Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 4, returns to oral questions.

Mr. Speaker, I have a return to oral question asked by Mr. Hawkins on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, regarding the Tlicho winter road to the Fortune Minerals site.

The Department of Transportation is working with the Tlicho Government to develop a project description report for the realignment of the public winter road to an overland winter route between Behchoko, Whati and Gameti An MOU between DOT and the Tlicho Government, signed in fall 2011, re-established a steering committee to guide the development of a project description report (PDR) for the winter road realignment. PDR work includes terrain, flora and fauna, archaeological and socio-economic baseline data collection, consultation and the development of environmental mitigation options.

The working group, comprised of officials from DOT and the Tlicho Government, have met regularly since December 2011. The working group expects to complete the PDR in fall of 2013. Traditional knowledge, socio-economic and consultation aspects of the PDR will be managed by the Tlicho while environmental baseline and engineering aspects will be managed by DOT. Field engineering, environment and traditional knowledge data collection is underway. Significant progress has been made in the development of the PDR specifically with respect to a new alignment, borrow sites, and in establishing a timeline for future work.

The department is currently only studying the realignment of the winter road, not an all-weather road as would be required by Fortune Minerals for its NICO Project.

The department has a capital budget in place to complete the project description report and

associated planning studies to move the project toward environmental approval.

The department does not have any capital funding to proceed with the realignment work. It is expected that construction of a realignment winter road from Behchoko, Whati and Gameti would cost approximately $30 million.

Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to recognize a couple of Pages from the Great Slave riding and thank them and all the other Pages for all the hard work that they’ve done for us over the last couple of weeks. I’d like to recognize Muhammad Awan and Linda Charlie from the Great Slave riding.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a Weledeh resident, Mr. Steve Matthews. He’s a long-term resident, spent his whole career with GNWT and is semi-retired now, I believe. Also with him is Mr. John Lee, a renowned bear biologist many of you may know. Both long-term residents with their families of Yellowknife.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’d like to welcome the visitors here in the public gallery today. Thank you for taking an interest in our proceedings.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement, my questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I’d like to ask the Minister if he is aware of how our student financial assistance for students with disabilities compares to what is offered as support to students with disabilities in other jurisdictions in Canada.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With respect to subsidizing students in the Northwest Territories, we do have one of the attractive benefits packages compared to other

jurisdictions. However, we have done our research, as well, on what other jurisdictions offer with respect to disabilities area. We have come out with various options within our department. We also heard, through the review of SFA, how we should be addressing or increasing our funding towards disability. We have done that through this budget planning process, where disability grant amounts from $8,000 to $10,000 per academic year. That’s just a start. I’m sure there will be others. There are all these different recommendations that were brought to our attention. We will definitely follow through with those.

So just to be clear for people who will be listening to this, when will the improved, enhanced student financial assistance for students with disabilities go into effect? When can people become eligible for that?

The Member is referring to the increase that should be taking effect, because we just went through the budget process, April 1st . That’s the information that I have,

from $8,000 to $10,000.

Again, we are doing more groundwork with respect to other jurisdictions, what kind of programs they offer. If it’s better or even more than what we offer, then seriously we’ll take those into consideration, as well, and make some changes to our programming as we move forward.

In my Member’s statement I referred to student financial assistance for students with disabilities seeking post-secondary education and I kind of inadvertently referred to it as being outside of the territory because that seems like where there are specialized programs for students with disabilities.

I’d like to ask the Minister, in his role as being responsible for Aurora College, has the college ever had in place, or ever contemplated putting in place, specialized programming that would allow students with disabilities, who are Northerners, stay here to take post-secondary education in various fields?

I’d just like to thank the Member for asking that particular question. We want to support our students here in the Northwest Territories to stay in the territory at the Aurora College campus. We have three campuses and we need to support those students. With the information the Member is asking for, I don’t have the specific history of it, but I can provide that information.

Part of my ongoing discussion with the president and chair is to raise the profile with them. If there hasn’t been any programming in that area, why not, and how can we move forward on this? I assure the Member that I will be addressing this with the college.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister if part of their consideration of what the college offers now, and what they could offer, would include, perhaps, travelling to or getting into communication with other post-secondary institutions that we do know already offer specialized programming for students with special needs.

My understanding is that there are certain programming for disability cross-functioning with various institutions. I need to get the latest update from the college and provide that to the Members, then we can discuss further how we can improve those programs or make additions.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in the House today in response to what was tabled earlier this week by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources entitled Management Actions for Barren Ground Caribou Herds. Immediately I was pleased to hear that we have some herds that are doing quite well, such as the Beverly and Ahiak herds as well as the Bluenose-East herd. Although what was presented as merely a proposal on the potential limited resident harvest of these herds, we were left yet again with many questions unanswered for consideration.

The Minister mentions that we have caribou calving ground surveys, population surveys and recruitment surveys that are ongoing in the co-management and management of the species. Can the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources indicate to this House the differences between the surveys mentioned in that briefing?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve committed a significant amount of money to continue to do baseline work on an ongoing basis on the various herds. There are the major surveys, then there’s the intermediate work that’s done to check the health of the herd. We’ve done that over the summer, as I indicated, over last year and concluding some this year that I laid out in my Member’s statement yesterday. They’ve given us some comfort – more than comfort – some certainty about the herd numbers, to the point where we’re looking at going back to the co-management boards and the consultation

processes that are required to look at the current restrictions that are in place.

I do appreciate the Minister’s reply. I think the general population is quite confused. There are too many surveys out there. I think it would probably be well advised if the Minister of the department could be a bit more clear on what these surveys, or the outcome of these surveys, are going to be trying to achieve.

Another question I do have for the Minister of ENR: What is the formal format to allow resident hunters and commercial outfitters to have a meaningful input in all these upcoming management board discussions in the caribou management or, in this case what we’re hearing, limited harvest?

The intent of the various surveys, or the main intent, is to ascertain as close as possible what the herd numbers may be. At the same time as herd numbers, the herd health, cow-calf ratio, those types of things, all towards an eye of making sure we have sustainable herds that are healthy.

Those numbers have told us up until recently, for example, the Bathurst herd has suffered a precipitous decline and stabilized not up but down significantly. It hasn’t really increased from where it bottomed out about three years ago. We know the Ahiak-Beverly herd, the numbers look quite strong and the Bluenose-East as well.

The work is underway. We will be consulting with the various boards, all of which are public boards, as well in the east, with the Beverly and Qaminirjuaq, with the Government of Nunavut. As well as where there are no settled claims, we’ll be involving and consulting with the Yellowknives and Northwest Territories Metis.

I’m hearing some great things, but my question was, do resident hunters or do outfitters have a seat at the table in these so-called public settings. I believe there’s opportunity there in consultation. It will take months and potentially another year to get the proper responses from community consultations regarding resident and commercial harvest allocations.

Can the Minister indicate why temporary tag allocation is not on the table now, especially with all the promising herd numbers discussed in this House?