Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, once again I commend the Minister for taking those extraordinary steps in working with First Nations leaders in our small communities. She has highlighted the model that likely could be templated and used as an example across Canada. Would the Minister be willing to consider the idea of in the future to invite her federal colleagues to visit the Hay River Reserve and see for themselves just the housing issues that people have to contend with? Mahsi.

As a resident of the Northwest Territories myself, I have always felt that often people who are living in the South do not really recognize the needs of the Northwest Territories. We are often fit into models that "one size fits all." I do not believe in that model. I do not believe that one size fits all. I believe that every community, every territory, every province, has distinct needs and distinct strengths.

Within that philosophy, my own philosophy: every time I go down to meet with any federal Minister, I not only invite them, I almost beg them to come to the Northwest Territories to see our reality; to see, like I stated, our strengths and our weaknesses so that they can understand and so that we will not be put into a box that says "one size fits all," because it does not fit for us. So, yes, I will commit to continuing to advocate that all federal Ministers come up to the Northwest Territories to visit us and to see our realities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke of student success in the dimensions of western and cultural education, and my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister is: how does the Department of Education, Culture and Employment support education authorities as well as individual schools when they want to develop unique cultural programming for their students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First and foremost, we do fund all of the education authorities on an annual basis throughout the Northwest Territories. One of our goals is ensuring that all students are grounded in the reach and diverse history, cultures, language, and heritage of our peoples. As we fund our education authorities, they are encouraged to develop local and regional courses and resources that do focus on culture, heritage, and languages, and we continue to support them.

One other way that we do that is through Elders in Schools. Not only our students, but our teachers, as well: teachers have the opportunity to develop and participate in cultural orientation days. Further to our support for our teachers who work with our students throughout the Northwest Territories, they go through an orientation during our New to the North conference on a yearly basis as well as the work that we do with the NWT Teachers' Association around professional development.

That is a good piece of information. Mr. Speaker, I understand the department is working on revisions to the Aboriginal Language and Culture Based Education Directive. I would like to get a status from the Minister on that.

In the 18^th Assembly mandate, the GNWT did commit to implementing a renewed directive to strengthen the role of schools in supporting Indigenous language development and cultural programming as well as the TRC's call to actions that address supporting the development of culturally appropriate curricula and the protection of the rights of Indigenous languages, including the teaching of Indigenous languages. We are well into that. As an update for this directive that we are working on, called the NWT JK to Grade 12 Indigenous Languages and Education Policies and Procedures, that will begin being phased into all schools beginning in the 2018-2019 academic year.

I appreciate the status from the Minister. The Northwest Territories uses an Alberta curriculum. Can the Minister describe what kind of alterations and allowances are made to ensure that northern students are able to see themselves and their cultures reflected in their school experiences?

Yes. As I mentioned earlier, we are very big on supporting culture, heritage, languages in our schools and support our education authorities to deliver these programs. We have made some improvements, such as Elders in Schools, and that has been working very well. We continue to work with Alberta, as you mentioned. As I mentioned in the House, we have really great partnerships with the Minster of Education from Alberta. We are currently participating in working groups on the renewal of the Alberta curriculum that will help them promote culture and Indigenous languages in their schools, but promote how we learn here as Northerners in the Northwest Territories. We have Northern Studies 10, which is reflective of our way of life in the Northwest Territories, as well as Northern Studies 20, which we are currently developing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the response. Mr. Speaker, my last set of questions: I asked the Minister for a toe, and I did not get that. Mr. Speaker, we talked about culture exchanges between territories and provinces, and, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is important to learn from each other in prospective communities across the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister is: does the department support the cultural exchange between students in the communities across the territory? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Our education authorities or education bodies currently receive about $9 million from ECE to promote cultural activities, heritage activities, as well as things such as drumming, sewing, beading, traditional classes in traditional practices that we have had over the years. The elders in the schools provide a big opportunity to help teach the traditions, not only traditions and skills, but the values of our ancestors in the schools today as well as working on revitalizing our Indigenous languages. We continue to work with all of our education bodies and support our schools in promoting those programs, on-the-land programs, as well as, as I mentioned, teaching those values that we have lived so long by and will continue to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I made my statement earlier, I was a little fired up, but I'm here to represent the people, Mr. Speaker, and the people are sick and tired of being ignored. They're exasperated, and so am I. The GNWT has failed to adequately use government procurement to grow and diversify our economy, build capacity, and employ Northerners. These are all priorities for this Assembly. They can be found in the mandate that we all agreed to, even the Minister. I'm not sure if our statements today convinced the Minister that there are issues with the practices of his department, but admitting you have a problem is the first step in fixing it. So will the Minister admit that the concerns we've raised are valid and that there are problems with infrastructures procurement practices? Thank you.

Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any concerns that are brought forward to me by any Members of this Legislative Assembly or members of the public are valid, and we sit and listen to them, and my door is always open. As to the comment about having procurement issues in the GNWT and that our policies and procedures are wrong, I totally disagree with the Member. Our department is here to adhere to the policies that are in this Legislative Assembly; it's here to support businesses and, at the same time, protect the GNWT's investment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

People always say to me, "We voted for change. What happened?" I'm tired of saying, "We're working on it." I'm starting to say, "Let's wait another year and a half," because answers like this are ridiculous. Mr. Speaker, I mention the disrespect shown to small businesses by the government. I've seen some of the correspondence sent by the representatives of the GNWT to businesses regarding procurement, and I've heard stories from business owners. Businesses are treated like children and subordinates. The government acts like business exists to serve them, not the other way around. So will this Minister commit to providing ongoing customer service training to all infrastructure employees involved with procurement, the same way the Minister of Housing has done?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad he's asked this question, or has mentioned it, because Infrastructure routinely offers procurement training workshops to Government of the Northwest Territories employees. I will update this House, as of now, the Department of Human Resources does this training calendar, and workshops are held to design NWT procurement process for all procurements regardless of value, and focus on supporting Northwest Territories businesses and manufacturers, wherever possible. Up to date, this year, since April 1^st of 2017, the department has delivered 48 procurement training workshops, with over 450 GNWT employees who participated in this, and that's not even counting the workshops that are within our department alone.

My questions are focused on solutions, but it looks like I'm not going to get any. Having procurement training workshops, teaching these same tactics that are the problem, is not going to solve anything. The question was about customer service, not about more of the same. Will the Minister commit to reviewing the practices of his department regarding procurement to identify and fix the areas that are currently restricting small businesses from effectively competing on RFPs?

As I've said, the department is very supportive of northern businesses, and we have to adhere to the policies that are here, and we are here to support and protect the northern purse as well. At the same time, the department has also come out with a community engagement process for RFPs. This is to engage the proponent, the criteria around used to credit available, around the community engagement process, along with the BIP process, to have policies for local and northern labour and material and goods purchases in the Northwest Territories. Under this community engagement criteria, this is what we use to help demonstrate that we are supporting the local economy in the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to do so.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm just going to forgo the rest of my questions. I know the Minister can't offer opinions, but, you know what, it's the government, maybe there's a policy about it. What would it take for the department to realize that there is a problem? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.