Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I apologize for the confusion. Mr. Speaker, how are we going to -- like, what is the Minister's solution to at least forecast these costs better so we're not constantly blowing up our operational surpluses and going to Ottawa to increase the credit card? How can we put a plan in place or a system in place that allows us to control these better? Because whatever's been done to date isn't working. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate that question. NTPC is very conscious of the fact that they play such a critical role in the Northwest Territories. There's a lot happening on this front. Right now they are working on a continuous improvement initiative which is meant to help manage their project management -- or to improve rather the project management. So, and coming from that one of the things is to look at the Inuvik project and do a bit of a lessons learned, do a bit of a post review of what went wrong and what could be done better. A lot of things went right. It is now a project that's providing significant energy to the Inuvik community and a lot of what went wrong wasn't necessarily strictly within their control again. All of which is to say, though, there's a lot of opportunity to learn from that project. That process is underway. It will feed into the continuous improvement initiative.
And last but not least, Mr. Speaker, there is also a desire there to do a better job of trying to grow the industrial base load. The sales have been simply flat for too long for NTPC; in fact, long before my time in this House at all. We need to change that if we're going to make a real movement in terms of having growth in the revenue, and that is also some work that's underway. This last year was the first year that the power corp attended one of the roundups out in Vancouver. It was an opportunity to try to improve their balance sheet. So lots happening on that space. And thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is it time for -- as we're on the power corp, is it time for the board to be -- private board to be -- or public board to be reinstated without deputy ministers to steer the power corporation towards sustainability and towards running the company like a business rather than a department? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, again, appreciate that feedback as well. That work in fact is underway. I'd like to -- very happy to commit to get an update to this House, to the public, as to where we're at on that. The expectation I have is that there will be perhaps two deputy ministers who remain given that this is Crown corporation that does rely significantly on public dollars to help stabilize our power rates but otherwise looking to get professionals into that space who understand the energy space, who understand the complexities of the energy space, and who are in a position to run this power corp hopefully even better than it's being run now. So, again, that work's underway, and I'm happy to get a more detailed timeline over to Members. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of power corp. Oral questions. Member from Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my statement to the Minister of MACA, my first question is will the Minister of MACA accept this invitation to travel to Norman Wells and meet with the mayor Pope and town council to discuss and develop a joint federal town of Norman Wells strategy for lobbying for the funds needed to eliminate our high fuel crisis? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although my department really has nothing to do with the cost of fuel, I'm more than willing to talk -- or work with the Member to arrange a visit to the community if that's so wished -- what he liked to do, and we could figure something out. We could have further discussion on what exactly needs to be done and what we'd like to do. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank to the Minister for that response. To help kind of clarify, I want to initiate a discussion between his department and the local government to develop an application that could be sent to the appropriate federal departments to offset the $6.6 million that's costing our government, or the citizens in this case, for unit price fuel. So will the Minister provide the briefing as mentioned last week in preparation for the measures taken to have our meeting in Norman Wells? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Member would like to arrange a meeting, we could sit down and discuss this and then at that point maybe we could find out exactly what department needs to be addressed with the concern. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that reply. I'll phone LA Travel and make arrangements.
Our festive season is coming. We've got 65 days there before the big day of Christmas coming. Our festive season starts prior to that, and we need to lessen the burden and concern and stress that this financial cost is being placed on our family homes. So it's a very privilege for Ministers to come to small communities. In this particular case, what better designate on behalf of this government to have that meeting in Norman Wells with the community leader? So I look forward to --
-- Member, a question, please.
The question is what day the Minister wants to travel. Thursday?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll have to check my schedule and get back to him.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
I've moved provinces? Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister please explain why the couple's self-advocacy to change the designation on their file from M to F was not successful? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to acknowledge the medical misgendering of this resident's medical file, and I would like to extend my sincere apology. I know my colleague has raised that they were frustrated, they were hurt, the hardship that it put on them having to deal with this for so many years. The details of why and how this didn't get done on a -- you know, when they tried to deal with it in person, I don't have those details. But what I can say is that we will make sure that this doesn't happen to any Northwest Territories' resident again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. I do appreciate that she was able to rectify this issue in a very quick way, and I'm glad to hear that she's looking at it going forward.
Mr. Speaker, what current training does NTHSSA provide to both medical and administrative staff on 2SLGBTQIAPA+ identities and expression? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, diversity and inclusion training is available to all health and social services system staff, including specific workshops on the diversity, inclusion in the workplace training, 2SLGBTQQIA+ 101 inclusive workplace awareness training, mitigating unconscious bias training. They also have PDI that they can use for other training. There is other self-learning training if health and social services staff wish to take on, but these are the training that we do have through diversity inclusion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's very well and good; I'm a little bit disappointed it's only voluntary for situations such as this. So can the Minister commit to further education for staff on the presentation and identification of genders specifically in administrative health services? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, I am committed to ensuring that health and social services space are safe, equitable, for all residents accessing the services and that everyone should be able to feel safe when they're coming into any one of our health services throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, how many speech and language pathology services positions currently service preschool and school aged children in the NWT? Thank you.
Member from Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment -- or is it health? Oh, health?
Yes, please.
