Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly that's not my intent. I think the Minister needs to work with treaty partners to ensure there's realistic and clear policy. So what I am saying is when an applicant applies, can they get a response, whatever that response happens to be, within 90 days? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will commit that we will ensure that we improve our communications with the applicants and provide a level of response within 90 days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Well, I know who my new favorite Minister is, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're on a roll. Will the Minister commit to convert all outstanding equity leases to title fee simple title? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, leases that qualify for fee simple title under the legislation, the limitations of land sales policy may be eligible for title to their parcel subject to consultation and survey requirements. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I won't be singing my questions by the way.
So, Mr. Speaker, diabetes in the Northwest Territories are certainly, you know, well above the national average. As a matter of fact, groups like the Metis have some of the highest diabetes affected in the context of ethnicity. NWT Indigenous women are certainly well above the Canadian average. And, Mr. Speaker, our regional centres suffer enormously with the high levels of diabetes and the lack of care.
My question for the Minister of Health and Social Services is how is she planning to change this narrative by extending diabetic supports and care outside of the headquarters region of Yellowknife? Thank you.
Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure I understand if the question is the direction from the headquarters or because in all of the regions, we have regional diabetes educators. We have community health representative workers that work with you know, with health promotion and health in that area so if the you know, if there's a specific question, I would try to get the answer for the Member. Thank you.
Well, it's a twopronged question, Mr. Speaker. The same question by the way. But, you know, it's the sense of the accessibility to diabetic supports, and without revisiting the earlier questions, it's about wait time getting a doctor to supply the information in the context of diagnosis and treatment of those supports. So, Mr. Speaker, my understanding is Yellowknife's the only area you can get dialysis and other types of supports for diabetic care. And I'd like to ask the Minister, again, is how is she going to expand this type of support services to those communities and regions to ensure they have that type of support? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I think Yellowknife has the dialysis for people that are in kidney failure, and I believe that the last last term, the Member from Hay River South advocated very hard for Hay River to have a dialysis and that is currently running there. But as for diabetes and services, you know, outside of Yellowknife, the, you know, access to diabetes information, there the hospitals in Inuvik and Hay River, the health centre in Fort Smith, the you know, the community health centres. And, again, like I said, home care works with a lot of our diabetes patients and the diabetes educators in Yellowknife. You know, there's a lot of the health promotion stuff in Yellowknife. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be willing to investigate and report back on how many people have to come to Yellowknife from our regions and smaller communities for these types of support services specific to diabetes? Thank you.
Yes. Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, upon that analysis, would the Minister be willing to take it to FMB to expand services and support programs to the communities and regions based on that type of information; will she become the new advocate? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I guess I'm confused. With diabetes, people see access outside of Yellowknife. They access the physician. They are able to get their prescriptions for their you know, the medication that they're on. They're able to get the you know, the necessary tools that they need to check their blood sugar. There's many this is available outside of Yellowknife. So I can look into further what patients, if they are travelling to Yellowknife for diabetes services but I you know, I'll just leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my questions this time are for the Minister of Infrastructure.
Does this government plan to move ahead with applications around the Slave Geological Province Road that could trigger an environmental assessment even while a regional study is underway? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first and foremost we are working very closely with Indigenous governments on any routing decisions that might someday be made in the future, including the Tlicho government who did trigger the request for the regional strategic environmental assessment. At this point, we're at a stage going out this summer to do some field work analysis, some early field work analysis but, again, Mr. Speaker, I do want to emphasize no final decisions on routing are going to be made without Indigenous consultation, and the GNWT does continue to participate in the regional strategic environmental assessment. We had certainly hoped that had that moved a little faster that they'd be in a position to actually take that information and contribute. Don't have a lot of control over how fast the federal government can get that going. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So does the Minister have a sense, then, on how fast this government plans to move on the Slave Geological Province Road?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do, as of December, have a type A land use permit that was issued to us, and with that's just going as far as going up to Lockhart Lake. Now with that, it is hoped that we could spend this summer beginning some field work assessments, and again ultimately had been hoping that more would be happening with the regional strategic environmental assessment. I can say, Mr. Speaker, we have funding right now, federal funding, that goes until 2028. So that puts a bit of a time crunch on us to advance what has been often spoke of as one of the critical infrastructure projects for the Northwest Territories and one about which the Tlicho government has been very vocal to me in asking how fast and when we can get this moving. So ideally, Mr. Speaker, we are finding a path forward by which the work on in the Slave Geologic Region can contribute to or be contributed to by what's happening with the strategic environmental assessment but the timing of that is somewhat out of our hands. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister of Infrastructure understand that triggering a separate environmental assessment could cause a lot of duplications with what would already be underway with the regional study? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, it's certainly again it's certainly, I think, our hope, my hope, you know shared hope on this end, that that's not going to be the case. As I indicated, we had been initially hoping that the strategic the regional strategic environmental assessment would get moving a little faster than it has. Had that been the case, the timing of that work would well would have contributed well to the timing that we were expecting in advance of the 2028 end of funding for us. So, again, it's been a couple of years. We've had a lot of progress over on the RSEA front despite interests. So if that is the case, we may be in a situation where the work we do contributes to the strategic environmental assessment as opposed to the other way around. There's no lack of understanding that there will certainly be areas of overlap in terms of what needs to get studied and what should be studied. And so knowing that it would hopefully mean that the two contribute one to the other. Thank you.
Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister indicate any levers that we have to influence or control the timing of the regional environmental assessment to ensure that it proceeds at an appropriate pace? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories does participate. We are a participant in the process. I happen to have been in obviously in the past government, and so saw as that work was getting underway and was present at bilateral discussions with the Tlicho government when the two projects were discussed and where the desire to move forward with both was discussed. So as a partner, we can certainly engage with the others involved and see if there's a way to ensure as partners, as one participant, but just to ensure that everyone knows that there's these two parts going on. I believe that that's true. I will follow up certainly with my department, with my colleagues, to make sure that that remains true on our side and that other parties are alive to the different timelines as they go forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a concerning amount of crime on our streets here in the capital. I was at a friend of mine who owns a shop just a couple days ago. And the door was locked. He doesn't trust the people that come in. This is an increasingly poor problem. And I know our Premier has stood on a public safety agenda. That was his pitch as Premier, and he and we made that a priority of this government. So how is the Premier addressing the elevated rates of crime that have been increasing since the COVID19 pandemic? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the main things that I've been doing during this Assembly is lobbying my fellow MLAs to also make crime prevention and law enforcement a priority. We wound up with that in our priorities of this Assembly. Well, public safety, and so I'm happy to see that. And that will allow us to now move forward hopefully with some other initiatives. I meet regularly with the commanding officer of the RCMP. We discuss some of the challenges they're facing, potential solutions, and I'm always trying to find ways to provide additional support to the RCMP. We've added new RCMP members around the territory, including here in Yellowknife, every year since I have been the Minister of Justice. And, again, next year we will hope to be adding more officers. So I have been working. There's also legislation that I've been looking at to tackle some of the other issues we're facing of the drugs, the drug houses. The reason that we have this crime here is, in large part, because of the drug problem and so I want to be able to address the root of that. At its core of course, the drug problem is a health issue. It's a trauma issue. So we need to get at those reasons as well. So I am looking forward to the mandate development so that I can put into motion some of these issues or some of these potential solutions that I've been looking at over the past few years. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you to the Premier. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I agree with the Premier. We need to have a combination of root of things that address the root causes and things that keep our streets safe. The Premier mentioned legislative new legislation tools that could be provided to the RCMP. What are those? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I've spoken extensively about some of these tools. One of the main ones is the Civil Forfeiture Act. So right now if someone is suspected of committing a crime and they have some money on their person that is seized but they are not convicted of a crime, that money goes back to them even though, you know, everyone and his dog knows that it came from selling drugs. The Civil Forfeiture Act would allow the government to make an application to the court to retain those funds, and it would be done on a balance of probabilities as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt. So there's one example of the types of legislation that can actually impact crime in the territory and organized crime and, frankly, the type of people who are selling the drugs and leading to a lot of the other issues. Scam legislation is the other one that I've spoken extensively about, and that is a way to help root out the drug houses. And a Trespass Act is another one that's probably of interest to the Members from Yellowknife. Many times the RCMP get a call, there's someone who's causing a disturbance in an apartment, but they have no authority to remove that person because we don't have a Trespass Act here. So those are the three primary pieces of legislation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Premier. I look forward to seeing those pieces of legislation.
