and it never showed up on your radars as the Premier here in the Northwest Territories. But regardless, you know, the transfer happened on April 1st, 1969, to the territorial government, and I'm also probably one of the students that were strapped, along with many of our colleagues around the table here. So that issue we need to talk about. And I'm not sure maybe how we want to approach on this. Sitting down maybe one thing but I need to get action. Whether we have a committee or have a committee of Aboriginal groups here, of leaders in the Northwest Territories to talk about it; we got to do something. And it's outstanding. So I just want to see if I get a commitment from the Premier on maybe - sitting down is one thing but maybe strike a committee, because this is a very important issue because all the issues that we've been talking about around the table here today speaks to the health department etcetera.
But the thing is that we don't have enough money, whether it be for housing or health and social, to deal with these issues. So we need to look at a new approach to work with the Government of Canada to find monies to address this. And it's a big problem but I got to figure a way to try and look at this issue so maybe the Premier could maybe shed light on that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Because I don't have the background on this, and I haven't heard it in my previous almost eight years of being in this House, it could have been raised before, but I'd like to take notice on this question, Mr. Speaker, so that we can get the information necessary. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. And one of the questions I have is related to preventative services. So can the Minister explain to us how many dental therapists does the Northwest Territories have currently on staff now, or if there's dental therapists, dental hygienists, and where are they located? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member giving me notice on this so I could get that specific information. There are three dental therapists located in Fort Simpson, Fort McPherson, and Inuvik. There is a dental hygienist located in Fort Smith. There is a territorial specialist who is a licensed dental hygienist who provides frontline service to communities and is located in Yellowknife. And we also have dental hygienists who work on casual rotations to fill vacancies. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I want to say I think - I'm not sure if it's one or two of the dental therapists that we have, but just doing some reading on this over this last little while working on dental. This has been a big issue, and I was surprised to know that we actually had a dental therapy school in Fort Smith in 1972 that was opened that train local dental therapists free of charge so that they could go back to their communities, and I'm just wondering if we still have any of those dental therapists in the territory. You know, this is I just wanted to put that out there because that was good thinking.
So for the communities that don't have dental therapists or dental hygienists, does the Minister know how often that service is provided to each community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for that additional information. I don't know if any of these therapists are ones who were trained in Fort Smith. I would hope that they would have retired by now but, you know, you never know. So, we have staff assigned to go to communities that don't have therapists or hygienists twice a school year. That's the benchmark of service. Sometimes, I will say upfront, we don't meet that because of staffing and travelrelated issues and school cancellations. But that's what our benchmark is.
Last year the Beaufort Delta and Sahtu regions did not have the correct number of visits, unfortunately. But on the other side, three communities were added that had not been previously seen by the GNWT, and those communities are Lutselk'e, N'dilo, and Dettah. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that information. So I know that the government - and I think we've had this discussion in the House, the government does get federal funding to fly in dentists into small communities so that they are able to get dental care into the communities. And I'm just wondering, and I did send the Minister, like, the approval, what's authorized. And I'm just going to - I'm not going to worry about 17 and over right now, even though that is a big issue, but 17 and under, like a recall exam/polishing is one in every six months. So I'm just wondering if the dentists that we're consulting and with the hygienists, are we even meeting these needs for our Indigenous communities, our kids under 17 in our communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that what the Member is talking about is the contracting that GNWT does on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada for NIHB. And so we let those contracts and they are primarily for travel costs - they are for travel costs. The dentist needs to get approval from NIHB for the services provided. And in terms of the services that they do provide, as the Member knows there is a preapproval process, and the dentists make their own determination of what service is most required by the patient. That's not something that we have oversight over. Although I will say we license dentists and we also supervise the complaint process. But in terms of what the dentist decides to do with the patient in the chair, that's on the dentist. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so, Mr. Speaker, you know, I could - you know, I could highlight in probably three Member's statements on the article that I read and the history of dental therapy in Canada, and it looked at how Indigenous communities were lacking any oral preventative services. And so they came up with plans, and the plans were to train locals, send them back to their communities, and here we are again with no dental therapy schools and, you know, we've got a bill in front of the Minister. So now I just want to know if the Minister will look at other ways to ensure that preventative care is being completed in all communities and are making sure that these targets are met in all these communities that NIHB has outlined in what their approval schedule is for this? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question. I think the first thing that we need to do is meet the benchmark of two visits to each school each year. That would be a great start. We have had real trouble recruiting both dentists and dental hygienists in the Northwest Territories. And we have, of course, not given up on doing that but when we put out the requests for proposal in March, we got zero results. And the result is of that is that we are severely underserved by dental health specialists, and that's across the board. And I know that people can go to their health centre and ask to have service in a location where a dentist is and have their medical travel paid there. That's not a great solution, but it is one potential solution. It's not helped by the fact that in Inuvik, the dental clinic seems to be staffed intermittently and by locums. It's difficult to have a continuity of service there.
