Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the brief answer from the Minister.
Mr. Speaker, my next question for the Minister specifically is how do they directly supports employers trying to bring employment opportunities to life in the Northwest Territories? Again, whether you live in Tsiigehtchic, you live in Inuvik or in Yellowknife, how does this office help? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECE has approximately three staff members who deal with immigration for the Northwest Territories Nominee Program. They do their best to work with employers in order to let them know what the process looks like but it is very much and largely a process that is directed by the federal government under IRCC. And so here in the territory, we definitely do our best and it's a program that I would like to see grow here in the territory so that we can continue as a government to support labour development and workforce development and especially supporting employers in order to grow their workforce. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I couldn't have said or sorry, it was a perfect answer in the context of hearing that they want to grow the workforce. So I'd like to hear how that office directly works with employers to grow the workforce? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can say personally I've never actually worked through the process. I can also say having worked with multiple residents who have gone through the process of hiring workers, what they have done is hired a consultant to help through the process because it is largely a process that takes place with the federal government, and there's it's a very extensive process that happens, Mr. Speaker. But these three staff members do their best to work through educating employers as to how that looks, how that works, what forms are required, and also what entry programs might work. For example, we have an express entry. We have a Francophone entry that people can also use so that you're actually able to target, first of all, skilled workers and then, second, able to target people from certain countries in order to increase the Francophone speakers in our communities as well. So it's used not only just for increasing our workforce but also enriching our communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's kind of like a one thing follows the next. Jobs means taxes. Taxes mean money to the government. Government means services. Etcetera, etcetera. The Minister just said it's an extensive process. She wants to grow the opportunities in the Northwest Territories. I have employers coming to me saying they can't fill out the paperwork because of time, energy, and inability to follow through properly.
What is the Minister willing to do to help support northern employers who are trying to create employment opportunities to serve Northerners and create opportunities that continue to create further opportunities in all our communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I can commit to doing let me start over. I was distracted by my earpiece. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I can confirm for the Member that I am absolutely interested in seeing our immigration program grow. I believe that us, like the rest of the country, are very much reliant on immigration in order to empower our employers in the Northwest Territories to be able to put people and the dreams that they have to grow their businesses, and I can say that I am committed to extending our immigration strategy that is currently in place and has recently expired. That's something that I wanted to announce later on this month, and so I will come back with more information on that. But what I would encourage is for all of these employers that are having difficulty to feed into that strategy, to allow us to really work together, so that I can help employers with where they see gaps in this system so that I'm able to support them as Minister of ECE and ITI who also has a role to play in immigration and so that we can work together to make this a more robust program in order to see more people, more Canadian newcomers showing up in the Northwest Territories and making the North their home. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Following up on my Member's statement, my first question is why did the government move forward with changes to the child and youth counselling initiative in the fall of 2023 instead of waiting for the results and recommendations from the independent evaluation that was already underway? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a review of this program was launched in the last Assembly, and this review was jumpstarted based on feedback that was received by education bodies along with the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association. And what it was responding to ultimately was the need for the unique instances in each of our communities to be acknowledged and, really, for us to be able to acknowledge, along with education bodies, that the needs of our communities are different from Yellowknife to regional centres to small communities and the ability of education bodies to respond to their differences needed to be respected and that one size really doesn't fit all in our territory.
Mr. Speaker, it also addressed the concerns of prolonged recruitment and retention challenges. That's something that on both sides of the House in the 19th Assembly, we heard about quite frequently, was that some communities weren't able to hire the clinicians that were required of the program. And included in that was a real call for need of intervention and prevention supports for our children and our youth.
Mr. Speaker, I think it's fair for me to say that a number of our youth in the North are suffering right now and that we really need to be able to respect the autonomy of our communities and our schools by providing them with options. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So most jurisdictions in Canada seem to be moving towards more integrated service delivery. And integrated service delivery is also something that this government in other ways seems to be moving towards and yet this change appears to be a step away from that. Can I ask for a clarification whether clinical counsellors are still available in the schools or only in locations outside the schools? So has the yeah, I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for the specifics on kind of what schools have who in them, that would definitely be a question that would be best directed towards health and social services, but I can say that it really is regional dependent. Some regions have all regions now have the ability to have different setups and are in the process of putting those setups into place.
What I can speak to and what schools do have is schools have the access to not only be using clinical counsellors for their children, but they also have access to Indigenous counsellors in schools now. They have access to personal support workers in schools now. They have access to wellness counsellors in schools now.
