Member Hay River North

Premier
Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs

R.J. Simpson was elected to the 20th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly, representing the constituency of Hay River North. On December 7th, 2023, Mr. Simpson was elected Premier of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Simpson was formerly acclaimed to the 19th Legislative Assembly and first elected into the 18th Assembly in 2015.

Mr. Simpson was Deputy Speaker of the 18th Assembly, Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations, and the Chair of the Special Committee on Transition Matters. Mr. Simpson was also a member of the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning and the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment.

Mr. Simpson is a lifelong resident of Hay River After graduating from Diamond Jenness Secondary School in 1998 Mr. Simpson went on to obtain a Bachelor of Arts from MacEwan University and a law degree from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law.

Mr. Simpson has previously worked with the Government of Canada, Northern Transportation Company Ltd, Métis Nation Local 51, and Maskwa Engineering.

While at law school, Mr. Simpson was the President of the Aboriginal Law Students’ Association. He has also served on the board of the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre in Hay River and volunteered with the Canada-Ghana Education Project.

Hay River North Electoral District

Committees

R.J. Simpson
Hay River North
Member's Office

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Box
1320
Constituency Office

62, promenade Woodland, bureau 104
Hay River Nord NT X0E 1G1
Canada

Minister
Premier of the Northwest Territories, Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, Minister of Justice, Government House Leader

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you. We are working on gathering that information. To further answer the Member's earlier question, these pots of money are all fully subscribed. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you. If you'll indulge me, I will go back to the Member's previous comments about the Early Learning and Child Care Agreement annual report that is done by the department. That was tabled in the last Assembly, the last year of the last Assembly, so that should be readily available. In terms of the Member's present question, yes, we are doing that work of looking at the spaces available; what type of spaces we can use; you know, looking at whether or not we can use government infrastructure, looking at how, in conjunction with the Housing Corporation, homes can be used for spaces. We have...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you. Again, I'll bring this back to what I've been saying and what everyone has been saying here, that it would be great if we could increase all of these programs and do all of these things we want to do, but we have to focus on the priorities of the Assembly and the mandate. There are a lot of great ideas and wonderful things that I would like to see done in Income Assistance, but they all cost money, and so I want to temper everyone's expectations. While I am open to discussing everything and changing what we can do, changing our mentality, it all costs money, and so I am not...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you, Madam Chair. That relates to the grants that go out through that particular division, and there were actually more applications and more money out the door than was budgeted for, and so it's not a decrease in budget. The budget remained the same, but we actually spent more than we budgeted for in the year the Member is referencing. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you. For the 2019-2020 school year as of December 2019, the combined amount received by education authorities in the territory was $15,960,616, and there were 173.26 positions created using that money. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

We don't have the actuals for this fiscal year yet, as we are still in it, but in 2017-2018, there was $948,000 spent, so nearly the entire budget. In 2018-2019, it was down to $655,000, so there was a carry-over of over $400,000, and that is due to a decrease in the number of apprentices, the new registers, from 92 in 2017-2018 to 70 in 2018-2019.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you, that increase to travel was to support training opportunities for Indigenous governments. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you, and I take the Member's point that, in the previous three years, a lot of the work was focused not on necessarily increasing availability and affordability but on shoring up the foundations and using early childcare as a way to educate our youth and to prepare them for school. However, going forward, we are mandated to increase availability and to increase affordability, so we have a number of mandate items directly related to that. In the negotiations of the new agreement, we will be pursuing those as our priorities. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 13)

Thank you. Right now, the Senior Home Heating Subsidy, I think a lot of people see it as covering 100 percent of the costs. The fact is that it is intended to cover about 74 percent of the average cost of heating a home, an average home, in a particular region; and so each region is different. What we are proposing and what we are going to do is increase that 74 percent to 80 percent. It's not 100 percent, but it is a larger increase.

One of the issues that I find people run into that, you know, this was a cold winter, especially up in the Beaufort-Delta, and seniors, they spend all of their...