Transcript of meeting #1 for Caucus Round Table in the 19th Assembly. (The original version is on the Legislative Assembly's site.)

The winning word was need.

A recording is available from the Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Shane Thompson's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 23

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

What I heard that we need to work on in the next four years:

Fort Simpson

  • Develop a plan to build a bridge over the Liard River
  • Nutrition North program for the community
  • Increase funding for the Small Community Employment Program
  • Indigenous housing
  • Social service positions for elders
  • Increase homecare positions in the community
  • Address the Seniors Fuel Subsidy issue
  • Work on fixing the funding formula for schools
  • Address the municipal funding shortfall
  • Work with village to address the bank erosion issue
  • Continue working with Dehcho First Nation
  • Work on energy pilot project for Fort Simpson
  • Work on medical travel and non-medical escorts
  • Build a new long-term care facility (new jobs)
  • Work on energy pilot project for Fort Simpson
  • Develop a better partnership with the band and DHSSA on mental health, addictions (after care and on the land) as well as victim services
  • Continue to address the land lease issues (equity and recreational)
  • Receive, review, and advocate for constituents' issues, territorial and federal
  • Continuously being responsive to your needs

Fort Liard

  • Increase funding for the Small Community Employment Program
  • Social service positions for elders
  • Increase homecare in the community
  • Address the Seniors Fuel Subsidy issue
  • Indigenous housing
  • Work on LNG and geothermal pilot projects
  • Work on fixing the funding formula for schools
  • Continue to address the taxation Issue
  • Continue to work on enhancing Highway No. 7
  • Fibre-optic link access
  • Address the municipal funding shortfall
  • Local housing authority facility and new positions
  • Receive, review, and advocate for constituent issues, territorial and federal
  • Ensure bills are reflective of the wishes and needs of the Nahendeh riding
  • Continuously being responsive to your needs

Jean Marie River:

  • Increase funding for the Small Community Employment Program
  • Increase homecare in the community
  • Address the Seniors Fuel Subsidy issue
  • Indigenous housing
  • Agriculture (farm) pilot project to be built more self-sufficient with a community farm
  • Work with Nutrition North to access the program
  • Continue to work on enhancing the access road
  • Highway No. 1 chipsealing project, an additional 20 km outside the community
  • Address the municipal funding shortfall
  • Four-plex for elders. New health cabin (community owned)
  • Work with the community on the sawmill project
  • Receive, review, and advocate for constituent issues, territorial and federal
  • Continuously being responsive to your needs

Nahanni Butte:

  • Increase funding for the Small Community Employment Program
  • Fencing around the airport to stop the buffalo from getting on the runway
  • Increase the number of buffalo tags
  • Work on the buffalo issue in the community
  • Increase homecare in the community
  • Address the Seniors Fuel Subsidy issue
  • Indigenous housing
  • Continue to work on distance education
  • Work with the RCMP to have a better presence in the community, including a crew trailer and boat
  • Continue to enhance and straighten the access road
  • Address the municipal funding shortfall
  • Four-plex for elders
  • Receive, review, and advocate for constituents' issues, territorial and federal
  • Continuously being responsive to your needs

Sambaa K'e

  • Increase funding for the Small Community Employment Program
  • Increase homecare in the community
  • Work on elders' house renovations
  • Address the band land issue
  • Address the Seniors Fuel Subsidy issue
  • Indigenous housing, last one built 2008
  • Work with Nutrition North to help the community access the program
  • Continue to work on enhancing the access road and work on develop an all-weather road
  • Get the power plant moved to the old airport strip
  • Government service officer, contract with the band
  • Address the municipal funding shortfall
  • Four-plex for elders
  • Work on the runway issues
  • Department of MACA / Infrastructure to help use CPI and gas tax funding and improve communication
  • Work on the community gym project
  • Enhance education for home ownership
  • Continuously being responsive to your needs

Wrigley:

  • Increase funding for the Small Community Employment Program
  • Creation of government service officer position
  • Address the senior fuel subsidy issue
  • Indigenous housing
  • Look at the feasibility to build an all-weather road from Ndulee crossing to Fort Providence
  • Work with Nutrition North to access the program
  • Work on getting a written commitment to provide funding for training with the Mackenzie Valley Highway Project
  • Working with the GNWT to get maximum benefit with the Mackenzie Valley project
  • Address the municipal funding shortfall
  • Four-plex for elders
  • Develop a monthly schedule for social services to come into the community, helping young parents
  • Address and fix the reallocation of band lands from the old community site to the new community
  • Continue to address the housing commitment from the federal government (1960's)
  • Work with the band to access the CPI and gas tax funding from the Department of MACA
  • Receive, review, and advocate for constituent issues, territorial and federal
  • Continue being responsive to your needs.

Mr. Shane Thompson's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 25

Clerk Of The House Mr. Tim Mercer

Colleagues, next we have the Member-elect for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson. The floor is yours, Mr. Jacobson.

Mr. Jackie Jacobson's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 25

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you, Mr. Mercer. I would like to thank the good Lord for making a way for me to represent my people here at the Legislative Assembly. I would like to thank all of the people in my riding who put their trust in me to be here to represent them.

In my one month of door-knocking and home visits and stuff like that to the communities, the problems and the priorities I have for Nunakput are identifying housing solutions for our housing problems and shortages in our communities; advocate for health and social impacts, with our people who are travelling with escorts and for families who are not able to afford travel when somebody is sick in the hospital from our communities; education, our post-secondary education social passing has to stop; it's a rippling effect right through our government and right through the system; assure and monitor responsible resource development; monitor and secure viable work plans for climate change, shoreline erosion, and safe responsible transportation services; wildlife and traditional land management, working with our Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and our local governments; cultural and traditional resources; work together to support and maintain good working relationships with local community governments.

My riding has many issues. We are seeing effects from climate change. We live it every day, climate change, seeing it sooner than anyone else, impacting our lives, those who live in Nunakput. Tuktoyaktuk's shoreline is falling into the ocean, and people are having to move, but, Mr. Clerk, we are not going to move. I am going to make sure that people who are staying on the north side of the community are going to stay in their homes, and this government is going to make a way to fix that shoreline.

From the few decades of changing weather means hunters cannot trust the ice, cannot get much for our families; the barges are delayed, meaning we cannot build homes, stock up on our food plan for the winter. Cost of living is higher in Nunakput than anywhere else in this territory. It keeps going up and up. We have to work with our local stores or the federal government to provide proper pricing and proper help for the smaller communities on the coast.

We need to know our problems. We need to stop studying them and start acting on it. We need to help people work. The oil and gas moratorium is hurting our communities in the whole delta. There is nothing going on up there, and we need work. We have to work with our federal government to get this moratorium lifted with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and to be able to get to our resources because we are resource rich and cash poor. The Beaufort Delta is using up to reduce the power and heating in our communities right now. It's getting to the federal government and getting it sorted out for the whole region. Nothing is happening. We have to work with the federal government to get our gas to market. We need safe and reliable transportation services in our communities, fuel costs and sending up clean fuel so we are not in the situation that we are in right now for the last two years. We have nine months of winter. That is nine months of proper planning that you could do and four months of shipping. That has to get sorted out. It affects us when we are travelling on the land. It's costing us more and more to go further, so the gas prices, that has to change, also.

We know the highway to Tuktoyaktuk, almost 8,000 tourists drove that road this year alone, but there is nothing for them to do. Our government is downloading on the local community government, the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, to provide services that they should be providing, where they provide them everywhere in the Northwest Territories, but where we stand coming out of O and M for the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, it's not right. That has got to stop. Our local economies have to grow. People are trying to start small businesses. When they come into the community, all they do, it's like a fishbowl. They go around, they drive, and they head back to Inuvik, and they stay in Inuvik. We are trying to make small businesses be able to create jobs and employment and to work together to get that sorted out with our government.

Our housing. The housing issues that we have in our riding, big theme: we have young families that are growing. I had 24 graduates this year in Tuktoyaktuk. Where are they going to go, young families? We have no housing. We have to get CMHC and the federal government onside to get the increases in the housing per community, per capita. We get $32,000 per person per year. Not all of it is being distributed properly. It has to be distributed across the territory. Housing is the biggest concern for me. We have mould. We have people overcrowding. You get water once a week or twice a week in some houses; a family of 10. We have to change. Things have to change. The 19th Assembly is change. Our housing issues, to make it easier for houses to be built.

Our education. Social passing has to stop. It has a rippling effect right across the territory. It has a rippling affect from K to 12. We have to work with our community DAs to work and get that done. I've been sitting on a DA for the last three years. I've seen how the rippling effect happens, the social passing across the territory.

I always say, "What's good for Yellowknife is good for Nunakput." We provide the courses for the programs that we need for education. We need to have our own social workers, our teachers, our nurses. Those positions need to be filled by our own people. We say we're so good at the start. Let's get them trained up. Then, when they're trained, they can't get hired. That has to stop.

The healthcare system, a big concern in my riding. People are having to leave for medical appointments on a day's notice, sometimes, not even given notice. They should be properly told when they're travelling. It's a big thing, because when you're leaving coastal communities, you have to leave one or two days early. It's the same thing coming back. You're going to one appointment; it's costing you six days of your life. Medical travel from Inuvik to Yellowknife or Edmonton, elders and escorts, that has to get fixed and streamlined so that, when you're calling the Minister, something is going to get done that day, approval.

We shouldn't put our elders in that situation, where they are stressed out from what they're having to deal with already. We're giving them more stress; that's not right. The appointments and the aftercare that we're giving them when they travel for cancer, all these treatments, they have to get properly treated, proper follow-up.

We need to deal with one of the biggest concerns that I have, too, and I have been hearing more and more. We need more programming for men, women, and our youth in our communities, not just Band-Aid solutions. We need a men's night, or a ladies' night; something where they are gathering together, some kind of programming that they could go to, a number that they could call anytime to get help.

