This is page numbers 3153 – 3192 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 4th 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 chair.

Topics

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Moses.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to congratulate and welcome all the recipients of the Culture and Heritage Awards today, specifically the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute, and also welcome Karen Wright-Fraser, who is a relative and who has been a very strong advocate for cultural contributions and the prolonging of the Gwich’in culture. Thank you.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. Bisaro.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a number of people today. Karen Wright-Fraser is a constituent of Frame Lake. Congratulations, Karen, on your award and welcome to the Assembly. I would also like to recognize the members of the Yellowknife Choral Society who are here and congratulate them on their award. Lorne Gushue, Ruth McLean, Constantina Tsetsos and Margo Nightingale, your hard work is obviously recognized. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Hawkins.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we’re going to fight over Karen here because I thought she lives downtown. With that said, she is certainly worthy of the prize to fight for; she is such a great lady. I want to start off by recognizing Karen Wright-Fraser. She is known for a lot of things, not particularly because she worked with me a long time ago, but she is a talented artist in her own right and very well renowned. Her skill is amazing and she has great talent at keeping her traditional life.

The other constituent that I’d like to acknowledge, and who has been acknowledged several times already, is Lorne Gushue. He’s a community activist in many ways, a stalwart volunteer on so many efforts, we don’t have time to go through every single one of them. I can tell you we spent a lot of time talking about what a great community fellow he is and to that end I say thank you to both and welcome.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Today several outstanding Northerners were recognized in representing our arts, culture and heritage across our great territory. I really would like to welcome Mr. Justin Memogana and his brother Chad from Ulukhaktok. Welcome to the House. That is drummer dancers that, when we were up at our Caucus retreat, all these members were drum dancing while we were up in Ulukhaktok. That was our main drummer right there. I know your dad

would be really proud of you, so congratulations again.

Ms. Emily Kudlak, thank you for your Elders Category Award. Thank you for all you do for the community of Ulukhaktok. I know you are always active in the community with our youth, so thank you and keep up the good work. Thank you.

Welcome everybody in the House here today for taking in our proceedings and to all of you, congratulations on behalf of our House. Thank you very much for being there for us, especially our elders.

Item 6, acknowledgements. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to recognize Weledeh resident and former Premier, Stephen Kakfwi, who received the Governor General’s Northern Medal on October 4, 2013, in Quebec City. The highly regarded award was established to honour Canadians whose actions and achievements contribute to the North. Originally from Fort Good Hope, Mr. Kakfwi spent 16 years as a Sahtu MLA and served as a Cabinet Minister and the first Premier of the NWT after Nunavut was created.

On behalf of Weledeh residents and the people of the Northwest Territories, I would like to congratulate Mr. Kakfwi and his family for his accomplishments, and thank him for his continued important contributions to the people of the North. Mahsi.

---Applause

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Item 7, oral questions. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement and certainly reading here Mr. Dolynny having an exchange with Mr. Ramsay last week in regards to driver education programming in our school, I want to ask the Minister if he’s given some serious consideration with his colleague, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Is this something we can look forward to putting on a piece of paper saying by next year, if we put our heads together and the will of the people and the will of the department, we can have a driver

education training program in one of our small communities?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize the regional disparity in numbers of young people in the territory that have a driver’s licence of one form or another, Class 7, Class 5 probationary, or Class 5 licence between Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith and the other communities in the territory. Certainly, we need to do something about that. The department is taking this challenge seriously. We have Project Gearshift that we’re allowing participation in schools. We are going to cover up to $3,000 or 50 percent of the cost for them to host professional driver trainers in their communities. We believe that’s going to certainly be a step in the right direction.

Going back a number of years, we had driver training in some of the high schools here in the Northwest Territories. Given what is happening today in the central Mackenzie Valley in Norman Wells and with the pending construction of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway, the Member’s concern about trying to get some type of program into a high school in Inuvik and Norman Wells certainly has merit. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Certainly, we want to close the gap on the disparity within our regions. We know not all regions are created equal, so I want to ask the Minister with regard to the driver education training program, is this something that he and his colleagues, specifically the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, can look at as a pilot project in the Sahtu, for example, to raise the challenge with our young people to have one of these types of drivers’ licences for next year?

