Wow, how do you follow that?
I just want to acknowledge a couple exciting events happening in Hay River, my region, this coming weekend, week. First of all, neighbours across the river, K'atlodeeche is having an annual carnival this weekend. This week, we're also welcoming Members from throughout the Northwest Territories in Hay River for the annual NWT Association of Communities training and annual general meeting. Also this weekend in Hay River is the annual pond hockey tournament which is put on by a bunch of amazing volunteers in Hay River. And I'm looking forward to being back home and taking part in some of the activities this weekend in Hay River, along with a few of my colleagues I believe, and wish everybody a safe and enjoyable week and weekend in Hay River. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Hay River South. Members' statements.
Good afternoon, colleagues. As we are all aware, the Arctic Winter Games were held in the MatSu Valley in Alaska. The Games will mostly take place in the Valley's two largest cities, Palmer and Wasilla. Just an hour north of Anchorage, separated by 16 miles, they serve as a major hub of commercial, tourism, and recreation. The games are being held March 10th to the 16th. We will witness approximately 2,000 participants, coaches, admission staff, and officials from eight contingencies attend these games.
Colleagues, I'm very proud to say we have nine athletes representing five sports, one coach and two youth ambassadors from the Nahendeh riding representing the Team NWT at these games. I have attached the list to this statement and will ask it to be deemed as read and printed in the Hansard.
I would like to thank their parents, local coaches, teachers and friends that supported these athletes and ambassadors as they prepare for this very important international event. As we heard in the news, there was some challenges in getting passports for some of the athletes across the NWT. I would like to thank our Member of Parliament and his office staff for working hard to help address this issue. I can tell you they did not stop and took the issue right to the top.
As he was a former Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, he understands the importance of getting youth to these games. As well, I would like to thank Service Canada NWT branch and Passport Canada for helping our youth achieve one of their goals.
From the NWT side, I would like to thank the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, his staff, Chef De Mission, and Sport North staff for working together to solve this issue.
Now back to the athletes. I can tell you their hard work, determination, and dedication to their sport is very inspiring. I know that they are very proud of their accomplishments and are looking forward to their next adventures at these games.
Like athletes, the youth ambassador representatives are going to have a great time being part of the volunteer team at these games. What I seen in the past is a life changing opportunity for these youth and what a great event to continue to volunteer. I wish the NWT team all the best, and hopefully we bring the Stuart Hodgson Award back. Thank you.
Athletes from the Nahendeh Riding
Amaria TancheHanna
Fort Simpson
Brittany Kendo
Fort Simpson
Callie Thomas
Fort Simpson
Gina HardistyIsaiah
Fort Simpson
Jaicee Tsetso
Fort Simpson
Lydia Nelner
Fort Simpson
Payton Bennett
Fort Simpson
Shawna McLeod
Fort Simpson
Tanner Isaiah
Fort Simpson
Athletes from the Nahendeh Riding
Valerie Gendron
Fort Simpson
Youth Ambassadors from the Nahendeh Riding
Kaechoa Rocque
Sambaa K'e
Adrian Allen
Fort Liard
I'd like to recognize Georgina Rolt, a longtime friend of mine who used to reside in Hay River and still holds a membership with the Hay River Legion in Hay River.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from Tu NedheWiilideh.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to recognize Brad Enge, a former lawyer and former RCMP. He's here today. So I want to say mahsi and welcome.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. If we missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to your Chambers. I hope you are enjoying the proceedings. It's very festive today. It is always nice to see people in the gallery.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question will be directed to the Premier of the Assembly.
Last week the Members passed a motion with respect to the wildfire inquiry question and, of course, you know, we don't have to go through that debate in my preamble, Mr. Speaker, but the ask was would the Premier be willing to table the draft inquiry establishment order on the first day of session and hence, that's the question, would the Premier commit publicly to being able to clearly do that as requested by the Members of this House? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm happy to once again publicly state that I will table the draft order as laid out in the motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral Questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I talked about the serious need for us to reinvest in our mining economy and open it up to new degrees of exploration. So I'd like to ask the Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment will she ask or will she bring forward an FMB submission to double the Mining Incentive Program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of ITI.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first off I appreciate the Member's enthusiasm and support of the mineral resource sector. Right now we are undergoing a little bit of a different strategy at Cabinet, not one where I'm being asked to double numbers at the moment, but I am being asked to be creative in the priorities of this government. Thank you.
Thank you. I don't want to put a price on our mining industry but it's fundamental to our economy.
Mr. Speaker, another thing that we've heard is there's too much red tape. It's a very difficult regulatory process. Will the Minister commit to making regulatory improvements that will take small scale exploration projects out of the equation and create their own rules around it so we can get these projects off the ground sooner and they don't have to deal with as much regulatory red tape? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is something that we hear quite a bit about on both sides of the table here, and so one of the things that the Minister for Environment and Climate Change and I are doing is doing bilaterals together, both between ourselves and between our staff counterparts at the official levels as well, so that we can do this work in streamlining the regulatory processes the Member is talking about.
Another thing that we're doing is we do have a spot at the Mackenzie Valley operational dialogue tables where we are purposefully discussing right sizing policy for small projects, and we also have a space at the regional energy and resource tables, along Enercan, where we're having similar conversations. So this is definitely a priority, and I look forward to continuing this conversation with the Member and my colleagues. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's good news. I'd like to ask the Minister if she'll join my mission to MARS and get online map staking done by 2026 or earlier? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was reminded to slow down so my apologies to the interpreters.