Our youth. Our youth are left behind. You never hear anything on youth. For our sporting events, we're lucky in Tuktoyaktuk. You can drive out on the road. You go to try to fly out of the community of Sachs Harbour or Paulatuk, you could probably buy three tickets from Yellowknife to Edmonton with one trip from those communities. Shame on us. We have to fix it. Youth are our future, in our territory.

We need places for treatment, and it's not going to be lip service. The 19th Assembly has to get treatment for our people in our communities. We need that. We have drug and alcohol addictions, we have stronger drugs coming into the communities, we have to work with that and let the people know, let them know what happens, the side effects that they have to deal with. On-the-land treatment centres, what they had in the 17th Assembly that we did try, it was just put off to the wayside. "No, we're going to send them south." You can't send them south and think they're going to get fixed when they come home. They have to be fixed; we have to take care of our own people. We need a drug and alcohol centre in the territory.

We need to work with the regional governments for land management and harvesting, for our grandchildren. We will stay connected with our past, and working with our local community governments. That's the biggest one we've been hearing the last couple of days. We have to work with governments, our local governments. They were here first. To support and build solutions and create a working-together, open-handed approach. We need to work with all levels and support them.

I have a lot of issues for Nunakput. I'm here to advocate for my riding, for Nunakput, and I'm here to do the job for the Northwest Territories. It's an honour for me to be here. This is my third term coming up right now. I'm here to get things done, and I look forward to working with all of you, to getting all the issues that we have to work together to get done for our great territory of Northwest Territories.

I'd like to thank my wife for her support. I'm blessed to have you. I just want to say, I always used to have little slogans: live the present, honour the past, create the future. Let this 19th Assembly be remembered as getting the job done for the people. Thank you.

Mr. Jackie Jacobson's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 27

Clerk Of The House Mr. Tim Mercer

Thank you, Member-elect for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson. Members-elect, I think we have time for one more before we break for lunch. I'll turn the floor over, then, to the Member-elect for Range Lake, Ms. Cochrane.

Ms. Caroline Cochrane's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 27

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you. Colleagues, I'm going to begin by thanking the constituents of Range Lake for re-electing me as your MLA. I also want to acknowledge my incredible campaign team. Without them, I wouldn't be here today. I want to officially congratulate every Member-elect in the House today. Good job; we're all here, we have a lot of work to do. Welcome.

This is a historical Assembly in that, for the first time in the history of the Northwest Territories, we have a gender-balanced Assembly. Women in my riding talked of the need to increase the number of women in leadership, and we have accomplished this within the Legislative Assembly, but this work is not finished. Women still face glass ceilings in many areas, but we are seeing a change in societal expectations for women, and I'm excited to see what these coming four years will bring.

During my door-knocking, people in masses expressed their concerns for the economy and the cost of living. They talked about the need to diversify and build on our tourism potential and the economic potential of continuing with the Polytechnic University, but the majority of the people and businesses in my riding talked about the need to invest more in our mineral resources sector and finish the outstanding land claims to be able to move forward.

We know we are in a downturn in the mineral resources sector. We talk about the end of life of our diamond mines, but if we don't start investing now we are not looking at 10 to 15 years to the end of our main economic driver; we are talking about many, many more years till we see an increase in this sector. Mines are not just suddenly found by explorers out looking; it takes many years from the time a prospector finds a potential site till the mines are actually built and in operation.

Colleagues we don't have time to wait anymore. We need to invest now to ensure that, in 15 years, we have other opportunities to support our residents. The last Assembly passed the Mineral Resources Act, and I believe we need to make the development of regulations for this act an immediate priority for this government. The development of these regulations is critical for the mining industry, the Government of the Northwest Territories, Indigenous governments, and many of our businesses and residents. We need to work closely with all stakeholders to ensure the regulations meet the needs of all concerned parties.

Constituents also talked about the need to strengthen our education system, perhaps more so because I am still the Education Minister, but, colleagues, they are right. What's the use of improving our economy if we don't have northern people with the skills to access the employment opportunities?

As well, countries who have invested heavily in education are seeing their economy increase with the production of plumbers, carpenters, nurses, lawyers, entrepreneurs, et cetera. Social issues related to poverty are also lowered, as more people have the skills to get higher-paid employment, which in turn leads to fewer people on income support and less need for public housing.

To address the needs within our education system we also need to increase our parental and family support. Almost half of our children in the Northwest Territories are not developmentally ready when they enter school, and this is not okay. We need a higher focus on pre- and postnatal education and supports so that new parents, young parents, and struggling parents have supports to help them raise their children to be the best they can be.

Once we get our children to the school doors, we need to have appropriate educational supports for them. Schools cannot be allowed to continue to try to address the increasing needs of students with the same, or less, funding. The funding formula in itself will need to be reviewed, as the current formula leaves the potential for schools to fight between themselves for students because the current funding is allocated based on numbers. We need to adequately fund our schools so they can focus on quality education versus focusing on making sure they have enough students to fund their costs. Strengthening our JK to 12 cannot be done by the GNWT alone. We need to work closer with school boards and the Northwest Territories Teachers Association if we are going to get this right and get the buy-in needed to succeed.

We also have huge needs in our postsecondary. Yellowknife needs a campus, as the current rented one is bursting at the seams. Fort Smith and Inuvik have beautiful campuses, but there is a need for adequate student accommodations in those communities. The Government of the Northwest Territories will need to work diligently with our federal counterparts to access funding to support the expansion of our postsecondary facilities.

Colleagues, the last Assembly committed to three strong campuses and three strong communities, and we need to build on the programming and services at each of the campuses, but we can't forget our smallest communities. We currently have 21 community learning centers in communities that also need to be included in the development of our post-secondary. We need to invest in technology and build on our community learning centres so students who are not able to travel can still access some post-secondary courses.

We are implementing the Northern Distance Learning Program into our high schools to address the higher grade levels, and it is working, with our most northern schools now graduating students who have been accepted immediately into post-secondary programs without having to do the upgrading. This program is working within our high schools, so we need to expand it to our post-secondary.

Colleagues, I clearly heard from over 100 students at the three campuses that they wanted to maintain their post-secondary within their own communities and, if we are going to address the educational needs of students, we need to have every community in mind as we continue this journey.

Another major concern I heard from my constituents is the desperate needs within the healthcare system. I have heard from many, many healthcare professionals that they are overworked due to the serious staffing shortages, some even crying as they shared their stories of desperation. Many feel their voices are not respected and some say that they have literally been silenced by the bureaucracy. This is not okay. All employees and all residents need to have an opportunity to share what they think is working, what is not, and what needs to change.

Within my riding, there is a feeling that we are at a crisis point and this needs to be addressed immediately. We need to hear the concerns of staff and work diligently on a recruitment and retention strategy that focuses on meeting our immediate needs for staffing, acknowledging the current workers who are not feeling appreciated, and increasing our training of northern workers able to take on our healthcare occupations.

The last major issue that was raised by many residents was the need to continue to address the homelessness situation in Yellowknife. To address this, though, we need to increase the number of homes and shelters outside Yellowknife, as the majority of homeless people are from the communities. This is not to keep them out of our capital; this is because people who are struggling and decide to make positive changes to their lives have a better chance for success if they have healthy friends and family close by.

We also need to continue to provide a continuum of care from Housing First, transitional and semi-independent housing, and emergency shelters. No one model fits all, and we need to try to address the needs of all.

Finally we need to address the pain that many people live with every day of their lives. This means an increase in mental health and addictions support in the Northwest Territories, both mainstream programs and within an Indigenous lens, as well.

Colleagues, I could go on. People who know me know I can go on a long time; but the one thing I did stress in my campaign trail is the need to have fewer priorities for this Assembly so we can ensure we are properly addressing the concerns. Within this new Assembly the priorities I personally would like to see include the need to strengthen our economy and complete the land claims, an increase in financial resources to our education system, a strong recruitment/retention plan for needed professionals in all fields, and a continued focus on providing adequate housing for the residents of the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.

Ms. Caroline Cochrane's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 28

Clerk Of The House Mr. Tim Mercer

Thank you, Member-elect for Range Lake, Ms. Cochrane. That brings us almost immediately to 12 noon. We will now take a break for lunch and reconvene at 1:00 p.m. Thank you, Members-elect; we are recessed until 1:00.

---SHORT RECESS

Ms. Caroline Cochrane's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 29

Deputy Clerk Mr. Glen Rutland

Good afternoon, Members-elect. Welcome back to the Chamber. My name is Glen Rutland, and I am the deputy clerk, House Procedures and Committees, and I will be chairing the roundtable this afternoon.

First, we will resume the roundtable, with the Member-elect for Hay River North, Mr. Simpson.

Mr. R.J. Simpson's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 29

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you. It's an honour to be back in this House, to serve the people of Hay River and the NWT for a second term. I want to congratulate and welcome all the returning Members and new Members. I've had a chance to speak with most of the new Members, and even though winter is approaching, the sense of renewal in the air makes this feel like a spring Assembly.

Each of the past two elections have brought significant change, and I feel like we are now in a position to begin delivering the change that the voters want to see. It won't be easy. The NWT is facing many challenges. With the collapse of the oil and gas markets, the impending closure of the diamond mines, and a decade-long decline in mining exploration, the overall economic outlook of the NWT is poor, to say the least. While Yellowknife still seems to be somewhat insulated from the current economic downturn, the hard economic times are already being felt in every other region. On top of that, our residents suffer the negative impacts of addiction, family violence, poverty, lack of education, and a variety of other social factors at rates much higher than the rest of Canada.

However, I am optimistic that, if we face the challenges head on and commit to real change, we can overcome these issues and create a foundation that will allow our residents, and the generations to come, to grow and prosper.

Each region faces its own unique challenges that need to be addressed. In Hay River, we're facing a number of ongoing issues that have been ongoing for a number of years and negatively affect our health and safety, our children's education, and economic viability.

I've heard more concerns about our healthcare system than anything else during my four years as an MLA. Despite being able to attract nurses and physicians, the Hay River Health Authority is unable to retain them, resulting in a revolving door of locums and a seemingly constant staff shortage. This negatively affects patient care, and many people are terrified of getting seriously ill in Hay River. It's not that the staffs don't want to live in Hay River; a number of them have commented that they love the town and want to stay, but they just can't work at the Authority.