So I recognize that this has had an impact on preventative care, and it's a problem. If the Member has any ideas about how we can do more to recruit dentists and fill those contracts with - pardon me, recruit dental hygienists to do the school work, even on a locum basis, and how to attract dentists to doing this work, I'm certainly very interested to hear it. And I'll look up the website on the history of dental therapy.
I don't really understand why this profession has fallen by the wayside and has been taken over by dental hygienists. I think there's some scope of practice issues there. I did hear however, last week, that the University of Saskatchewan was considering relaunching their dental therapy school which might, in the end, be of benefit to us. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change on the review of the Project Assessment Policy. The Minister committed to have the review completed in December of 2022 in response to my written questions in March of 2022.
Can the Minister tell us the status of that review and whether the work to revise this antiquated and regressive policy will be done in the 19th Assembly? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Environment and Climate Change.
I could quickly say yes but expand it a little bit further. The Member is correct; the Department of Lands had completed an initial review of the Project Assessment Policy when we merged lands and ENR. Further work on the policy has continued through the Department of ECC. And as I've said the Project Assessment Policy will be revised before the end of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Well, that's the good news. I'm just kind of waiting for the bad news now, but. In response to the written question I submitted in the House in March, the Minister said there would not be any public engagement work with Indigenous governments on the review of the policy. We have, you know, public engagements on such mundane matters as renaming the old Stanton Hospital, a product survey, you know, for liquor and cannabis, but we're not going to ask the public about how GNWT should be involved in environmental assessment of major projects? I just don't get it.
Can the Minister explain why the department does not want to seek public input into revising the Project Assessment Policy? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct, in my written response I said no, we're not going to do public. But, Mr. Speaker, the Project Assessment Policy already exists and is being updated based on feedback and concerns shared by boards, IGIOs, and the public, during the Tlicho AllSeason Road and the Giant Mine process. The Project Assessment Policy is an internal policy that defines how the GNWT works internally among departments for project assessments and will continue where the government is the proponent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. So a key feature of the devolution agreement was the establishment of an Intergovernmental Council to allow the public and Indigenous governments to corporate and collaborate on matters related to lands and resources management. And, Mr. Speaker, that sentence is taken directly from the IGC website.
So can the Minister explain why his department does not intend to work with Intergovernmental Council in reviewing the Project Assessment Policy? Thanks, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated just on the last question, this policy defines how the GNWT works internally for the project assessments. Again, it's an internal document. The policy is, again, about the GNWT's - on how the GNWT organizes work together among departments for environmental assessments prior to making any submissions to comanagement boards. 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. This may be an internal document, but it's public interest. I've raised this numerous times in the House, and it does involve expenditure of public monies as well. You know, this government has taken a keen interest in large infrastructure projects; it seemed part of Cabinet's mandate. GNWT's going to increasingly become a proponent in environmental assessment. And this Project Assessment Policy seems to be aimed at controlling the presentation of evidence and expert opinion that is not consistent with Cabinet's views.
