Member Nahendeh

Speaker

Shane Thompson was re-elected to the 20th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly after serving in the 18th and 19th Assemblies representing the constituency of Nahendeh. Mr. Thompson is the Honorable Speaker of the 20th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Thompson was first elected to the 18th Assembly in November 2015 and served as Chair of the Standing Committee on Social Development. Mr. Thompson was also a member of the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning, the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures, and the Striking Committee.

Mr. Thompson was born on July 11, 1963, in Hay River. He has lived in Kugluktuk (Coppermine), Inuvik, Hay River, and in Edmonton, while at the University of Alberta. Fort Simpson has been his home since 1992.

Mr. Thompson previously served two terms (three years each) as an elected official with the Fort Simpson District Education Authority, spending the last four years as the chairperson. Over the past 35 years, he has served on various community and territorial boards.

Mr. Thompson was employed as the Senior Sport and Recreation Coordinator with Municipal and Community Affairs (GNWT) in the Deh Cho region before being elected as a Member.

Mr. Thompson completed the Community Recreation Leaders Program at Arctic College in 1989 and is currently working on a Masters Certificate on Evaluation at the University of Victoria and Carleton University. He also completed three years towards an Education degree at the University of Alberta.

Mr. Thompson is an active volunteer with Northern Youth Aboard, CBET and Fundamental Movement, and HIGH FIVE®. As well, he is a past member of the Sport North Federation Board, NWT Softball and of NWTRPA, and the past president of Seven Spruce Golf Course.

Mr. Thompson is the father of seven children - five daughters and two sons – and has nine grandchildren.

He has been a Justice of the Peace since 1991.

Nahendeh Electoral District

Committees

Shane Thompson
Nahendeh
Member's Office

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Box
1320
Constituency Office

9706-100th Street
Fort Simpson NT X0E 0N0
Canada

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 39)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was asking about the Sambaa K’e Health Centre, not the one in Fort Simpson. That's all right. I understand. So, again, it's the Sambaa K’e Health Centre. Can you please provide the status on that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 39)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. I'm not talking about taking jobs away; if there's vacancies, you can put that part of the business plan I honestly believe, and work on it. My colleague spoke about a subsidy for small businesses or communities to help them hire additional summer students. Mr. Speaker, will the Premier commit to work with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to set up a subsidy of $5 an hour for at least a hundred positions at a cost to the GNWT of about $250,000? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 39)

I'd like to thank the Premier for his answer. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the Premier encourages his colleagues to try and meet or exceed last year's numbers, however, I believe there's a better way of doing it. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier please direct his colleagues to add summer employment opportunities for students as part of the 2017-2018 business plan?

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 39)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my colleagues. Out of these applications, 306 students were hired by the government. This sounds like a great number and it is; however, the previous year we had more summer students being employed by the government.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister spoke about the Premier and former Minister of Human Resources encouraging all the departments to see how we can better utilize our summer students. I think this is a great step, however we need to do more. This includes having the departments identifying the number of positions within their business plans and not rely...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 38)

I thank the Minister for his answer. I'm just a little bit disappointed in hearing that it's a generic one and I appreciate we need to develop a territorial one, but when we're looking at the small communities we're trying to get them off diesel fuel. I mean, ultimately, we're trying to make it a better place for people and reduce costs. So will the Minister get his department or the corporation to look at that strategy and talk to the smaller communities so they can work on something that they can make use of their money to make it more cost-effective to live in their communities?

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 38)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I was talking about in my Member’s statement and as I was saying in question period, there was a public meeting with the Power Corporation and they talked about their strategic plan for the communities and the power, and how we're going to generate it and make it specifically for the communities. So I guess my question to the Minister, can he please explain if, by developing this, did the corporation actually work with the communities to come up with their specific one or is this a generic one for the whole NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 38)

Again, I talked about the public meeting we had in Colville Lake being presented there as the ideal model out there. Is the Minister able to work with the corporation or direct the corporation to come up with a better storage operation that can be used in these smaller communities?

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 38)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I spoke about the Jean Marie and their willingness to become more energy efficient. I applaud them for doing this great initiative. Mr. Speaker, I was a little surprised to find out that communities can only generate 20 per cent of their own energy power from solar panels and stuff like that. This is a good step towards our mandate, but we need to do more especially for the smaller communities.

We need to help them become more energy efficient and the cost of living can go down. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister responsible for the NWT Power...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 38)

I thank the Minister for that answer, and it's actually great to hear that the corporation is working with other departments on that and I think it's a good idea in working with the communities and moving forward.

The Minister actually talked about, you know, Colville Lake and spending $2.7 million, if I'm correct, installing batteries to make sure the solar panels hooked in there. Will the Minister look at the other smaller communities south to see if they can actually do that to make it more efficient for a community? Another pilot project, I would love to have it in my riding, but if we...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 38)

I thank the Minister for his answer. I guess I'm looking at when they develop this strategy, which we haven't seen yet, has the corporation actually worked with the communities to develop specifically their own strategic plans to help reduce the cost of electricity? So can the Minister please advise this House, if the corporation has worked with the communities to develop their strategy as part of their strategy, or is it the strategy for the whole NWT's generic picture?