This is simply unacceptable. Our facilities should not be driving staff away. The concerns are growing because not only does Hay River have the fastest growing population of seniors in the territory, we're also slated to get a new 48-bed long-term care unit. I want to say that this issue needs to be dealt with by this Assembly before it reaches a crisis point, but some believe that we're already there.

The sudden closure of the Hay River high-rise has also highlighted Hay River's housing shortage; and not just social housing, but all types of rental units. The media always talks about the high cost of rent in Yellowknife, but we face the same costs and the loss of the high-rise's 122 units has made it next to impossible to find a place to rent in Hay River, whether you're a doctor or a low-income individual collecting income assistance.

A number of people who had put down roots in Hay River have already been forced to leave the territory and a number of low-income and vulnerable individuals are now living on the street or in unsafe conditions. As we all know, housing shortages exacerbate all other problems. It makes it nearly impossible to attract new residents, which prevents businesses from being able to grow and can prevent vacant positions, such as those at the health centre, from being filled.

What is most frustrating about this shortage is that there is a plan to alleviate it, and that plan has been waiting in the wings for quite some time. The problem is that the GNWT has been short-changing Hay River by millions of dollars per year in infrastructure funds, as determined by the GNWT's own funding formula. As a result, the town doesn't have the financial means to put in the road, water, and sewer infrastructure that is needed before new lots can be developed.

This municipal funding shortfall needs to be addressed in a significant way in this Assembly. A commitment to do so was made in the last Assembly, but we failed to deliver. In the meantime, the GNWT needs to step up and work with the town to make this development happen. With the potential for Pine Point Mines, Aurora Pellets, a 48- bed long-term care facility, and a new fish processing plant, Hay River's economy and population are actually poised to grow; it's one of the few places in the NWT that can say that. If just 200 people move to Hay River as a result of this growth, which is far less than predicted, the GNWT would receive another $6.5 million dollars a year in federal transfer payments. However, instead of facilitating this, the GNWT has been ignoring these opportunities to the detriment of Hay River, the NWT, and the government itself.

Another issue that has been discussed in this assembly by a number of previous MLAs from Hay River, but has yet to be addressed, is dredging. Hay River came into existence because of its strategic location on the Great Slave Lake. Having a safe port that can be traversed by vessel of all sizes is essential for the safety of our residents, and it's essential for our economy. The build-up of silt is getting to the point where many people believe it threatens the viability of the shipping and fishing industries. There is also concern that, at some point, the state of the port could also cause the Coast Guard to relocate operations to Yellowknife. Given the centralization that we've seen over the years, this doesn't seem unlikely. We can't allow this problem to reach a crisis point; we have to stop being so reactive and start looking beyond this fiscal year.

I noted that Hay River has some real economic potential. Unfortunately, that's looking years into the future, and right now we're facing difficult economic times, like most other places in the territory.

This Assembly needs to do more to promote economic diversification and keep money in the North. One of the easiest ways to do this is to make sure we spend as much of our own public funds as we can within the territory. Each year, the GNWT spends hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure, but efforts to make sure that that money goes to northern firms who employ northern residents have all but disappeared. This is low-hanging fruit. This isn't money we need to attract to the North; we just have to make sure we don't send it south. If we want to pay people to work and help them get training, instead of subsidizing their housing and providing income assistance, then we need to ensure that we keep funds in the territory.

There are a number of ways we can do this. For example, we can break larger contracts into smaller ones so that northern companies can compete with southern firms, and we can make better use of negotiated contracts, which have proven very successful at providing local employment and training. We also need to begin to ensure that these large P3 mega projects start delivering more employment and training benefits to Northerners, instead of just paying lip service to that idea. If we can do it with small negotiated contracts, we can do it with P3s.

If Members wish to learn more about how we can derive greater benefits from the GNWT's procurement process, I recommend that you look up the report on government procurement done by the 18th Assembly's Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment.

There was a lot of talk about economic diversification in the last Assembly. Unfortunately, despite numerous strategies and action plans, I saw very little action and I see very little in terms of results. Costs for small businesses remain high and, along with red tape, they are increasing. The government needs to understand its role when it comes to the economy. Instead of creating plans that tell entrepreneurs what to do, we need to create partnerships with industries and small businesses, actually listen to them, and work with them to implement solutions that will yield results.

Also, the government needs to step back from its incursion into parts of the private sector. In and around Hay River, the GNWT now does things such as manufacturing, general contracting, and highway maintenance; all things that have traditionally been the domain of the private sector. It's bad enough that northern companies have to deal with high costs and with southern firms who undercut them; they shouldn't have to worry about the GNWT taking work away from them.

While I strongly believe that diversification is important, I don't discount the importance or potential of mining and oil and gas, and we must continue to promote and pursue investment in these areas. However, we can no longer ignore the criticisms of industry. We must streamline our regulatory environment so that the laws governing non-renewable resource activity are clear and expectations and timelines are reasonable for all parties, while at the same time maintaining the stringent environmental protections that are built into our legislation, because resource development and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive.

While we do this, we need to keep in mind that the GNWT does not have sole authority over the land. We must ensure that, as we move forward with legislative development, Indigenous governments are included. Again, I recommend to the new Members that they look up the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment's report on the development of devolution legislation and carefully consider those recommendations.

In order to help facilitate some of this resource development, we need the infrastructure to make it a reality, and I join many of my colleagues today in calling for the completion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. The highway would bring economic opportunities to communities up and down the valley, expand tourism, attract billions in investment, and drastically change the fortunes of the territory.

I would also like this Assembly to consider taking a new approach to economic development in small communities. As my colleagues are aware, many small communities don't have the same opportunities to develop local economies that we have in larger centres. I believe that we need to start partnering with local and Indigenous governments with the goal of developing local industries that are sustainable. Fort MacPherson Tent and Canvas is a perfect example. It's the largest private employer in the community and manufactures a product that is desirable around the world. A similar model could be used in communities to set up industries that capitalize on their natural advantages, or a completely new approach can be developed. Regardless, we have to try something different because the current approach is failing.

One of my former colleagues who represented a number of small communities would often talk at length about how a single job in a community could have a large impact that spread beyond a single individual. For example, he would note that sometimes the reason a child wouldn't go to school is because the parents didn't have a job to go to so they wouldn't get up in the morning to take their kid to school. However, even if we create a job in the community, that child's parents could be dealing with addictions issues that prevent them from holding that job. This exemplifies one of the biggest challenges we face. All the issues that we are facing are interrelated, and there is no one way to fix a problem without addressing all of the other issues that feed into it. That's why, when we look at things like building economies or improving the education system, we have to take a more holistic approach than we've done in the past. We can no longer allow government departments to operate in silos, and we need to build strong partnerships with local governments. The old way of doing business has proven not to be effective, and I hope this Assembly supports a real change to the status quo approach that we've seen in the past.

I mentioned education, and I truly believe that education is the most powerful tool we have to change the fortunes of the territory and the best way to insulate ourselves against the boom and bust of mining and oil and gas and to reduce our dependence on government. We need to make a concerted effort to provide better education so that future generations will fare better than us.

There's a lot of concern about the diamond mines closing, but we've had them for decades and we're still facing an uneven distribution of wealth and a number of social problems, so clearly mines alone are not the solution. I personally believe that education is freedom. If you have a university degree, or are a journeyman, you probably don't need social housing or a lot of other social services. So not only is the government not spending money on you, you're probably contributing to the economy, which means there's more money to provide better social services to other people who need them. I strongly believe that what we need is a concerted government-wide effort to provide an education to our youth that will provide them with that freedom. That means developing and implementing an education strategy from the ground up and with grassroots input, buy in, and support, that focuses on everything from prenatal care through early childhood, JK to grade 12, post-secondary, and even on-the-job training. There has to be that continuum from before a child is born until after they get a job. The top-down approach that we're used to seeing has not been working in the territory.

I've mentioned partnerships a number of times, and that speaks to the uniqueness of our territory. While we have a territory-wide public government, for now, we also have a number of Indigenous governments who, over the coming years, will be drawing down authority over a number of the services that are currently provided by the GNWT. This means that we need to develop programs in conjunction with those governments who will be equal partners in delivering them.

I will also add to the chorus of voices that we've heard today calling on this Assembly to settle all outstanding land claims. We need to get this done, and nothing should be off the table in terms of how we can achieve this. This is a necessity. We must do it.

While I could go on about a number of other issues that we must deal with, and that we will deal with during this Assembly, I will end with a comment on government accountability. This has been a heated topic of discussion among the general public over the past few months, and it's come up in nearly all my conversations with the new Members over the past week. It's clear that the status quo is unacceptable. I believe in consensus government, and I also believe in learning from our mistakes. We owe it to the public to make changes that attempt to address the deficiencies with accountability that we experienced in the last Assembly. What do those changes look like? I'm not sure, but it's a conversation that we need to have.

With all of that said, and with one minute remaining on the clock, I just want to say that I look forward to working with all of the new Members and with the returning members for the benefit of the people of the territory, and I really am excited and I'm optimistic. I have a good feeling that we're going to do great things. Thank you.

Mr. R.J. Simpson's Speech
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Deputy Clerk Mr. Glen Rutland

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next, we will turn to the MLA-elect for the Sahtu, Ms. Chinna.

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Chinna

Good afternoon. I would like to congratulate my colleagues on a successful campaign and now representing your constituents in your elected ridings.

I would like to take this opportunity also, too, to acknowledge Cece McCauley, who was an advocate for women in leadership and who is also an advocate for the Mackenzie Highway. It's an iconic and historical moment right now that we have nine women who are elected into the 19th Legislative Assembly. I would also like to acknowledge Ethel Blondin, who was a mentor and how had held her seat as the MP for the Liberals, and who has mentored me through this process. With her humble experience, she has given me the tools to go forward and to represent my region.

Also, I'd like to thank my region for selecting me to be representing the region as the first Indigenous woman to represent the Sahtu in the 19th Legislative Assembly. It's a humbling experience, and it's an honour.