And so just in reflection on the Member's comment about integrated service delivery, what some of these personal support workers are doing are actually connecting families from the schools to different government support workers so that that's another member of our communities that is really helping act as connecters and connection points to the different programs and services that we have available. And so while not all schools are and all school systems are built the same, this provides schools with the opportunity to hire different people and, should schools want, they can also use their 55 percent of that funding to access more clinical counselling services if they so choose. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So it sounds like there was a sense of urgency last fall to make these changes to allow more school to allow schools to hire the counsellors that they need. Can I ask the Minister, have these changes that were implemented in the fall of 2023 resulted for this school year in more counsellors, personal support workers, mental health workers being hired in schools; has it achieved that goal for this school year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can answer that by saying absolutely yes, because the funding didn't exist before for schools to be able to hire the personal support workers unless they were getting funding through Jordan's Principle. And so just that alone means that schools who are having those recruitment and retention issues for our clinical counsellors can now turn around and go get personal support workers, wellness counsellors and Indigenous counsellors that are more responsive to the cultural needs of the school as well. Some schools have even been able to hire elders and Indigenous knowledgekeepers in order to bring them into the school to provide students with daily access to elders. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would request that the Minister perhaps follow up with more details on the effect that these changes had on schools versus previously in terms of detailed numbers around the number of clinicians available in schools before versus now and the number of other personal support workers, Indigenous counsellors in schools before versus now. I would love to see those numbers, so I request that the Minister could follow up and provide those on a later date. Thank you.
Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for that. I can honestly share with the Member that I am, as a parent and as a member of the community, very much committed to ensuring that the mental health of our students and our youth and children is supported and would appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak with any Member of the House about where this program is going. This program with many education bodies is still rolling out. They're still looking for people and deciding what this looks like. So not every education body hasn't absolutely hundred percent, you know, set in stone what it looks like. But there is also an accountability framework as part of this that is being developed, and I look forward to being able to share that with Members of this House. Thank you.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister what is the total cost of the Snare Hydro Expansion to the community of Whati and how much of that funding has been secured? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's I'll have to get the number to the Member, standing on the floor of the House I'm just looking at my notes and don't have it in front of me. So I will correspond back to the Member on where the budget is at. I can also say that there certainly has been some advancement. There are some funds already secured and discussions are underway with the Tlicho government on this project. Thank you.
Okay, well further to that question, what has been spent to date on this project and what is the remaining to be spent? Thank you.
Colleagues, please one question and that has two. So Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I could tell you that I've got some notes. They're in a paragraph, and that's not going to be a good way for me to answer a question on the floor of the House trying to get numbers like this. But certainly I can give a general and I certainly don't want to miss out on the amount of money that's been secured. That's my bigger concern here. There's been money that's going back to 2022 that has already been that's already been secured. We are working with the Tlicho/Kiewit partnership. They are doing planning studies. And so at this point, the project is proceeding forward. There does appear to be, from my brief review here, adequate funds to proceed through the planning stages and the design stages, community engagement stages. And obviously, the next point will then to be to get to a fully cost estimated project so that the more detailed work can be done to connect the community. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Okay, the Minister can tell me this, how much funding is the GNWT contributing and how much funding is required from partners?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mean, again, Mr. Speaker, I definitely will commit to providing here in the next couple of days detail to the Member from Monfwi about what has happened over the last several years and where the project's at in terms of its progress. Some of the funding certainly has come from CIRNAC. The GNWT is also, then, applying for additional funds from CIRNAC. I can't say off the top of my head whether the Tlicho government's contributed anything directly and I certainly expect and I know that they are involved as a partner as this is a project on their lands. And, again, I don't know what position I may be in to speak to that but I will commit to getting a letter to the Member so that she has that detail. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you. Has the GNWT explored partnership that could implement the Snare Hydro Expansion within the life of this Assembly? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's quite a bit of work underway already with respect, as I've said, to different phases of the project to the extent that they're known. So, again, planning study that was completed with the TlichoKiewit partnership, that was completed already in 2023. So, again, that does suggest that there is a good working relationship in existence. There does need to be some further conversation with that partnership in order to determine what the next steps would be based on their planning study. But phase 1 is where we would get to a point of having a more shovel ready project. The phase 1 of the project is next. That's where you get into your community engagement, your design, environmental studies. It's my understanding that that's where we're at, that discussions are underway with the Tlicho government. I don't know what the most recent conversations have been, but I will certainly find out. Thank you.
Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Northerners keep getting told that our system of carbon pricing is more flexible than the federal model, but it seems to me that the only flexibility we have is to copy what they're doing in Ottawa when the dictates of Parliament come down to us. So can the Minister of Finance tell me, is the GNWT simply mirroring changes made to the federal backstop with our own carbon pricing regime? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are limited in our flexibility in terms of what fuels are taxed and in terms of the tax rates on those fuels. And so to that extent, when the federal government has opted to exempt a particular type of heating fuel, yes, we did mirror what they did as that is the limited flexibility that we have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to that, Yukon and Nunavut maintain their own rebate systems, including rebates to mines, yet they use the federal backstop for tax collection. Why can't we do the same in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Yukon and Nunavut are under, long before we did, many, many years ago created their systems with the federal system. At this point, we would come in under the federal system much like Alberta and Manitoba and others did when the last round of changes came through. So, and I wouldn't I mean, I can certainly provide a more detailed comparison between the Yukon system and ours and between Nunavut's system and ours. There's differences in terms of the rebates that go to individuals. There's differences in the rebates that go to businesses, including differences in the ways that there's rebates that go into large emitters and large systems. So the systems are quite significantly different, in my view, and I don't know that again, I don't know that I can do it briefly on the floor of the House, but I don't know that we necessarily want to put ourselves under that system at this point. The system we have was designed for the Northwest Territories' large emitters, and that's where we want to stay. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, BC's carbon tax is revenue neutral with all revenues going to rebates for clean energy programs or rebates to individuals. Why is our carbon tax generating net revenue instead of being revenue neutral? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all of the revenue that comes in, there is what's left after the rebates to residents and businesses and then to the community governments, what's left at that point does not cover the full amount of programs and services that the government has, for example Arctic Energy Alliance, EV vehicle rebates, bike rebates, the carbon climate change efforts by ECC, and certainly does not cover the costs of infrastructure projects that we have underway to bring about cleaner energy. So, for example, the Inuvik wind project, studies that are on the transmission line into Whati that we were just speaking about to bring hydro, those projects far outweigh exceed whatever net revenue is left over after the rebates. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a very important issue downtown in Yellowknife is the wellness and recovery centre. Many of the residents in my riding, in Yellowknife Centre, are concerned. But equally so, I've talked to many of my community colleagues, including my good friends deep into the far reaches of the territory, all wondering the same thing, where their wellness and recovery centre is. Is Yellowknife getting everything again they say, and I say to them I support my communities and colleagues, but I'm concerned about that particular messaging that that does.
So maybe the Minister of health could give an actual update as to where the wellness and recovery centre project is, because I know they filed for a building permit with the city of Yellowknife, so something must be happening. Can she give the House an update. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within the wellness recovery centre in Yellowknife, as many may be aware, that there was a large federal announcement for that and right now, the Member is accurate, there are the as sorry, as there is moving forward on the accessing the land from the city and then for the permits and stuff, and then I guess they'll be the plan is to have it I think it's 2024, this coming year, to have the RFP go out, so for the building. And then, you know, if everything moves along smoothly, I think it would be hopefully before the end of my term, then we would have this facility, wellness recovery facility open within Yellowknife. But that doesn't take the fact away that we are continuously working with Indigenous governments and that we're trying to work with them on how to provide wellness within each region because that is the message that we heard. We all heard. We heard from Indigenous governments. My department is fully aware of those engagements that need to take place. Myself, as a Minister, is willing to engage with any Indigenous government that wants to, you know, discuss what they vision in their regions. And so, you know, because we say Yellowknife is getting this, you know, I can't gladly, as the government, will take money from the federal but it's them to decide where that goes, so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think I want to make sure it's clear to the House, and certainly the public, the merits of the project, they're not being debated in any form whatsoever. So I don't want anyone to misunderstand.
So, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the accessibility of information on this particular project, what is the Minister doing from the department's point of view of promoting and educating the public as to each step of what's happening? Because the impacts have neighbours and communities very concerned. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, as to what the department and what has been done, you know, there's been a long engagement within the city of Yellowknife. As a Regular Member who sat on the other side, I am not from Yellowknife, but I know I sat in many conversations and many concerns that other Yellowknivs Members that were bringing forward, so I know that there's been long ongoing conversation. If the Member wants to discuss further what is being done and what needs to be done, I'm willing to have that conversation with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Perhaps my question was just too simple, Mr. Speaker. I'll go about it this way: Can the Minister put all information on the health and social services website as to the stages and where it is with respect to this particular project and where it's going? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, yes, I will work with my department to make sure that the steps of the process are public. Thank you.
