This is page numbers 5399 - 5430 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was northwest.

Topics

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won’t tell him to use their gas tax money, but I will say you can use your capital infrastructure money that we provide to the community each year and they identify projects as a priority. I do know for a fact that in the latest capital plan from the community, they have identified some funds to put towards shoreline erosion. There’s no scope of work that’s been determined yet, nor have we had any requests for technical assistance, which we would be more than happy to provide to them. Thank you.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

That was on my list, I just didn’t read it on capital infrastructure. It’s not enough, we don’t get enough. But with that being said, I’m asking the Minister now for his assistance in the Department of MACA in Inuvik to go into the community and to meet with the mayor and myself sooner rather than later, because of the rock hauling that’s going to be done. Hopefully it could be in this year coming. So what are the chances of that? Thank you.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you. I could commit to the Member that if it’s the request of the community, we’d be happy to go in there and provide them some technical assistance. I did say before that they have identified some funds in their capital plan to go towards the shoreline erosion, but we’d be more than happy to meet with the Member and the leadership in the community to see what we can do to assist them. Thank you.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you. Today, from the department’s work from the federal agency of Geological Survey of Canada, how long does the Minister think that it will take to claim that area, to think is the centre of town? Thank you.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

I’m not quite sure how to respond to that, other than saying I would have to follow up and see what some of the recommendations were, but I will follow up and see what kind of information I can gather. Again, I’ll commit to the Member that we will work with the community to come up with some kind of a plan to deal with the shoreline erosion. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister for that and just remind the Minister that I want extraordinary funding and I don’t want it taken out of the gas tax, I don’t want it taken out of the capital infrastructure, because the

community has a big task in itself to keep all the buildings going. But I look forward to his department making sure it gets a hold of the community and myself to do this project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

We do provide, through the capital infrastructure acquisition or plan, we provide all the money to the communities and this has allowed a lot of communities to deal with some of their infrastructure deficits and some of the infrastructure needs a lot sooner than they would have been able to had it been still part of the corporate plan, and this is just another example of that. You know, as a department, I mean, if we’re aware or we know of any other possible sources of funding out there that could assist the community, then I will commit to the Member that we usually follow any pots of money that we may be able to access on behalf for supporting the community. So we’ll continue to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about ways we can support the artists’ community in our North, and as I said, that represents one in five of our population, or I should say almost one in five of our population. Mr. Speaker, it is a considerable amount of people and I would say that they certainly deserve a certain amount of respect certainly by this government.

Saskatchewan has adopted what’s called the Arts Professions Act and what that basically does is it recognizes, supports, enshrines and protects the work that these artists do to make sure that they’re treated fairly and certainly treated properly.

Mr. Speaker, my question would be to the Minister of ECE -- Education, Culture and Employment -- and I’m hoping that he would task his officials to investigate the Arts Professions Act as put into statute by Saskatchewan government, to see if we can enshrine and protect our northern artists to make sure they’re getting fair value for work here in the North. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Monfwi

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is an area that we can definitely explore in other provinces, the Arts Professions Act that they may have in other provinces. But we do provide, as Members would know, increasing funding to support performers as well, and also artists. The

Member talked about recognizing and supporting them. We currently do that already and we’ve increased our funding, but this is legislation that we can definitely look at in other jurisdictions as well. Mahsi.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

I want to recognize the fact that the Minister has worked hard to make sure that artists do receive both their due and financial support from this government and certainly by his department. This Arts Professions Act, which I’ll table later today, is a very small act. It basically defines what artists are, and how they’re recognized and certainly how they can be supported by the government. Again, it’s by the Government of Saskatchewan protecting Saskatchewan artists.

Does the Minister see any chance that once he has a copy of this, does he foresee any chance that perhaps he can task his department officials to investigate it right away and see if they can respond with some type of discussion paper into the new year, if that’s considered possible or reasonable? Thank you.

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Monfwi

Mahsi. I did commit to the Member that we will explore and review the Saskatchewan legislation to see if it has the context and also relevance from a Northwest Territories perspective. So I did commit already and we will look into this. Mahsi.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources in follow up to my Member’s statement earlier today.

Mr. Speaker, the agreement with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation around the management of the Bathurst caribou herd is a two-year plan of activities. I’m wondering if the Minister can tell me what resources, both the dollars, direct dollar support and personnel support, staffing support, are being provided to the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to carry out their end of the bargain and whether this is going to be assessed partway through to see if it’s adequate. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a joint committee that’s been formed and we are going to assist them with funding to staff a coordinator to work with us as we do the increased monitoring and supervision of implementation of the plan. The Member is correct

that there will be ongoing assessment to see how things are going and if resources are an issue.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

I’m glad to hear there’s a coordinator being supplied. I wasn’t sure I heard a figure on the dollars that are being supplied. One of the major issues is the overlap with the Tlicho Agreement. I’m wondering how this has been handled and how it’s being handled in a final sense until such time as the Yellowknives Dene complete their land claim agreement, given that the Tlicho have already finished theirs.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

The intent is to set up a broad, multi-stakeholder management plan for the caribou in the North Slave region that will include, of course, the aboriginal governments and the territorial government -- the Tlicho, Akaitcho, the Northwest Territories Metis Nation -- and it’s going to be a complex undertaking, given the fact that we have to look at the Ahiak, the Beverly, the Bathurst, the Bluenose-East, and significant overlap areas as well into Nunavut and some with the Beverly down into Saskatchewan. The challenge over the next two years is to get a process in place that will allow us to bring all those players to the table to come up with the steps necessary to manage and enforce the right actions on all those various herds.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

I appreciate the response from the Minister. I have no doubt that he’s fully committed to making sure that does progress strongly during the two years of this interim agreement. The Yellowknives Dene First Nation agreement contains measures for a limited harvest to meet subsistence needs. One aspect of this is, of course, the understanding of what sort of adequacy this meets in terms of their nutritional and subsistence requirements and so on. I’m wondering if the Minister could tell me what we must see in terms of herd recovery before the harvest guidelines will be opened up a bit to meet some of those requirements.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

That kind of technical, herd-specific decision is going to be based on the work of the assessment that’s going to be based on the recommendations from the boards, both of the Wekeezhii and the joint board we’ve set up with the Yellowknives. We’ll all be looking to their advice.

I don’t have an immediate, final definition in my mind. We do know that some of the indications have been somewhat comforting. From what the information is, there’s been no further decline of the Bathurst herd. It seems to have flattened out. The same with our basic work on the Ahiak. There’s even been a bit of modest growth in the Bluenose-East. Each one of those herds is going to have to be looked at individually.

I would point to what was agreed to with the Yukon and the management of the Porcupine caribou herd

there, that they came up with all the appropriate triggers based on herd numbers that would determine what kind of action is going to be available to be considered if those numbers are hit. I would suggest that a similar type of approach, in my mind, makes good sense here as well.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Caribou have been essential to the nutritional, cultural and spiritual well-being of the Yellowknives Dene since time immemorial, as I’ve recognized earlier. I recognize that the Minister is providing for some alternatives in the meantime, such as opening the season on bison and assisting Dene to hunt other herds. However, caribou are also extremely important to many non-Dene in similar ways. What measures are being put in place to provide them with increased access to alternate meat sources such as bison and other caribou herds as their numbers improve?

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

The one area is going to be the possible access to bison tags. There is no harvest anywhere in the Northwest Territories at present for any harvesting except the aboriginal harvest. So there is no capacity to open up access to caribou tags anywhere at this point, given the pressures the herds are under. We’re looking at other types of animals besides bison. There is moose, of course, and depending where you live up north, there’s other things like muskox, as well, that could be considered.