Going forward, I would like to express that the need for my region is huge. We're talking about education and healthcare, looking at economic development, mainly looking at the bridge and the opportunity that it has to offer; looking at tourism from the Tulita bridge and the Mackenzie Highway; and building relationships with our Indigenous groups.

Right now, in Colville Lake, I would like to concentrate on that community because we do have a school system that is existing there right now. The school system is very poor. I has a one-room classroom. We have teachers who are there, who are committed to be there, with no housing. The housing there is limited for water and sewer, and the children are being taught in this environment.

I would also like to look the learning disabilities, as well, in the school system, and looking at filling the positions. I'm familiar with the Jordan Principle, and Tulita and Deline have taken those initiatives into hiring an extra person to be dealing with the ADHD, the AFS, and we also have the Down syndrome students.

I would like to be able to work with the education system in the Sahtu to integrate those students with the school system, because I went into the school and they are kind of left to their own, and they are not incorporated with the rest of the students. I found it really sad to see that, in this day and age, we don't have programs and training for these teachers' assistants who are showing their commitment to be working with the children with disabilities.

Looking at our healthcare system, during my campaign there was a number of situations and scenarios that were expressed. One of them was, again, from Colville Lake, that there was a child who was severely situation and they had called the health centre in Inuvik and got direction from the doctor to say that their needs were not so severe. The parents ended up driving the child from Colville Lake to Good Hope, which is a three-hour drive; it took them nine hours, and the child was in agony, so much pain. They got to Inuvik. A medevac was called. He was sent to Yellowknife. They didn't have the resources to help the child. Later on, he was sent off to Edmonton. During that time, the child was enduring this pain and was sent to Edmonton, and the doctor in Edmonton said that the child should have been medevac'd directly to Edmonton right from the beginning.

These are the kinds of situations that the community of Colville Lake is experiencing right now. The other thing is that they also have their nurses' facility is probably smaller than the offices that we work in, and those offices, there are three of them and there is a gym that's attached to it, as well. I don't feel that these are adequate facilities for the nurses to be working in. The nurses come in every three months, and I thought right from the people who are suffering from heard disease, diabetes, that they don't get the adequate medical care that they need.

I was looking at prescriptions that they acquire, who delivers them, who sends them in, how we take care of our patients in the Northwest Territories. I know that Colville Lake is not our only isolated community; I think of the communities in Nunakput, as well. I think that together as the Northwest Territories, as a government, as the 19th Legislative Assembly, we need to address these concerns and we need to not let them result in death, at the expense that we're not dealing with the scenarios in these situations right now. I feel that the majority of them can be preventable with the proper and adequate care that we need.

I would like to move on to the Tulita bridge. I'm in support of building infrastructure to the capacity. We need these projects in order for our regions and our territory to survive. We need to make the money. We need to get our residents, as well. You know, with these major infrastructure projects comes education and training, as well, and education and training are significant. We need that in order to survive as the Northwest Territories. Projects like this, we need to emphasize on trades. We need to make sure that a lot of our people who are involved in these projects walk out and they actually do have certification. Also supporting our local business, as well, and not going south in order to pursue these contracts, that we try to keep the money in the Northwest Territories.

I would also like to emphasize on tourism throughout the Northwest Territories. I think there just needs to be a lot more promotion on it and available funding, and how this program actually works. I think that acquiring small businesses in each of our regions, in each of our locations, this will build our capacity, as well, and education needs to be supported among this, as well.

I would like to also comment on our land leasing policy and our projects that we have that are out there currently. I know that we do have housing and our land leasing are in conjunction, and they do go together. Our housing projects don't meet the needs of our residents in the smaller communities, compared to the tax base.

I think also that the land leasing policy also requires that the client needs to have a land lease in order to pursue a Housing Corporation package. Right now, we are leasing at assessed value, at 5 percent annually. Those lease payments could be about $2,500 or $3,000, which is not affordable to a person who is on a pension, who is on income support, and who is trying to move and become independent in their own region. I think we should bottle-cap our clients in order for them to go forward. We need to really structure and look at a way that we can deal with these scenarios.

Looking at the community lands and the land development, client change is a significant issue, as well, because there is limited area for the communities to actually expand. Looking within my region, there is limited expansion for each of the communities, because we do sit on a riverbank. With the bridge coming through, it's going to open access to lands that they are not able to access right now, so the development and planning needs to be considered.

I am concerned because it's actually going to open up the access to the Great Bear Lake by Deline, and they are known for their tourism and their fishing, so I would like to look at that and see what we can do as a government to try to protect those areas.

Also, I would like to just touch a little bit on housing and share with you that, during my campaign, I went to Fort Good Hope and I had a conversation with the K'asho Got'ine district, and they actually had a housing initiative that they had taken on between the federal government and the GNWT where they actually deal with their own housing initiatives, and they are actually their independence to go forward and to start housing repairs on behalf of their clients in the region. So I think building those relationships with our Indigenous groups is important. We need to start really emphasizing on that, because at the end of it they are our economy, they are striving for a land claim, and they are in self-government negotiations right now.

I would like to work towards that, because I would want to see what the government is going to look like once those self-government and land claim settlements are done. What is our responsibility, what are we going to be looking at, and where are we going? Thank you.

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Deputy Clerk Mr. Glen Rutland

Thank you, Ms. Chinna. Next, I'll pass the floor to the MLA-elect for Thebacha, Ms. Martselos.

Ms. Freida Martselos' Speech
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Frieda Martselos

Frieda Martselos Thebacha

Good afternoon. First of all, I want to congratulate everybody in the House on the newly elected MLAs who will be serving in this 19th Assembly. Bonding and serving with each of you to further our priorities and mandates is key to successfully serving all the people of the Northwest Territories to the very best of our abilities and potential.

I want to thank the amazing community of Fort Smith for giving me the opportunity to serve the riding of Thebacha and the people of the Northwest Territories.

Forming all necessary partnerships with all levels of government, Indigenous governments, local and federal governments, and the private sector is key to success. Solutions and decisions made here affect all people of the North. Being realistic and using common sense is a trait and a positive way of ensure the people of the North are really being served properly.

All my priorities are not rated. I feel that each of my principles and my priorities are all equal in importance. My first principle: supporting true consensus government through empowered communities with strong regional governments. My priority: maintain the promise that Fort Smith remain the education centre of the NWT. Supporting the plan to develop the Polytechnic University / University of the North is vital. We must ensure this is truly a unique university where people across the North, Canada, and the world will want to come to study. This Polytechnic University / University of the North headquarters must remain in Fort Smith.

My second principle: settling of the outstanding land claims of Akaitcho, the Dehcho, and the NWT Metis claim. The priority: we have an obligation to truly walk the talk and seriously support the settlement of these claims to move forward. We must not be an obstacle, but we must really mediate a settlement that satisfies all parties involved. Land claim settlements are positive economic opportunities not only for the group that settles, but are good for the region and good for the Northwest Territories.

My third principle: balanced economic opportunities. Expansion of the Taltson River Dam is vital to the entire Northwest Territories. This opportunity of green energy is vital. Hydro is the cleanest form of energy. It will create a climate of new opportunities, create new jobs, lower the cost of living, and provide new training opportunities in the trades, which gives new hope to the people of the Northwest Territories.

We must also open up the North to balanced development in partnership with business and our Indigenous partners, and with consultation with the people to improve our economic situation, and use creative new ways of doing business. This must be a priority.

My next principle: development of a social envelope. Priority: creating a universal subsidized childcare program is a must. A full-service territorial addictions centre is vital to address a true northern solution. Develop a process of retention of doctors to serve the communities so proper care is given to our residents. Being creative to ensure this happens must be a priority.

We must develop a plan to address the housing issues of the Northwest Territories. Using creative new ways to use capital dollars must be examined.

Our seniors and elders who paved the way for each of us into today's society must be recognized, and their contribution to all of us must always be a factor in all future decisions.

In closing, together and in true consensus government we have an obligation to the people of the Northwest Territories to set the stage for hope, cooperation, equality, and ensuring the Indigenous issues are truly dealt with. The people of the NWT deserve a sincere, honest version of accountability, transparency, and an open-door policy. Changing the way we do business and using creative ways to find solutions is extremely important.

I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to state my priorities, and I look forward to ensuring solutions for developing the 19th Assembly's mandate. Thank you.

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Deputy Clerk Mr. Glen Rutland

Thank you, Ms. Martselos. Next, I will turn to the MLA-elect for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh, Mr. Norn.

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Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Marci cho, Mr. Clerk. I would like to start by introducing myself. My name is Steve Norn, MLA for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. My home town is Deninu Kue; it's the place where I cut my teeth and where I grew up, and I'm proud to say that I'm happy to represent the riding of Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

I would like to congratulate all the new MLA-elects, and I would also like to mention the three acclaimed Members. You guys look really stressed throughout this whole process.

I want to also thank the voters of the Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh riding. I found out afterwards that our riding was number two in the voter turnout, 70 percent, which is really good. I'm really proud to say that. We are number two behind my colleague for Nunakput, who is at number one. That just goes to show that people in my riding are really passionate about our politics, and I want to say marci cho to them.

Women in politics. I was raised by my great-grandmother, and my first order of business when I came to the office, I put a picture of my great-grandmother up. I've always been surrounded by very powerful women, and I'm very happy to say I'm flanked by two very influential, powerful women. You are very good role models for our young generation. I'm proud to be standing beside you.

My colleague from Sahtu mentioned Ethel Blondin, and that made me think. You mentioned that name, and all of a sudden it brought me right back. I was in high school and the principal called me in. He said, "Ethel Blondin is rounding up youth from around the North. We're getting this new thing up in Ottawa called the Youth Employment Strategy." I was like, "Why do you want me? I'm going to high school and I'm from Deninu Kue, a skinny little kid." I was like, "I'll jump all over that opportunity, I'll take it. So I did." I always seemed to have these influences around me, and it's like a sign. This is what you are destined to be working at, and I'm so happy to be here, to work with you guys.