Getting the MARS system and going on a journey to MARS with the Member is definitely a priority, and I look forward to continuing to find out if there are solutions to getting this done quicker. But I am also looking to make sure that it is done properly. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. And thank you to the Minister. Very good answers today, all positive; I like that.
Mr. Speaker, finally, we have an infrastructure deficit. Mines need clean energy. We can't get it to them. What's the Minister's plan? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member. This is a huge topic that is right across industry, and one of the things that we hear is one of the biggest barriers when doing business and securing investment in our territory is our infrastructure deficit. That being said, it is still an opportunity for us to be able to work together on this side of the table and, luckily, myself and the Minister of Infrastructure have a very good working relationship and both share goals of economic prosperity for the territory. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to my colleagues. I've realized I've been too serious these days, so this is a little bit of fun for everyone.
The Minister of Justice released the daylight savings What We Heard report in 2023, early 2023, Mr. Speaker. We're sitting here a year later. So will the current Minister of Justice commit to moving the territory to permanent time in the life of the 20th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No one would like that more than me. I was really pushing for this in the last government. Unfortunately I can't make that commitment. There's a variety of reasons. It is unfortunately a much more labour intensive and much more complicated task than people might expect. There is not one entity that you go to and say, I want to get off daylight savings time; I want to stick with a permanent time. We have to reach out to, you know, Microsoft, Apple, Google, a number of these different companies. So maybe I can leave it at that. The Member might have more questions; I don't want to spoil all the fun at once. Thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I sure hope we can have fun for the next three and a half years.
Mr. Speaker, I understand it's technically a difficult ask. I understand that the Yukon had a bit of a difficult job implementing as well. So what I guess I would ask the Minister today is if he can't commit to full implementation happening in the 20th, can he at least look into what steps need to happen to get us there, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the Member referenced the Yukon and, of course, the Yukon got rid of the time change a couple years ago. They intended to piggyback off British Columbia who announced that they were going to do the same. It turns out that they didn't go through with it but the Yukon had already committed themselves and so they had to go through it, and it showed the difficulties of a small jurisdiction in making that a reality. And so some of the things that I heard and they actually released a report that's quite interesting, you know, you had staff from the Yukon government on the phone with, you know, the 1800 customer service number to companies like Microsoft trying to make this happen. So unless we have a big jurisdiction who is sort of leading the way and getting the attention of these companies, it is quite difficult and quite resource intensive. You know, I've been preaching about living within our means and ensuring that we are at least providing the basics before we do anything else. So the thing that needs to happen is Alberta needs to get on board. I know that they had a referendum and there wasn't clear support for getting rid of time change unlike here where I think it was 80 some percent, the biggest survey response in the history of the territory. But hopefully that happens. There has been some work done already to see what we would need to do, a number of technical changes. We've been engaging with officials from the Yukon to learn about the steps they had to take. So a lot of that work has already happened. I can share some information with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. So what I'm hearing is some work has occurred and he's willing to share that work with Members. That's fantastic. Can that work that is scoped include timelines from when Alberta drops the gauntlet to what it would look like here and in terms of how long it would take us to catch up with Alberta? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That might be a bit much. I'm not quite sure that we can provide that level of detail. We don't quite know what it would take. We would likely piggyback with Alberta and, you know, make the changes at the same time. So while Alberta is contacting the airlines saying that they're getting rid of their time change, we could be part of those conversations. That would be my hope. So I'll see what we can what information we can put together, but I don't think it's going to be the level of detail to perhaps satisfy the Member. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.
Mr. Speaker, I thought today was supposed to be fun. I can recognize that I might be coming across requesting a level of detail. I just want to have a general picture, Mr. Speaker, of how long implementation may occur in maybe months or years, Mr. Speaker; is that a possibility? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have some reports, I have a briefing note, so we can put together the information from what we have and share it with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance. Can the Minister tell me the current number of vacant positions across the GNWT?
Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm able to say that as of December 31st, 2023, we had 517 vacancies across the total GNWT. So that's approximately 8.6 or so of all of the funded positions, which is a total of just over 6,000. Thank you.
Thank you. And thank you for the response. Mr. Speaker, how does the GNWT monitor and track this trend across government?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is a variety of different tracking mechanisms that are underway. Every department is responsible to manage all of their internal positions. Finance, through the human resources division, then elects and collates that information. Mr. Speaker, I would commend our annual public service report. It doesn't put vacancies in there, but it does put a fair bit of information that shows the ascensions, so the different hiring of employees, retention rates, retirement rates, and certainly does give a good sense of what some of the movements are, and it does that actually broken down by the different departments so you can start to see areas where there are some divisions that are seeing higher turnovers versus others. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister of Finance for that answer. My question is, is there an annual financial value to these positions that are vacant and, if so, can the Minister give me that number, please?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I don't have it done by a financial number. Again, certainly, if there's we do track, as I've said, as of December of last year there was 517. You certainly could go in and take all of those and figure out what each one is worth. What I can say is that late in the end of the last Assembly and also the beginning of this one, I certainly have asked the Department of Finance to go and figure out and ensure, rather, that we are looking at positions that have been vacant for a long time. There can be times where an individual may be off with a duty to accommodate and out on education. You know, there's maternity and parental leaves. So there's a number of different reasons a position may be formally vacant in this system but the individual or the position has somebody coming back to it or that maybe have competitions that are ongoing. But we do want to make sure we're monitoring positions that are vacant for a long time where there's not an open competition, and those ones should be then removed from the system. That work has begun and will certainly continue. Thank you.
Minister of Finance. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Final supplementary.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks for that information. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister talk I guess that number of 517, how does that compare to previous years? Is it an average for those positions and are the positions tracked by regions, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
