Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll give the Minister of ECE a break. We'll go to the Minister of housing. In my statement, I did mention the longterm care facility that's been on the books in Inuvik for quite some time, since 2015, so around nine years. So I'd like to ask my colleague from Inuvik, and the Honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, what the current plan is for the longterm facility in Inuvik? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Health and Social Services. Try and give you a promotion there today or demotion, whatever. Back to you, Health and Social Services. There we go.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll keep this one. And thank you to the Member. I think this project has been discussed in our community for, as he mentioned, way back from 2015. And I know in 2020, there was a reevaluation of longterm care beds needs, and one of the impact that happened was that we as a government wanted to put more investment into seniors aging in place with dignity. So that means supporting seniors in their homes as long as they can and not and moving away from these centralized areas where we would end up having to send them. So what the current plan is right now is we just I think the geotechnical analysis has just been complete. And so now they are, hopefully for the fall, they'll be going out to RFP for schematic design phase. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you, Minister. That is excellent news. It's a little overdue, but certainly I'm happy to hear that work is being done on it.
Given the impact in our community, and obviously the jobs that this would create as well, both longterm positions and shortterm positions in the construction, has the department considered working with the Indigenous governments as proposed or similar to as proposed in 2018? I know that's a few years ago, but are they looking at working with Indigenous governments on this project, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know that the plan where the plan was before. And I know the Member was very involved in that plan. And I agree that the facility itself, you know, with what he's saying, with the RFP going out, you know, I would encourage if there when the RFP goes out, or encourage that if Indigenous governments are, you know, wanting to look into this area, you know, those are discussions that, you know, we can have. But at this point I guess the RFP will go out for the schematic design and, you know, later to come back with a plan to build, so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you, again, for that answer. One of the things in the proposal that was proposed was working with an existing participant in the industry, whether that be Avens for example or different industry that do that work. One of the abilities of having an Indigenous government run the organization would be to allow them to then look at contracting that out with a sunset clause to eventually train people, work with Aurora College, and eventually have local people trained to do that work at first with a contractor and, again, have a sunset clause 4, 8, 12 years.
Has the department considered working with existing contractors, such as Avens, or working with other, I guess, industry professionals to come in and do that work?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just to answer the Member's question, no. But, you know, I think where we are and the service that it's going to provide, you know, we'd always consider all of the different options that are out there. But no, we haven't. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I encourage the department to certainly look at that. I have no other questions other than to say thank you. I appreciate that it's still on the books and still looking to happen. Thank you.
Member, not a question. Thank you. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