I have always said that, whatever government department we have, the working population should always be representative of the population it serves. I think we more than did that with this Assembly.

When I did my door-to-door, you felt helpless because a lot of time during your campaign people poured their hearts out to you, and you felt helpless because you weren't elected at that time. They told you all sort of things, they have all sorts of questions for you, requests, and they are hoping you are their next hope. I am hoping that all the Members here elected stick to your word; I really hope so.

I also want to say we have job certainty for the next four years. A lot of the people that we met door-to-door do not have that. To me, that doesn't sit right. A lot of that doesn't sit right to me, so we owe it to our constituents, the people who voted for us, to do our best for them.

Also, when I sat down here, someone pointed out to me that this is the Premier's seat, so I won't get too comfortable here.

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Frieda Martselos

Frieda Martselos Thebacha

This one is.

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Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Oh, this one? It's pretty close.

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Frieda Martselos

Frieda Martselos Thebacha

You're not stealing it from me.

---Laughter

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Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Okay, good. Well, anyway, I just want to let the House and the people of the North know that I do not intend to run for a Cabinet position. My first duty is to the people of my constituency, and that's what I plan to do. So I wanted to let you guys know firsthand.

I also want to say during my door-to-door, one of our knowledge-keepers asked me a really important question. They asked me: what do you think the spirit and intent of our treaties are? Boy, that just blew me away. It was such a profound question, you know. It made me think because I didn't have an answer right there because, you know, I always was a very cocky young man, thought I had all of the answers. I didn't, though. I was stumped. I did a lot of soul searching, and all of a sudden these glimpses started to pop in my head as I went through my campaign. Here is my glimpse. Here is my paper. I am putting down my paper. I am not looking at my computer.

I had this glimpse of family, it could around a lake, it could we around the Sahtu, it could be around the Tu Nedhe, of this figure going home, greeting their family, saying, "[English translation not provided]," "I love you" in my language, or it could be a "I love you" in whatever language is in your riding, going up, listening to loved ones, having a couple of rabbits on the back of their shoulders, carrying it in, walking in off the land, sitting down at the kitchen table and talking about their day with their family, speaking in their own language.

There is another image that came to me, this vision I guess you would say. All of a sudden, oh, my God, there is this alarm that went off. This person who had brought in the rabbits put this stethoscope around their head or around their shoulders, "I have to go to work. I am sorry. I have to go to surgery. I have to go. [English translation not provided.]" Something in your language, give your loved ones a kiss. "I have got to go. I am sorry. Enjoy the rabbits." On the way out in this glass case there is a drum, in this glass case on the way out of the house, there is a sash or a fiddle, moccasins.

We were told here before we came that we should talk about our vision about four years down the road, 10 years down the road. I am talking about this little vision I just spoke of. It could be a hundred years down the road. How good will that feel that far if people are still speaking our language, are being our doctors, our lawyers, our professionals, our engineers? Hopefully we are not spinning our wheels here in the next four years, and doing something about that. So that was my vision, and that really, really kind of gave me the direction where I wanted to go in my campaign.

So now I am going to pick up my paper again. Now, a lot of voters in the last little while, I guess, are going to go through a little bit of voter fatigue. They have already voted us in the House. There are a lot of municipal elections, and now finally we are going to have our federal election, and we are at the mercy of the next government that will be coming to power. I said in my campaign, one of my platform items was for young people to vote: get out and vote. Get out and vote. Get out and vote. I am saying that right now. You have one more election to deal with, so I am telling you again: get out and vote. This is your chance to have your voice be heard and to elect the next government at the federal level. With that being said, we are at the mercy to set our priorities for what is going to happen with that government, as well, so we will see what comes of that. We do not have a crystal ball. We are going to see how that goes.

We were asked what steps the GNWT should take to achieve this vision.

Land claims. We need to settle our land claims. We need to give all of our Indigenous governments some breathing room. For me, I would like to see this government take a, what's the French term, a laissez-faire, they call it, a hands-off, give them a little bit of room or a variation of it to give our negotiating teams some chance to get work done. We owe it to our people. We owe it to our businesses. We owe it to the people of the North to do that, get work done. A lot of our elders past have wanted to see a lot of our land claims come to closure, to fruition. I think we owe them, and a lot of them are not getting any younger. I think we owe it to them to see that ratified.

Jobs and economy is something else that I will say I encountered during my talks with constituents. We need to reinvigorate our economy. We are coming at the end of a cycle for mining. We are so dependent on that, you know. I am hoping that we review a lot of our policies, such as BIP policies, Affirmative Action Policy. We need to take a good, hard look at them because we have got to give our businesses and our people the best chance at opportunity, and we are not doing that. We have not done that in the past Assemblies. Affirmatively, we need to shape these policies to give our businesses the best chance possible to become successful and profitable and self-sufficient. One thing that I did in my research is there is a program in the United States. They call it the 8(a) program. I am hoping we could kind of mirror something like that and implement it here in the Northwest Territories. That is the direction I would like to see our local government go.

Addictions. A lot of you might know already I am a former RCMP officer, and I worked with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada as a witness coordinator. A lot of you do not see this, but I was privy to it. There are many, many, many files of, just, you see all of the pain and suffering, and 99 percent of it is because of alcohol and drugs. It hurts. It hurts me. A lot of you have not had somebody knock at your door at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, young mother, all bloody, holding a baby and pleading for your help. You will never know that pain. It still sits here. Now, sitting here in this House, hopefully we can do something about it by taking more pride in the culture and dealing with addictions, because addictions and problems with alcohol create such a burden on our correctional system, our emergency services, our police. I am hoping that we can do something about that in this Assembly.

I want to say to everybody here, too, that I myself suffered from addictions. I had a problem with alcohol for many, many years, and I am proud to say to you that I have been sober for almost seven years, and I wanted to say to those who are suffering right now with addictions, that there is going to be help out there. There is help out there, and I am going to be doing my very best in this House to help you and to be a good role model.

Another thing that really irked me during my door-to-door was housing. Oh, that is one of the things that really just gave me fuel to my fire during my constituency. I spoke to somebody in one of our communities, and he said, "Steve, I wish you could help us out, you know. We went to NWT Housing, and we applied for a program to renovate our home. It won't even cost more than a few thousand dollars to fix our windows, fix our doors, and it would have saved us X amount of dollars in fuel savings." We talked about cost saving and stuff like that, and they told me that, "You know what, we were denied. We have to go through so many hoops, and we went through four or five times, and we were denied every single time." I am like, "Where's the disconnect here?" We are talking about policy, a procedure that they fell through the cracks and all of sudden you are not going to help this person, one, keep them warm in winter and, two, help them save money, a simple fix. Hopefully, we can a look at some of those things while we are in this House.

I have heard like a chorus line now, just coming to me now, that we are talking about policies. That is where we need to start and take a look at it. I am not saying we should take a machete to it and take a hard-line approach, but we need to just work with our governments, with our bureaucratic system, with our people at all levels of governments, work together and have good common-sense approaches, humanize our policies, and let's not forget our people at the grass-roots level.

In closing, I am proud to be here. I would like to say that I hope we work all in collaboration. I like to use the word "synergy" because I think that really captures how we need to work with each other because, if one of us drops the ball, it means we all drop the ball, so we should all help each other with our issues and help people of the North, because they're depending on us.

I want to thank my family, my friends, people who are supporting me. I want to thank Alfred for being a role model to me, because it wasn't too long ago we were sitting in the office, and we were joking, and now we're here. I'm humbled, and I'm proud to be sitting with you. Mahsi cho.

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Deputy Clerk Mr. Glen Rutland

Thank you, Mr. Norn. Next, the floor shall go to the MLA-elect for Yellowknife Centre, Ms. Green.

Ms. Julie Green's Speech
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October 8th, 2019

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Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. I want to start by acknowledging that I'm on Chief Drygeese territory, and I'm honoured to be here. I am also proud to represent Yellowknife Centre. I am here as the voice for a very diverse community downtown that has a diversity of issues and a diversity of incomes.

My vision is to provide people with the tools to realize their full potential, and I am going to go through what some of those tools are, starting with the economy. The very best thing we can do for ourselves to start with is it settle land rights negotiations and self-government negotiations. There is a way forward, using the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. This Assembly has recognized and supported that declaration, but the next step is to implement it and make it meaningful in our land rights negotiations and line up our position with the federal position and with the position of the Indigenous government organizations.

I really feel that not just adopting but implementing UNDRIP, as it's called, will provide Indigenous government organizations with control over their land and their government, for development or conservation purposes, but in any case it would provide land certainty. The result of that would be good for the Northwest Territories, and it would be good for our primary industry, which is mining; and it is my hope that mining continues to be our primary industry, to the extent that we have any control over it.

I recognize that commodity markets are not within our control. Attracting investment is not within our control, and we can see that with the fact that we have two mines that are fully permitted that are not being built because either the commodity prices are too low or they can't attract the investment.

There are ways for us to assist in exploration, specifically through the Mining Incentive Program. That program returns $5 for every dollar invested, and the government could certainly do more by putting money into that.

We also need to take a better look at diversification. I talked about this in my last speech, but the need for it is even greater now than it was before, and there are three areas that I've talked about consistently here. The first is tourism. Tourism has been a very successful industry in Yellowknife and in the Northwest Territories generally, and it is time for us to share the infrastructure dollars that we're currently putting into roads with tourism. We need a visitor centre here in Yellowknife. We need more campgrounds and more parks for road traffic to visit. We need more money into product diversification so that the tourists who come here spend more time here and spend more money. Tourism, I know, doesn't pay like the mines, but it is still a growing segment of our economy and it needs more investment.

The second area with many benefits is retrofits. If we could retrofit public housing, private housing, commercial office space, we would derive three kinds of benefits; jobs, a reduction in greenhouse gas emission, and a reduction in utility bills. There are studies that have been done that give a lot of detail about the return on investment; it's impressive and it's necessary, and we need to look at it very seriously. It addresses a number of issues that are important to all of us.