As this as public safety is a priority of this Assembly, the Premier will the Premier arrange a briefing for the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight with the RCMP commander of the Northwest Territories so we can speak so that all Members of this House can receive the same level of information and detail and express our concerns? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've got to say I'm a little surprised that the committee hasn't done that themselves. They have the full authority to make that offer or reach out to the RCMP, and I know that the commanding officer would be happy to appear and have those discussions. So I can pass along the message but what I recommend is that the committee actually write a letter and ask for that meeting. That way you start building a relationship between the committee and the commanding officer. If I act as a gobetween, I'm just kind of passing notes back and forth. Thank you.
Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And fair enough. Will the Premier commit to hosting a town or joining me in hosting a town hall meeting where we can discuss public safety concerns with business owners in Yellowknife, with people who live in my riding, so he can hear their safety concerns firsthand? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That sounds like an invitation to the Member's constituency meeting, and so I'm happy to accept. Thank you.
Premier. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following up on the questions from my honourable colleague from Yellowknife Centre, during my campaign it was brought to my attention from people struggling with diabetes that Inuvik, indeed, does not have a dialysis machine. I believe there are two in Yellowknife and one in Hay River. Would the Minister of Health and Social Services commit to having that equipment in Inuvik as well?
Thank you, me Boot Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, having the dialysis equipment in Inuvik, you know, we have a lot of people that might need that have kidney disease but not all of them, and then I think in the territories we have 568 residents living with some degree of kidney disease, and then 87 clients with stage 4/5 renal disease, and those are the people that are potentially, if not already, on dialysis. Yellowknife has the capacity for a certain amount. Hay River, I think, is they are at capacity now. And, you know, what I'm willing to do for the Member is to review how many clients, you know, in Inuvik or in the Beaufort Delta that would require dialysis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister. Mr. Speaker, if there's one person that requires dialysis, I think that warrants enough having a machine up there. My understanding is the cost of the machine is not the issue; it's not super expensive. But I also understand that if you are diabetic and you live in Inuvik, you have to move if you require dialysis. It's as simple as that, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I understand that one of the issues is that we use agency nurses and local nurses and you can't always be guaranteed that the nurses coming in are qualified to actually use that equipment, and that is one of the issues that we are facing. Can the Minister, given her background of course, confirm if that is indeed the case or if that's something that others can be trained to do? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear. Diabetes is a disease on its own. Kidney disease is a separate disease. It affects the kidneys and it's not you know, it's not the same. So although we have you know, on one hand we have lots of people with diabetes and, yes, we do need and we have those supports in all the communities, like the testing, the medication. But for dialysis, you know, there's other options as well. Like, there's peritoneal dialysis, which we do have I think three patients in the territory. They don't have to move to Yellowknife because of the level that they can do that at home and they're supported by to do that. So that's why I said I would commit to you know, to try to figure out how many people in the Beaufort Delta have kidney disease and if they are you know, how many are stage 4/5 that may require dialysis.
In the near future if we have a whole bunch of people that are, you know, coming towards needing dialysis in the future, then that would be something that we can look at. It's not just a machine. It is staffing, and it would have to require staffing and a facility. And the Member knows our facility in Inuvik is there's not any space in that facility. So, you know, we'd have to figure that out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, thank you to the health Minister; she's certainly more well versed in this than I am. But, Mr. Speaker, the person that I did speak with, a constituent during my campaign, had kidney issues and was getting to a point that would likely there was a good chance would require dialysis and therefore would have to move. My question still remains. That person was then told that one of the main issues is not the cost of the machine but actually having the staff to run the machine, and the main reason for that is the fact that we use our nurses, you're not guaranteed when they're coming in if they're trained to do that work. Can the Minister confirm that?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes and I'm glad that the Member you know, we work closely with Alberta Health Services' dialysis service to provide this service using their policies and stuff, and they do take training to be dialysis nurses. So it's the same as we have an endoscopy unit, we have to have trained staff to run that endoscopy unit. Like, those it's more than just hiring a nurse. And I've said it, and I'll say it again, a nurse is not a nurse is not a nurse. Everybody has a specialty, and that's why we struggle in our health care providing the right service for the right people, especially in this time where there's a shortage of nurses across Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