So can the Minister tell us whether this government is really committed to evidencebased decisions and how will that be implemented in the context of GNWTsponsored projects and related decisionmaking? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for the question. The government is committed to evidencebased decisions. There is nothing in the Project Assessment Policy that prevents the presentation of evidence or expert opinions in the comanagement process. Currently the GNWT, led by the Department of ECC, is working to define how the GNWT can be more transparent in environmental assessments, including decisionmaking of the GNWT projects. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for housing. Can the Minister tell us when the Fort Good Hope Seniors Centre is going to open? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Mr. Speaker, thank you, to the Member for this question. I know he's been advocating, and he's been asking the question over and over. And I just want a drum roll. I'm excited, I am happy to say the nineplex in Fort Good Hope, the seniors complex, will be open and people are moving in tomorrow. So we did stick to our date of June 1st. And we won't be having an official opening. We've already had that already, as the Member had said.
And I want to thank the Member for constantly advocating because seniors in the Northwest Territories is very important. We need to get units in the smaller communities as well. Also the staff as well for looking at this project, the Sahtu district office, the local housing authority. The community is very excited and very happy for this to come forward. And also, I'm very happy to fulfill one of the Member's questions and what he was bringing forward. So we've met the date of June 1st. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very happy to hear that, and I'm sure all of the people moving in tomorrow are even happier. Great news.
I guess my question, in a bit more serious tone though, is that this has taken a couple of years. We still haven't, on the public record, figured out exactly what happened. I know there were some contractor disputes. There were some inspection issues. But do we have a figure now about what all of this cost us in extra dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for asking the question. But I just don't want to shed any - I don't want to take away the excitement. But the project originally cost us $3.5 million. But we learned a lot of issues that we could have dealt with prior to a project like this rolling out. We do support local contractors. We do support building capacity. And unfortunately, in this case, we did see some issues that we could have addressed earlier. We own it as Housing NWT. We owe it to be supporting local businesses. This does not discourage us in going forward. But presently, this project is tied up in litigation right now. And it's going back and forth. I just don't want to take that away but just reassure the public and reassure the Member, housing has learned from this, and we will be improving our relationship with our local contractors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recognize that when there's contractor litigation that, you know, we don't quite know that. I guess I'm looking for a commitment that at some point the housing could release some public information on this. What we often do is we sign NDAs and we add a few more million dollars on to the project and then no one will say anything about that. And it's happened many times in this Assembly, and I would not want this to be a case. I think it is a project that is - the Minister said there are lessons learned. I would like to see what those lessons learned. And I think that at the end of the day, we owe it to public to know what the final dollar figure was on this building. So can the Minister take that back and try to find a way that we will actually say, at some point, what this cost us in millions of dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. And like several of our programs - I mean, our infrastructure builds throughout the Northwest Territories, I also want to acknowledge that we are still able to commence construction even during COVID and the restrictions, and I'm proud to say that housing was able to fulfill this contract and being able to get this build completed and done. And also recognizing that this number is not going to be $3.5 million. It's going to increase obviously. And those numbers and this situation is brought before the courts. Once a decision is made, I will be able to provide that information to the Member but it's not going to be by the time we're done this government. But it will be provided. And like I had said that we have learned a lot of lessons during this process as well too. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to let you know that I'll be tabling my Member's statement and questions tomorrow as written statements - written questions so I could get my questions answered because I didn't get a full answer here today. But, again, I just want to add one question to the Premier that I'd like to have that commitment.
Member for Tu NedheWiilideh, that line of questioning was taken on notice so you can't ask any further questions on that. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure. Can the Minister of Infrastructure confirm that the runway at the Fort Smith Airport is fully aligned with federal safety standards and that it's fully safe and operational for both government and civilian aircraft to use? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