The third area, which is an economic area but also obviously a social development area, is childcare. Childcare is another area in which there are three distinct benefits. The first is jobs; the second is enabling parents to go back to the workforce after they finish their parental leave; and the third is the development of the children themselves so that they are ready for school when they enter junior kindergarten.

An investment in childcare is essential, and it's worth noting again that 11 of 33 communities in the NWT don't have licensed childcare. This is an essential priority. It also requires infrastructure investment. The biggest barrier to providing more childcare spaces in the NWT is having the appropriate space to host that childcare, and what we learned last time was that the regulations are very stiff in this area. I appreciate the reason for it, but it makes it out of reach for non-profits to build these childcare spaces, and so we need infrastructure investment, and I believe that our best option for that is to build childcare spaces in schools, because that is one place where all children will be, from the time they start childcare until the time that they graduate or move into a higher-level school. So the infrastructure investment in childcare is a must.

The next area I heard a lot about again this time, as I did last time, was the cost of living. Power bills are very high in Yellowknife. Yellowknife subsidizes electricity rates for the rest of the NWT, and people find them onerous. They end up being one of the largest household bills that they have. We need to come to terms with the cost of our power, whether that's investing in clean energy, subsidizing power rates, finding more customers. We have to come to terms with not only the price of it, but the fact that the infrastructure for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation is aging and will need a major investment of replacement in the near future. Some of this burden could be taken on by the development of Taltson, but I don't see that happening soon. That's a very long-term project, with distinct risks of its own.

The third area that's very important to me is services for seniors. In the last Assembly, not one new unit of senior's housing was built in Yellowknife. That's in spite of the fact that 134 seniors' households are added to our population every single year. So what we end up with is a six-year waiting list at Avens, and more than a quarter of the public housing waiting list, which is an astonishing 330 households, more than a quarter of that list is seniors. We also have seniors in emergency shelters. We need housing for seniors. We also need a bigger budget for retrofitting housing for seniors so that they can stay in their own homes, if they are able to do so. Right now, the budget for the entire NWT is barely adequate for a small community, let alone for 33 communities.

We also need to invest in homecare for seniors. The longer they can stay in their own homes, usually the happier they are, and the less money they cost the public purse. So I am anxiously awaiting the results of the homecare study that was commissioned in the last Assembly and should be delivered soon.

A third area for seniors is the day program. There was a day program until three years ago. It was closed because the service provider, Avens, decided that it was too risky a program, given the diversity of needs of the people within it, but there has never been a replacement for this program. The result of that is that social inclusion needs of elders are not being met, and at the same time respite needs of families who are caring for these elders are not being met, either. So this is an absolute essential. We need a day program in Yellowknife.

I want to talk a little bit also about children. I've talked about the importance of early childhood development, and I had this in my speech last time, as well. The very best investment we can make is in children ages zero to three. If they get a good start at that age, they will be set up to succeed at school, from the time they begin through until the end. When we don't make that investment, we short-change those children, and we pay for it, and they pay for it for the rest of their lives. It's just not fair. We must do better.

The other area under the heading of children is improvements of services for children in care. We all heard Auditor General had to say about services provided. They are inadequate at the very least and in some cases harmful, so there is a quality improvement plan in place, but we have to make sure that the social work positions are adequately staffed throughout the Northwest Territories so that services to children in care are improved.

One of the other areas under the heading of children is food security. Most of the NWT residents who experienced moderate or severe food insecurity are children, and they depend on feeding programs at school. They depend on their parents going to food banks. It is not acceptable. There needs to be a comprehensive food security strategy in the next Assembly that deals with the question of how to keep people from experiencing hunger or making trade-offs about the quality and quantity of food that they are consuming. This is absolutely essential. We have 20 percent of our territorial population who are experiencing food insecurity.

The next area is income assistance reform. There have been some changes to income assistance, which are useful, but it is still a payroll program. It is still a very punitive program, where people are trapped in their monthly allotment, being asked to provide information about what they earned and what they spent. What we need is to pile up the basic income guarantee where we pick a number of different communities of different sizes and in different locations and give people a monthly amount of money to live on and see whether they are able to make that work to get themselves and their families out of poverty, rather than having them on the payroll system.

The next area is education. The system simply is not delivering the results that we want in terms of the quantity and quality of high school graduates. We have money now for Jordan's Principle, but that money is not guaranteed into the future. It needs to be guaranteed, so that children with disabilities have the help they need to succeed.

We also need to revisit the funding for education to ensure that schools that have heavy numbers of children who need extra support in fact have the money to provide that support.

I am a supporter of post-secondary education and of the revamped Aurora College, or the creation of the new polytechnic, whichever way you look at it. This is something that we really must do.

In the area of health, I heard lots from my constituents about problems with the start-up of the hospital. We have some real quality control issues there, to do with a number of different areas. I don't think they are unique to our hospital start-up, but we need to pay attention to them because they are having a negative impact on the people who are in hospital trying to recover from their illnesses and injuries, and they are in a situation where the care is compromised by the physical structure.

The other thing to do with health generally, and the hospital in particular, is that it is a Cadillac facility being run on a shoestring in terms of staffing because of the shortage of nursing and other health professionals. We need a strategy to attract and retain nurses to this territory so that we can do better with healthcare.

The last area I want to talk about is the one that is probably most important to my constituents other than the economy, and that is the situation in downtown Yellowknife. The homeless and intoxicated population in downtown Yellowknife are from all across the territory. They are not just people in Yellowknife on hard times. They are people from all of your communities who have come here for different reasons, and they have stayed here. Maybe your community is dry, and they can drink here. Maybe they were in jail, and they stayed here when they got out. Maybe they were in hospital, and they stayed here when they got out. The situation is that we now have a large population of people who have chronic addictions and chronic homelessness, not always both together but with a variety of both of those problems. They need housing, and they need programming.

There was an evaluation of the combined day shelter and sobering centre. That was completed this year, and it has 11 specific short-term recommendations about how services at the sobering centre and day shelter could be improved. We need to bring the city and the contractor on board to implement those recommendations so that we can improve services to people on the street and we can assist people in feeling safe downtown. That was something I heard very often. People do not feel safe. They are intimidated by the intoxicated population, and it is on us to help those people feel safe downtown whenever they happen to be there.

The depressing thing about my list is it is very much like the list I gave four years ago. That doesn't mean that nothing happened. It means that not enough happened, and once again we are in a changed mandate situation. Eleven new MLAs last time, 12 new MLAs this time. We can't fool around anymore. These chronic issues that we have all mentioned, intoxication, homelessness, poor education results, these are ongoing issues that we really have to drill down on this time and not make an incremental change, but make a really significant change. Thank you.

Ms. Julie Green's Speech
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Deputy Clerk Mr. Glen Rutland

Thank you, Ms. Green. Next, we will turn to the MLA-elect for Frame Lake, Mr. O'Reilly.

Mr. Kevin O'Reilly's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

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Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies for missing this morning as I was over at the judicial recount. I will carefully study the statements made by my colleagues so I have a better sense of your priorities and how we can work together. Congratulations to the new MLAs and returning ones, and I am very happy to be here to work with you.

We have been asked to talk about where we want to see the Northwest Territories in 10 years and what we can do in our four years in this Assembly, but I would like to start with some thoughts about the Frame Lake riding, what I heard at the door during the campaign, and I would also like to acknowledge the work of the volunteers on my campaign.

The Frame Lake riding is a diverse area within Yellowknife. It stretches from this Legislative Assembly over to Woolgar Avenue. It includes commercial properties along Old Airport Road; Northlands Trailer park, which is undergoing some tremendous revitalization; public housing in Sissons and Lanky Courts;, and single-family dwellings along Forrest Drive, Bromley Drive and Court, and Kuntsen Court and Avenue. It is a vibrant part of Yellowknife, with many Indigenous and immigrant families. It is my home, and I love it.

I would like to thank the residents in Frame Lake for coming out to vote in 2019. Voter turnout went from 28 percent in 2015 to 45 percent in this year. That is a tremendous increase. I also want to acknowledge the work of Elections NWT, as the voter list was in much better shape this time around, and I also want to thank them for their promotion of the increased voting opportunities. Frame Lake was a much-anticipated race, and I wish to thank my competitor David Ramsay, who ran a strong campaign and presented a credible alternative. I wish him nothing but the best with his future endeavours. I recognize that not everyone voted for me and that even more residents were not able to or were not inclined to vote. I will still work very hard to represent their interests and respond to any concerns brought to my attention.

As to what I heard at the door, it varied a lot depending on where I was in Frame Lake. In the lower-income areas, the main concerns involved public housing, income support, childcare, and education. In the higher-income areas, the main issues tended to be around cost of living, especially power bills, climate change, the economy, and a variety of other issues. I really appreciated the opportunity to engage residents and will stay in touch by personally delivering one of the three annual newsletters each year.

I would like to thank all those who volunteered on my campaign. Our families loan us to this great institution, and I am no exception. My partner, Suzette Montreuil, I could not have done it without your support. I also need to thank my official agent, Bob Wilson, and the many other volunteers who helped out. I also would like to thank those who have sent me messages and congratulations. Your support is very much appreciated.

So where could and should the NWT be 10 years from now? Here is a dream that I have, and I hope that we can all share parts of it and agree upon it. We would have a diversified economy, where our peoples are more fully employed and engaged in a variety of activities that include mining, tourism, arts and culture, research and development, agriculture, and the fisheries. We would produce a lot more of what we consume. The workforce would more closely reflect the cultural and other diversity of the NWT, with Indigenous peoples taking their rightful place in senior management. We would have vibrant small communities, regional centres, capital that serves all of our residents. Indigenous languages would continue to be spoken in each of the regions and taught in all our schools, with improved access to all government services in our official languages. There would also be a strong French first-language education system that would control its own admissions. [English translation not provided.]

All of our citizens would have access to affordable, suitable, and adequate housing. Seniors, or knowledge holders, will be able to age in place, have access to appropriate services. All of our communities would be self-sufficient in terms of their energy needs. We would minimize and potentially eliminate fossil fuels through green, renewable energy such as solar, wind, and small hydro, with efficient storage systems. No more big grids, no more big energy projects. Communities would own and manage their own energy systems with appropriate support and training, incentives for self-sufficiency, and there would be a solid plan for dealing with the climate crisis mitigation and adaptation.