Okay, sorry. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have the actual numbers of how many speech-language pathologists that we have. But what I do know is that many of those positions that we do have across the Northwest Territories are vacant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Okay, well, that's what I was going to say is how many of those SLP positions are currently vacant and how many are filled? That was the next question, but if she can still answer.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can commit to getting that information back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one school in Tlicho region says 80 percent of its students need speech and language pathology services. So with that in mind, I want to ask the Minister how many children in Tlicho region are on the waitlist for speech-language pathology as compared to the whole of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am unaware of how many children are on the waitlist in the Tlicho region. But what I can do is I can commit to getting those numbers. I also would like to highlight that, you know, the waitlist, yes -- however there is a waitlist, our speech and language pathologists that we do have are seeing -- and what they're doing is they're triaging so they're seeing youth under 5 and then youth between 16 -- 6 and 17 who have severe needs, so safety issues -- so speech-language is not just for speech but it's also for swallowing, so if there -- we're utilizing the staff that we do have for those severe issues so that -- and right now, so that means a lot of the stuff that's needed by them are the consultation piece so that they -- what speech-language and department does is they work with the schools, they do the consult and then they make a plan for that child, and that's what that -- you know, and that's the issue that we're having with the low numbers of speech-language pathologists in our system. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.
I want to ask the Minister what is the current wait time in the NWT for speech-language services and, specifically, for children in school and why they are still -- why they are vacant, why there are so many vacant positions in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I can commit to getting the wait time for the children back to the Member and to all the Members. I mean, we have -- we do track a lot of these. And the -- so what -- but within this, what I would like to say is that we have these positions. We are unable to -- you know, we advertise these positions. If people don't apply on them -- they're unionized positions. We aren't able to contract out the service. That is -- you know, so there's no means to fill these positions other than trying to get -- if we can get terms or, you know -- but we can't even -- we're not even able to. What we're advertising is the positions. I know that in the school authority, some of the school authorities, they've been able to use third party funding in some of the school authorities to do contracts with speech-language pathologists. But they're not bound by the rules that we have to follow with our unionized employees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance. In developing the capital plan, what criteria are used by departments to review, rank, and prioritize projects? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to do justice to the process that is undertaken. There is a risk-based analysis that's done. It's done -- it comes up through -- from frontline department staff through to each individual department. There is a peer review process that then goes on where the ranking is reviewed, it goes to an ADM committee where it's again reviewed, and only at that point projects that make it through that process with sufficiently high ranking go on to the deputy ministers and then ultimately on to the financial management board to determine which project might proceed in any particular year or not. There is a fairly significant -- I don't have the matrix in front of me but one of the top considerations, of course, is health and safety of the population and then other items of ranking down below.
I can say, Mr. Speaker, that none of the projects that come forward are anything less than the top ranking of ensuring health and safety for the people and the residents of the Northwest Territories. There's always a lot more that are on that list than what we often have the ability to do. But, again, I'm more than happy to ensure that that information perhaps is -- if it would be of assistance, we can table it here so that it's more easily and readily available for members of the public who may want to understand that risk process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate that commitment from the Minister.
So Mr. Speaker, can the Minister describe the process that Cabinet goes through to assess the implications of the Assembly's priorities have for our capital budgeting and how we might need to shift resources to achieve them? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the priorities of the Assembly are priorities of the Ministers that stand here just as much as of MLAs. When matters come through our individual departments, that is I know certainly reflected in our mandate letter. I can speak for myself, Mr. Speaker, that it's reflected in the mandate letter that I have for my departments, and mandate letters very much govern what comes forth in departments as they're trying to ensure that they achieve what's in these mandate letters which are themselves a product that comes from other priorities and then, of course, decision items go whether to the Cabinet packages or FMB packages when it's approvals of financial items and thereto within the financial management board's review processes that those templates are available online for review for any member of the public. And it does include in there the kinds of different considerations, including alignment with the mandate and an analysis of political factors including, again, alignment with the mandate. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister feel that that process is sufficiently effective at taking a strategic, high level approach to priority implementation in terms of determining what the best course of action is, you know, for a given -- I guess what I mean by the question is, you know, are we taking a strategic process or are we simply having each department kind of look at the priorities and what that department can do as opposed to kind of thinking holistically what's the best way to attack the problem regardless of what departments we have. So just thinking more strategically in general about what we could do, not just what we can do with the current structure that we've got. If that question makes sense to the Minister, Mr. Speaker, do they feel that process is sufficient, or does the Minister agree with me that we could be doing more to strategically plan out our priorities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we can always do better, we can always do more. So certainly happy to continue the conversation around how to continue to engage our process to be more strategic. I actually did find, Mr. Speaker -- it's the very back page of our capital planning document that's in -- those of us sitting in this House have it here. It's the very back page has the capital planning process in detail. Members of the public will see it in the tabled document. You know, and, again, the infrastructure acquisition plan and the process of GNWT dollars being assigned really does come down to one of being around critical risk areas. When we get into strategic conversations that very much involves the federal government as being a potential source of funding for major projects which then, you know, could actually be where we advance some of those bigger wish list items that we may have. How that project -- or how that process develops might be questions for the Premier's office with respect to federal engagement. The big question, Mr. Speaker, and I can feel your glare that I want to wrap up here, but it's a big question, lots to be said. Always can do better. You know, and, again, I'll probably just leave it there and expect the conversation to continue. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister pointing out appendix B. Certainly that is the question -- the answer to the question I was looking for in question one. And I would just gently point out that -- or perhaps pointedly point out consideration of the priorities is not considered in that process.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to drafting a proposal for a new process for capital budget development which helps to better align it with the priorities of the Assembly? Thank you.
