Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I’m representing Frame Lake. I’ve been speaking about income support a lot this sitting and I will again speak about income support today.

There are seemingly endless contradictory policies or rationale for denying clients that apply to income support. Today I have to highlight another one. We have residents who are homeless for any number of reasons. These same residents, if they’re homeless, are generally in need of assistance from Education, Culture and Employment and income support. For some, especially those with families, the only accommodation or housing where they will be accepted is a hotel or motel. But when they apply to income support for housing assistance, they are denied. Why are they denied? Because tenants in hotel or motel accommodations are determined by Education, Culture and Employment

to be living in transitional housing and transitional housing is excluded from the Residential Tenancies Act, and for that reason ECE denies them assistance.

That application of policy contradicts the action ECE takes for tenants at the Salvation Army and the YWCA, tenants living in what is also considered transition housing, tenants who are, therefore, also excluded from the Residential Tenancies Act. Yet these income support clients do get housing assistance from ECE. I can’t argue with the department’s interpretation of the Residential Tenancies Act. Transition housing is explicitly not covered under that act. Even after considerable consultation undertaken recently around potential amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act, the GNWT Department of Justice has decided to continue to exclude transition housing from the act.

It appears that ECE has decided that tenants of hotels and motels are in transition housing and, therefore, not eligible for housing allowance from income support. ECE has also decided that tenants at the Salvation Army and YWCA accommodations are in transition housing, but those tenants are eligible for a housing allowance under income support.

So I have to ask the Minister, what is the definition of transition housing used by the department? What facilities fall under that definition of why or why not? What is ECE’s policy around transition housing and a client’s eligibility for funding for accommodation if they live in transition housing?

All I’m after is some clarity and consistency in the application of policy and, as the Minister likes to tell me, fairness for all income support clients. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery.

I would like to welcome everyone in the public gallery here. Thank you for taking an interest in our proceedings.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of NTPC in regards to the power outage in the small communities of Norman Wells and Tuktoyaktuk, and somewhat in Inuvik. Given the weather conditions of the severe unprecedented wind storms that were blowing in the communities, does NTPC have a priority rating

scale as to which communities they should be getting into right away because of the power outage in the communities, given that they were all happening at the same time? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have an emergency rating system. The folks on the ground in the communities, in Inuvik for example, make determinations. They talk with the folks in the various communities and then they look at the severity of the situation in each community. The one that is the most critical is the one that we try to get to the fastest and the soonest. If you have a community where there are hundreds of people with no power for a great length of time, that is a critical emergency in the wintertime. So, we work to the utmost, working around the weather, keeping safety in mind, but making sure we get response people on the ground there as soon as possible. Thank you.

The NTPC workers in communities of Norman Wells and Tuk and Inuvik, I certainly appreciate the types of conditions they have to be challenged with in order to get into a community that has a power outage and the emergency rating.

I want to ask the Minister, in regards to the Sahtu region, does the Sahtu region have qualified power linemen that could have fixed the issue in Norman Wells that happened on Sunday? Do we have people in the region who are able to do that work, other than wait for Simpson or Inuvik crews to come in?

We have some personnel on the ground. We have some that we use and we try to look to work with other folks who have some kind of similar capacity.

In terms of do we have any particular linemen, I would have to confirm and get back to the Member on that. Thank you.

I certainly appreciate the Minister getting the information back to me. I want to ask the Minister, is there any type of training in the communities where if we do not have that type of staff in our region, because we have to either wait for Inuvik or Simpson to come in with those qualified linesmen, can there be some thought to start training our people in the region so that they can do the work, other than to fly in people from outside the region?

Power lineman is a very specialized, highly qualified trade where there are electrical skills required but also the ability to work under very significant and extreme circumstances, often on pole trucks, in

some cases climbing poles, so it’s not a type of profession that you can just have folks train partially. But I take the Member’s point and concern about having a permanent facility and capacity based in the region, and I’ll be happy to have a discussion with him possibly tomorrow morning, bright and early at breakfast. Thank you.

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

Geez, thank you, Minister. Mr. Speaker, we certainly understand the type of requirements to be a power lineman. We have one fellow actually from Deline who is an NTPC power man, Mr. Kenny. So we know we can do it in the Sahtu.

I’m asking the Minister to look at these challenges. The Sahtu people are up to the challenges. We want to establish a permanent NTPC presence in the Sahtu region because of these types of situations. Thank God it was warm and it didn’t last very long.

I want to ask the Minister if he’s willing to look at, during the life of this budget, this Assembly, if we can see this type of movement into the next infrastructure budget.

There are 266 days left to the next election. I will commit to the Member to have a fulsome discussion with the chairman and president of the Power Corporation, and I will be able to report back to the Member on the content of the outcome of that discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources today. He spoke today about our positions in getting students jobs. Obviously, it’s a priority of mine. I’ve had questions before in the House. Obviously, the Minister’s statement says we’re going to have the students research GNWT departments and agencies to find units related to their field.

The first question I have is: Is the department going to be proactive and go to the students and make contact? From what we know, they now have the ability to make contact with them. Are they going to contact the students and tell them the positions they have vacant and the positions that are coming up?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department had an initial open house in

December when the students were back. We let the departments know that they were to post any of the positions that they had that would be available for students, and the students would do a little bit of work getting on to the website and finding jobs that match their field of study. That’s how we’re hoping to match them, not only here in YK but throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, maybe I’m oversimplifying it. It seems like we have a set amount of students. I would say we have maybe 1,000 students. Are we not able to contact those students and tell them that these are the positions we have available, we’re interested in you coming back and doing an internship, so that they’re not looking for jobs in the South and they’re not looking to go anywhere else except come home to the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Last year, just on the campaign that we’ve always launched with departments, we had 598 applicants and we were able to hire 312 students for summer work. This year we’re hoping to widen that and increase that number. We’re hoping that more people can apply and that the departments are looking to place the students.

Right now it’s contingent upon how much money each department has to allocate to the Summer Student Program. Based on that, we target at least 300. If possible, if departments are able to do more, we will do more. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not looking for the summer students, I’m looking for students who are in their third and fourth year, so they have an opportunity to come back. We have a goal to have 2,000 more people come to the Northwest Territories, and I think getting our students back to the Northwest Territories is key.

Is the department willing to go and talk to those students and tell them we have certain jobs, we have some internship jobs for you, so that they’re not looking to go? I’m not looking for summer jobs where we just say, well, you just apply. I want to know that we’re getting our students who have a degree, who have business certificates, who have trade entrance-type stuff coming back to the Northwest Territories.

Yes, that’s a good point. I was answering the summer students, but in general, we are going to target the third and fourth year students that are finishing their studies. Part of the plan is to recruit those students back to the territory as part of the overall plan to bring more people to the territory. Bringing our own people back, ensuring that our own people come back to work in the Northwest Territories is part of our plan.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know I’ve stated in this House before that that’s how I came back to the Northwest Territories after my degree. I had a job coming back.

Are we doing that type of internship where you actually have an employee who is basically finishing up their degree and coming back to the Northwest Territories?

In addition to the internship that we have, the plan is to certainly connect with the people who are university students or college students who are graduating, other students who are in post-secondary who are finishing up their post-secondary education to come back and work for the NWT. I can ensure that the deputy minister of Human Resources is in touch with other deputy ministers from all of the departments to see what jobs are available that would match with students who are currently finishing up their post-secondary studies.