Caribou herds would once again be thriving through a variety of habitat protection actions, predator control, harvest management, and human disturbance thresholds. There would be a fully funded and functioning integrated environmental and resource management system based squarely on co-management and continual improvement through audits and state of the environment reporting. Legally binding water agreements would all be in place to protect us from upstream threats and would be supported through appropriate community-based monitoring and traditional knowledge.

In terms of governance, there would be a new confederation of regional Indigenous governments and a territorial public government with strong community governments, all recognized with roles and responsibilities set out in a constitution for the NWT. We would have no one living in poverty. There would be adequate, suitable, and affordable housing for all. No more family violence. Mental health supports in place to help build healthy families and communities.

What concrete steps should we take in the next four years to achieve this vision, this dream? What should our priorities start to look like over the next four years to take us along this path?

I'll start with the economy. I said during the campaign that I don't know what else we can do to attract more investment in resource extraction, as this is mostly dictated by commodity prices and financial markets. What we can control is the completion of the remaining land rights agreements, and this needs to be a high priority. We need a more flexible approach and new mandates to allow the regions to evolve as they see fit. I look forward to a new approach to negotiations from GNWT and stronger involvement by the Regular MLAs. We also need to fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and make sure our policies and legislation is consistent with our obligations under the declaration. We need to continue to co-drafting process with post-devolution legislation and regulations.

We can and should also better promote ourselves as great place to live, work, and do business with greater certainty than many other places. Our resource management systems are different by design, but there is a lot of guidance and assistance available. We also need to make sure that we get a fair return for resources extracted by reviewing royalties and taxation, the scale and pace of development, and benefit retention. We need a new arrangement with the federal government to ensure that we retain more of our own source revenues. A review of our Heritage Fund is also required during the term of the 19th Assembly. We need to stabilize our fiscal regime to the greatest extent possible. We need to invest more into our people, not just big infrastructure projects. We need evidence-based decisions.

Housing, education, universal childcare, guaranteed basic income, energy self-sufficiency, and food security are the long-term investments that are needed to build sustainability and healthy communities. These should be the priorities when our government goes to Ottawa and the federal government for support and investments. This was certainly not the case with the 18th Assembly Cabinet, which cut programs and services to fund big infrastructure.

I believe we need to focus on systemic changes that will reduce our cost of living by building more self-sufficient communities. We need to refocus the NWT Power Corporation towards community energy self-sufficiency, rather than relying on big projects and big grids. Renewable energy investment will help lower the cost of living for remote communities and all energy consumers. We need a better-coordinated approach to the climate crises that includes carbon pricing. We need to set a lead department, and give them the authority to work with others inside and outside government. GNWT spending should consider impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, and there should be strong public reporting.

We should build stronger food security to help lower our cost of living by promoting more local food production through community gardens, commercial market gardening, and rejuvenation of local fisheries. We also need to work together on Nutrition North to focus on food security that includes country foods and inter-settlement trade.

We need to increase our investment in our education system and return to the Education Renewal Initiative as the way to further improve outcomes. We also need to build a strong network across the NWT for post-secondary education that includes the community learning centres, campuses in Inuvik, Fort Smith, and Yellowknife. There is huge potential to attract and focus research and development on our needs and build a knowledge economy.

Children and housing need to form the foundation of our new priorities. We should increase funding for early childhood development programs and services, as we all want to get our children off on the right foot. This is simply one of the best investments we can make as a government, with tremendous cost savings down the road. This necessary work on children also includes a universal childcare system, for which we already have a feasibility plan. We need to keep on top of the necessary improvements to Child and Family Services, and I believe that includes a child and youth advocate.

I am not convinced that a northern-based treatment centre is our best solution to addictions. Aftercare and on-the-land programming such as the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation's healing camp here in Yellowknife are a good start, but we need similar efforts in each of our regions and also available at the community level. I look forward to continued efforts on our downtown area and believe that a managed alcohol program is part of the path moving forward.

Without housing, our residents cannot properly participate in their communities or in the economy. The Housing First approach has shown some success in Yellowknife and elsewhere, and we need more options for seniors and young families.

I look forward to working with all the other MLAs and Cabinet on this important suite of priorities under the themes of economic diversification, investing in healthy communities and children and families, and addressing the climate crisis.

Now I would like to talk a little bit about how we work together. Change was certainly a major theme and outcome in the recent election campaign, and I certainly am happy to be part of that process. Are there ways to improve collaboration and consensus government? Absolutely. As happens every Assembly, lots of ideas and recommendations were put forward by the Special Committee on Transition Matters. I was a member of that committee for the 18th Assembly. Some of our recommendations included:

  • Better orientation and ongoing training of MLAs;
  • Setting clearer and fewer priorities;
  • Options for the structure and selection of Cabinet and standing committees;
  • Improved and more collaborative budgeting;
  • A mid-term review with a focus on priorities and the mandate; and
  • Improvements to how legislation is developed, introduced, and reviewed, including future regulations.

At the end of the day, we cannot possibly do everything that has been raised today. We will have to make choices. We all come to this government with different backgrounds, education, and experience. We are not going to agree on everything, but that is also a healthy reality. We should take advantage of the diversity here to help make better decisions and build a stronger Northwest Territories. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kevin O'Reilly's Speech
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Deputy Clerk Mr. Glen Rutland

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Now, for the final word, I will turn to the MLA-elect for Yellowknife South, Ms. Wawzonek.

Ms. Caroline Wawzonek's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

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Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Rutland. Good afternoon, colleagues, and congratulations to you all once again on my behalf. I also want to extend my gratitude to you. I was very nervous last week, but you have all been very welcoming and it's been a really positive start.

Thank you, also, for hanging on. I am the last speaker; whether that's good fortune or bad luck, I'm not sure. The good news is we've all said a lot of similar things, so there is a lot of overlap to get started from. The bad news is that it will be sounding a bit repetitive by the time I'm done.

I also want to say thank you in this first opportunity to speak here to Yellowknife South for placing your trust in me. I began to carry that trust the morning after the election, and I can say that I promise that, every day, I'm going to make my best effort to use my best judgment, to use my best efforts to advance the work of the Assembly on behalf of Yellowknife South.

The priorities I want to talk about today took root over many months of consultation, grew and focused in the course of the campaign. It's my honour to present this vision and these priorities on behalf of Yellowknife South.

My vision is that the Northwest Territories is going to be a leader in Canada. I believe we can show leadership in reconciliation with Indigenous people, and that we can be a leader in establishing modern relationships with Indigenous governments.

I believe the Northwest Territories should be a sought-after place for investment. It's going to be built on a foundation of balance and sustainability.

I believe that the small population that we have, focused and concentrated in small regional communities, should be an opportunity. It should be an opportunity to provide individualized programs and services, focused on the needs of those communities, drawn and delivered by those communities. As such, I think the Northwest Territories can be a leader in a government that is driven by positive outcomes for its people.

After the campaign period, I am more convinced than ever that this vision is achievable because of all the people who I have met throughout the process of the campaign, the ideas that they have shared, their talents, and their dedication. Our people truly are our strength.

My priorities are focused under four themes; health, education, economy, and governance. I will start with health. In many ways, to me, that's the foundation. I have three priorities. The first is that we identify and show quantitative improvement in the social determinants of health. That means things like safe housing, food security, family well-being, and both physical and mental health.

I think we need to start seeing people as whole persons. We need to understand that the ability and the opportunity to learn requires that foundation of health, that our prosperity is going to be impacted by the web of things that impact who we are as people, form our families and our communities to our society around us.

This was a major issue in the constituency for me, because a lot of people spoke about the downtown social issues. We are not going to get ahead facing some of the social issues that we see on our streets downtown, that are playing out across the Northwest Territories, unless we have a long-term vision that truly looks at people as whole people, something that truly starts from the very earliest stages of maternal health and early childhood.

Some of the key social determinants that I'd like to highlight now. I'll start with housing. There is a shortage of housing across the continuum of housing needs; emergency housing, transitional housing, early entry housing, first-stage housing for people looking to get into the market, rental housing, and seniors' housing.

I think we need to be leveraging our partnerships with other governments, the federal government in particular, but also the private sector who are looking for opportunities, as well as with non-profits who have creative ideas and on-the-ground know-how.

I also suggest that we should be creating opportunities for collaboration between departments on this issue, because sometimes the input that is actually going to affect housing might require an input from a different department. For example, for seniors to be aging in place, often what they need is support from mental health or healthcare to provide them with part-time care in their homes.

Food security. In terms of food security, I would suggest we look at the entirety of the production and supply of food in the Northwest Territories and find a way to have a meaningful impact on local food chain supplies. There are agriculture initiatives, and there is also access to traditional food. The sustainable livelihood action plan is one that we should be looking at, to ensure that it is accurately and effectively implemented and actioned. As well, transportation. How can we innovate the transportation of food across the Northwest Territories, so that there is more reliable supply to small communities?

Healthy families. In this respect, I would focus on universal childcare. Universal childcare, to me, should be the end goal, but it doesn't mean that it's an all-or-nothing end game. We've already heard today, I believe from more than one person, why this is such an important and excellent return on investment. It's so much potential for children; it helps parents who may want to return to the workforce; it has the potential to lower the cost of living; and it makes the Northwest Territories someplace where people will want to come, that will make us potentially a unique place in all of Canada. I recognize that this was a goal during the last Assembly, but it's time to move it forward, I would suggest.

Junior kindergarten was an important step forward, but when we created that, we didn't necessarily create the option for aftercare, which left a whole other problem for families. As I have said, it's not all-or-nothing. We can prioritize the availability of childcare spaces first, and move forward gradually, perhaps in a way that uses short-term changes to the system but maintaining the end goal of universality.