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Mr. Speaker, high school students in Yellowknife and Hay River can still receive two credits toward their high school diploma by taking professional driver training, but that is only available in Yellowknife and Hay River. That, again, is part of the reason we’re looking at Project Gearshift, to get the professional driver instruction outside of those two communities and to young people across the Territories so they can get drivers’ licences. We’re also developing flashcards and an app that is based on the NWT Drivers Manual. I believe in responding to Mr. Dolynny last week, these will be available sometime early in the new year. We believe that will go a long way to helping students pass their driver’s test when the examiner does get into their community. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, would the driver education program have a schedule in a Sahtu community high school for these driver education training programs, that every so often the instructors will be coming into these schools where there’s incentive to receive a credit, get to school,

and every three months that in one of the Sahtu communities you’ll know these young students will be receive one type of driver’s licence. It will do a lot of wonderful things in terms of increasing their self-esteem, once they get a driver’s licence.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Mr. Speaker, with the economic activity construction happening in the Mackenzie Delta and also the activity that’s taking place in the Sahtu, it certainly is in our best interest to ensure that, at the high school level, youth have access to getting… One of the fundamentals is a driver’s licence. I think the more we can do that, the better off our young people will be and better able to get employment. I think, at the end of the day, really that is what this is all about, is independence and getting employment for young people across the territory.

On Project Gearshift, that would have to be initiated by schools. Again, it’s funding; it’s a program that’s available to schools. So schools, whether they’re in Inuvik or Norman Wells, can certainly apply for the funding that is available through Project Gearshift. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to see a program stronger than Project Gearshift, but that we actually have a program in our schools that would allow a driver education program for our youth, that they actually not wait for funding but initiate it. Schools are always competing for funding and other initiatives, and sometimes we’re not quite there as we’d like to be in regards to having funding for the schools.

Is this something that they could look at more concrete that could be a pilot project, so say this could work, especially in the Sahtu where there’s oil and gas activity that’s going to be flourishing in the next couple of years?

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you. The discussions have already begun between ECE and DOT. We will continue to have discussions. In the past these programs ended because of concerns with liability and also logistical concerns.

I think these are things we can get over and we should get over. If there’s a real need in a community like Norman Wells or Inuvik or other communities around the NWT, this is something that we have to get our heads around. Certainly, we can continue the discussions and I will do that through the Minister and the education board both in the Beaufort-Delta and in the Sahtu. We’ll continue and see where we can get these discussions and keep Members apprised of where we get with the program. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, the last couple weeks I spent some time at the Hay River hospital, l and I forgot to thank them.

My questions today are for the Minister of Health. Last spring the Minister had talked about making some changes to the authority and giving Hay River some feedback. I’m wondering if we could create kind of a community-driven authority where the community could give feedback. Is there something, a board that they’re looking at setting up where the communities can have feedback? I know right now we have a public administrator, but is there any thought to putting something like that in place?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the thought is to return to a board structure for the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. As the Member knows, we are in the process of constructing a new health centre and we’re hoping to be able to provide some medical services to surrounding communities. So once we’ve determined the full scope of what that specific health centre can provide to the surrounding areas, then we are going to talk more with the staff and the public administrator to determine what type of board structure we should have in place for Hay River Health and Social Services. Thank you.

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Thank you. I appreciate the Minister’s answer there. The Minister talked about the new facility. Do we have to wait for that facility to get that kind of feedback from the general public? We’re looking for some sort of feedback that the public can give on the current operations in the current facility, as well, and what kind of timeline we’re looking at in order for implementation of that type of an advisory board.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

No, it’s not essential that we wait for the health centre to be completed in order to have some sort of board structure. The public administrator and I did discuss that possibility. He recommended that we start off by maybe asking a couple of people from Hay River on the recommendation of maybe even the municipality, the MLAs or even the Aboriginal organizations’ area to appoint people that he could start working with and having some discussions. That’s something that we are currently contemplating. I’ve had my first discussion on that type of structure, I would say, about two months ago with the public administrator. Thank you.