Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, how is the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs proposing to deal with the lack of capacities communities have to deal with the increasing number of emergencies within their boundaries? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So with the capacity issues within communities, the department is working with local governments to establish what more resources are needed, and if there's an opportunity for a local government to or if there's a need for a local government for more resources, then MACA will step in and ask for more assistance or get more resources and tier it up to the point where we may need to call out to other communities or other businesses to assist with capacity issues. But for the most part, it's up to the communities to realize what their capacities are and what needs they might have, and the department's always there to assist them in building these plans for preparedness. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm happy to hear that MACA is there to kind of help communities identified. But in the interim, we're in a situation where there is a bit of a gap. So, Mr. Speaker, how is MACA coordinating with communities for the current fire season and ensuring existing gaps, particularly related to hosting evacuees, are addressed in the shortterm while we work on these longer term solutions?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not aware of any gaps in hosting. And if there is any, the local communities need to reach out to the department to work on these gaps that the Member's bringing forward. During his Member's statement, I have access to the documents, obviously, but I went online to make sure it was on there. I word searched on the document, and I searched up something for an example, like, reimbursement costs, which took me right to the page, annex A, section 8, where it talks about full reimbursement costs. So if a local government is unsure, they could go to the emergency plan, they could resource and look at all the information that's required, and reach out to the department to clarify what help could be more used from the department to assist in, for an example, hosting. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for the answer. So I think the Minister's touched upon something important there, and that is that the communities currently the way the plan is written, communities can come for reimbursement but, Mr. Speaker, this doesn't get at the issue of the costs of capacity building for communities to respond to these emergencies. So communities are in a position right now where they are taking on responsibility that I don't think was completely clear that they needed to take on. I think that that was very clear during the wildfire season last year that the gap is what we saw last season.
So, Mr. Speaker, is MACA doing anything to address the gap? That's what I'm speaking to right now, and that is the capacity of these communities to build up this capacity to respond as the plan is articulated, because it's assuming the capacity is there. I would argue that right now it's not. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess if the Member says there's a gap, and I'm not sure of it, I don't see or hear the gaps. I only see and hear of the lack of communication and the lack of responsibility from the department but, at the same time, I'm told by my department that they're working with community governments to make sure that these avenues are all filled up and everything's being communicated clearly. So I would hope there's no gaps and, if there is, I hope the communities reach out to the department to clarify where the issues are and how the department can assist to clarify these or clean up these gaps. I do hear what the Member is saying, and coming from a community where we've done local evacuation I shouldn't say local evacuations isolated evacuations within a community, for an example evacuating an island, Vale Island to the main town, which is what we call New Town in Hay River. We've always set up a reception centre. The Town of Hay River's never gone to the or has never gone to the department for or to the territorial government for fullblown assistance other than the local government assistance. So in small, little areas like that, they're always working on bettering the problems they find out from every evacuation and setting up those little processes with, like, evacuation centres. So that's where you start seeing the little gaps that you might be talking about but at the same time, Mr. Speaker, the department's there to assist, and the government's there to assist with filling in these gaps if they're aware of them. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I think that my last question I'd like to say let's imagine a scenario where a community comes to MACA this summer and says, we don't have the capacity to host other communities, but other communities' local EMOs are saying they're going to be evacuating to that community. So how is MACA going to manage that situation if a community is telling them we don't have the capacity to host?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would hope no community would turn away any other community for assisting them in an evacuation. And I would hope that, you know, a local community would reach out to the department in assistance in hosting evacuation or hosting another community. But that being said, I know other communities have reached out to other you know, between communities, reached out to each other to assess and set up evacuation centres based on their evacuation plans, which has no involvement of the departments, especially MACA. They've done that on their own. But there is that assistance from the department if need be. So I hear what the Member is saying, but at the same time I don't think there should be that neglect or I know you want to call it neglect, but the wanting to refuse another community to evacuate to your area. I would hope that the communities would be willing to assist other communities in the territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Deh Cho.
Question 199-20(1):
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I spoke about the importance of providing sufficient health promotion within the schools across the NWT. Recently, the GNWT began using the education curriculum from British Columbia. So I would like to ask the Minister of ECE if there have been any major changes with regards to health promotion in our schools since changing the curriculum? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Deh Cho. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll start by saying that the BC curriculum has not been fully implemented into every grade and every classroom across the territory. That said, the NWT adapted curriculum of the BC curriculum covers a broad range of health promotion topics, and these include things like balanced lifestyles, understanding personal choices, as well as social and environmental factors, healthy relationships, and managing mental health and emotional and social wellbeing.
In addition to the BC curriculum, Mr. Speaker, we also have our child and youth counselling program, which is our schoolbased mental health and wellness program in our schools across the Northwest Territories. And with the change that was recently done that started in this school year, there was the addition of that promotion and prevention piece within our schools, and it provides all of our schools and our school boards the autonomy to design programs that work for what they need to respond to in each of their region to make sure programs are specific to the challenges those students are having. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for that response. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me if the youth counsellor position has been filled in Fort Providence today? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting one where when we breakdown silos and do things a little bit more together as departments, we end up sharing questions on the floor of the House as well, which I know can be challenging for everybody. So the clinical counsellors that are found within communities and within schools are fall under the mandate of the Minister of Health and Social Services, but I don't want the Member to waste her question either so I can confirm that while this position was filled in Fort Providence, it has become vacant and for any further questions on hiring, that would need to go to the Minister of health. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for that response. I will get back to Minister of health later on.
The next question is can the Minister tell me if there are any health promotion campaigns currently taking place in our schools, such as the Drop The Pop campaign or Don't Be a Butt Head. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. So the Don't Be a Butt Head campaign as well as the Drop The Pop campaigns are both campaigns that are put together and administered by the Department of Health and Social Services. They have a few health promotion campaigns that are on the go right now not the Minister of health, though, but they do have programs for tobacco cessation. Healthy eating, that is something that also carries through into our schools, and MACA supplies funding for after school snacks and after school programs. So a bit of some kind of cross departmental things going on. We have some or sorry, health and social services has some staying active campaigns, sexual health campaigns, and substance use education. I would highly recommend that people use some of the material that is on the health website under health promotion. Under sexual health, before COVID hit, the CPHO declared a syphilis outbreak. That has not gone away. I encourage people to go out and get tested. And also for the cannabis and substance use, there are also tools for educators, parents, and for youth as well that are found on the website. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. No?
Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