The next aspect of the whole-person care approach that I am championing, I'm actually separating it out into its own priority, because it's so important. For me, priority number two under my healthcare theme is that we support positive mental health and long-term reductions in addictions, including reducing the severity of addictions. How I would suggest we do that is with post-treatment, long-term aftercare, both for addictions and mental health, one that includes relapse prevention and community-based supports.

Community-level networks are a critical aspect to ensuring that people can reintegrate successfully into their communities. I believe we should consider establishing mobile units of mental health professionals who can go regularly to the communities to shore up those local supports.

I would suggest having mental health-specific system navigators, or patient advocates, or both, so that patients and their families, the people who are already doing the care, can easily access the best services available.

I would like to see us encourage and support the community-level programs that are happening within non-profits. The Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation, for instance; the FOXY/SMASH programs, for example. These non-profits are doing excellent work, and when we work with our non-profits I think we should start considering looking at different ways of funding them, so it's not project-based, but we can actually look at core funding initiatives that will improve their efficiency.

I'm going to add in here restorative justice. It seems odd that I'm sticking that in under health; I suggest that it's not, but if we're going to be truly restorative for people who are in conflict with the law, I think we need to realize that, very often, these are people who are themselves traumatized and who would benefit from a healthcare, whole-person approach to healing.

Similarly for victims of crime. If we're talking about restorative processes, we must be looking at the victims of crimes, as well, and that they, too, are whole people and they, too, are in need of care and programming that is trauma-informed and culturally appropriate.

My third priority under my health theme would be that we prioritize patient-centred prevention as an approach to improve individual wellness. Two ways I would suggest we could do that; one is, again, community-level and culturally safe programming.

I'd like to see us truly empower the front lines of healthcare services, such as is already beginning in the Indigenous health units here in HSSA, as well as, again, with the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation in the non-profit sector. I believe it is time to start championing these approaches and expanding them.

Also the development of wraparound, patient-centred approaches to care. This is a philosophy that already has seeds happening in the healthcare systems right now, but it is important that we ensure that we have invested enough so that healthcare professionals can truly develop those patient relationships. This will also provide a better workplace and more workplace satisfaction for healthcare professionals, and again hopefully make the Northwest Territories a destination of choice for them.

Education. Here, I have three items. Early childhood; I've already spoken about the importance of that under healthcare, but I would suggest that we should remember that you have to engage the education sector, as well, so that there is an overlap between health and education, so that there is culturally appropriate programming for young children.

From K to 12, similar to one of my colleagues, I would like to support and invest in action, the Education Renewal Initiative. This is a model that addresses many challenges faced across the Northwest Territories:

  • Family engagement within schools;
  • Recruitment and retention of teachers;
  • Impacts of health on students;
  • The need to prioritize different paths for completion of education; and
  • Infrastructure challenges in many of the schools, particularly in small communities.

It focuses on the importance of ensuring that every student's capabilities and capacities are being encouraged and supported to the best of that student's ability.

This framework, however, cannot succeed on the backs of the teachers or the schools themselves alone. We must find a way to ensure that there is proper collaboration and cooperation between the health system and education, as well as infrastructure, housing, different departments to provide all the different possible services that are going to be required to truly make this initiative a success.

Finally, adult learning. I also support a Northwest Territories-based Polytechnic University. It's one that I hope is based on diverse partnerships between the communities, between different governments, with industry, other existing educational institutions such as the College nordique or the Dechinta University. I think this should be a shared priority between all. It should be a shared opportunity. In Yellowknife, having a new campus is a priority, but other communities will have other priorities, and they should, again, be all part of moving this initiative forward.

I hope that we would be including high-demand professions, nursing, social work, education, and skilled trades, but this is also an opportunity to be visionary. We can look at areas of our particular and unique strengths; rare earth, minerals, permafrost, land-based programs, and some other highlights that many of you have already mentioned today. Again, this is an opportunity to make the Northwest Territories a destination of choice.

The Economy. This is certainly something I think many of us have heard about, and I heard about at many of the doors that I was at: what will we do when the diamond mines close, and what will we do to reinvigorate our economy?

I have four priority items here. First, that we settle all land and self-government claims and ensure that existing agreements are fully implemented. I believe we need to provide land ownership certainty; we should accelerate land-use planning, and I believe in acknowledging nation-to-nation relationships. I would like to see us encourage power sharing and partnership.

The second priority is to reinvigorate the mineral resources sector. Here, there are two things I'd like to mention. One is the infrastructure gaps in transport, land, air, water; energy; communications. I'm not going to pick, because that's not my job necessarily. If I could choose, I would have them all. I hope that we can leverage partnerships, leverage funds, but maintain a goal of completing these projects and not only studying their feasibility.

The second part for me, under the mineral resource sector, is to look back, actually, to the 2014 mineral development strategy. The goals of that strategy are as alive today as they were back then:

  • Create a competitive edge to improve investor confidence;
  • Improve the regulatory environment;
  • Enhance Indigenous engagement and community capacity;
  • Promote a lasting legacy; and
  • Enrich the workforce.

Those five goals are still five things that I think would not only improve the mineral resource sector, but in fact many of our economic sectors, as well. In my view, it's time to, in fact, improve the implementation of that strategy.

I will highlight just a few. Firstly, with respect to regulations and the regulatory environment, I would like to see regulations that are responsive. We have that opportunity now, because it's time to start developing the regulations for the Mineral Resources Act.

Ensure that deadlines are timely and enforceable, and as far as promoting a lasting legacy, industry is looking to have social license. Companies and corporations want to be good neighbours and investors are increasingly expecting corporations to in fact be accountable for their carbon footprints, among other social issues. I think, if we can create the conditions that allow industry to achieve those goals, again, we will be making the Northwest Territories a destination for investment.

My third priority under the economy is to support the growth, both in the number as well as in the size, of our northern-owned and operated businesses. Let's make sure they have the opportunity and the ability to scale themselves up, when appropriate. We can do this by reducing the cost of doing business, which will hopefully also lower the cost of living, because this is done through infrastructure, again. In this regard, I would highlight energy and electricity costs, and reducing the reliance on diesel, which has to be trucked up and is expensive across the Northwest Territories.

I come back again to regulatory systems. In this regard, again, responsive and modern. Considering a two-for-one rule, perhaps, where we don't layer on new regulations. Every time you have a new regulation, you must at least take one, if not another one, off.

Interdepartmental cooperation, as well. Sometimes the regulations in one area are impacting the ability to have growth in another. For example, operating a business in public housing. This, to me, seems like exactly the place where we would want to encourage small-sized businesses.

Land access. I am in support of having a plan to begin transferring lands that are already within a municipal boundary, in active consultation with Indigenous governments.

A task force to ensure that there is better procurement and contracting, so that we are keeping wage dollars in the North. There are many ways to do this, and I believe a task force could come back with options for a very quick turnaround to provide solutions.

Priority four, last one in this category: to build the foundations for a knowledge economy. The Northwest Territories is still a frontier, but I think we can harness that. A knowledge economy is more than just a Polytechnic University; it's an approach. It's an approach to an economy that is innovative, entrepreneurial, creative, where we can actually use the "get 'er done" spirit of the North and actually say that that's how we want to build the economy going forward, in terms of all of our diversification strategies.

We can support innovation with research and development funding that is scaled to the size of the businesses we have in the North, and encourage collaborative hubs. There is already an artist space up in Inuvik. I think there can be manufacturing start-up spaces elsewhere in the Northwest Territories.

I know it's the end of the day, but I'm almost done.

---Laughter

My last theme is governance, and there are two priorities here. The first is to create opportunities for communication and cooperation laterally and up and down through departments. What I mean by this: in terms of our front-line service providers, they are often the ones that know exactly the best thing to do to make a tiny change that will improve their work life, as well as the services that they are giving to people in the communities.

I think there should be regular meetings between people who are providing social programs, for example, both inside government as well as in the non-profit sector. There could similarly be, as I've already talked about, regular meetings between education and health; between justice, health, and housing; all of these different groups that are trying to solve the same problems should be having regular meetings to make sure that they are not at cross purposes, but that they are actually providing the best services together.

At a senior level, I would suggest there should be budget efficiencies, so that budgets are not overlapping; people aren't afraid of their budgets being amalgamated or clawed back, but that they can in fact work together to ensure that there is enough money to do the things that these departments all want to be achieving.

I think we can lead by example, and it's heartening that many of us have already spoken about this. We, as 19, can demonstrate the value of good communication, of collaboration, and of working together. It is a historic Assembly, but it will be even more so, depending on what happens in the next four years.

My second and last priority is to create a culture and expectation for active implementation and evaluation of all government programs and services. Our solutions should never be a process. Solutions should be measurable results that impact on people. As we set our goals and our expectations, there should be incremental performance indicators. Every step of the way, you need to be able to measure what you're doing. As you measure them, there should be a clear point of accountability, somebody responsible for the thing that they're supposed to be getting done, and someone with sufficient authority that, if it's not happening, that person has the ability and the power to make change.

I believe the Northwest Territories can be a leader, and we can be a leader in governance that is not divided by partisanship, but in fact is united behind a collective vision. It's a vision that I believe will succeed if we value action, value accountability, and I look forward to working with all of you, working together towards a collective vision. Thank you.

Ms. Caroline Wawzonek's Speech
Round Table Speeches By Members

Page 45

Clerk Of The House Mr. Glen Rutland

Thank you, Ms. Wawzonek. Just before I bring the roundtable to a close, a few remarks. To those Members-elect who are new to the Chamber, I have to say it was a very impressive debut. Congratulations on delivering your first speeches, and for many of you on your first day here.

Thank you to all Members-elect for your participation today and your words and wisdom as you begin this priority-setting process. There are some clear themes that are emerging, but there are also many different views on these priorities. The challenge, or more importantly the opportunity, that is before you is to communicate and collaborate over the weeks ahead to reach a consensus on the priorities for the 19th Assembly.

I would like to remind Members that we will reconvene tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. in the Caucus Room, and I would just ask that Members please join me in wishing the MLA-elect for Monfwi a happy significant-milestone birthday.

---Applause

The Members' round table is adjourned. Thank you.

---ADJOURNMENT