Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have seen these regional wellness councils become part of our health system and the Minister has talked about how well it's working, so there are some questions I need to ask because constituents and people have been asking me these questions. Can the Minister of Health and Social Services confirm: does the Department of Health and Social Services and NWT Health and Social Services provide the standard orientation for regional wellness councils on what their roles and responsibilities are? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is an orientation manual for the regional wellness council members on their roles and responsibilities. The handbook is updated on a regular basis. It's currently being reviewed to include updating information around additional guidelines and whatnot to make their jobs better understood and more clear. This will be shared, obviously, with the regional wellness councils across the Northwest Territories. There is a training session coming up where we are inviting all regional wellness council members to come in for an update and to be familiarized with the updated manual. However, as you know, Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that all the regional wellness council members in the Deh Cho have actually attended training, have participated in training that either occurred in 2016 or more recently in February 2018.

Thank you to the Minister for that answer. Can the Minister tell us, this orientation, do they do it annually, is it biannually, or is it just when you get appointed, and do they do it as a complete group, or is it individualized?

Generally speaking, members receive their orientation at the beginning of their first appointment. This helps to get them familiar with the roles and responsibilities of the council and how to engage with the public and also with the authority. The leadership council, which are the chairs of the regional wellness councils, I met with them in the spring and they identified that ongoing support for the regional wellness council members is something that is really important to them. The department and the authority are presently developing some options to help increase refreshes and other orientations and other mechanisms to make sure that the regional wellness councils are as up-to-date as possible on current programs and services that are being provided so that they can provide advice in a meaningful way.

I am very happy to hear that through the Minister and that we are moving forward on that. Some of the questions that constituents bring to me, I know the process, but what happens if board members hear concerns about health and social services and the system and how do they bring these concerns forward presently?

The regional wellness councillors are an incredibly important group of individuals, and they have the opportunity to bring information both from the public to the system, but also from the system to the public. Regional wellness council members are encouraged to obviously contact the chairperson of the respective wellness councils and to add items of concern to the agendas of those councils. They also have an opportunity, when appropriate, to go to the chief operating officer of a region, who may be able to provide them updates or information if they are looking for that information so that they can share it with the residents of their communities and their surrounding areas. The following discussions with the regional wellness councils, the chairs may also escalate concerns up to the board itself. We have set it up so that responses to concerns and questions brought by the leadership council to the board from Regional Wellness Council members have a 30-day turnaround time to get those Regional Wellness Council members a response.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that information. So a board member comes to the chair. The chair brings it to the meeting. The meeting brings it to the territorial leadership board. What is the follow-up? What I am hearing right now from a number of the board members is that they don't know where their concerns are being brought forth. I think the Minister has explained the system, and maybe I am missing something, but can he explain what that process is? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I indicated, there are several different ways for information to come in and different levels that it can go to, which means that there are several different ways for that information to come back.

If the Regional Wellness Council member is seeking just generic or general information from the chief operating officer, the chief operating officer can provide that directly to the council member or have their staff do so. If the information has been escalated up through the chair to the board, the information will pass, then, through the chair of that particular wellness council to the wellness council members.

As a note, Mr. Speaker, I did have an opportunity to meet with the leadership council in the spring, and there were a number of concerns raised about mechanisms to provide the council and the Regional Wellness Council members with some support to make sure that that information is flowing effectively, because, to the Member's point, it hasn't always. There have been some growing pains.

We are looking at providing some additional supports to that unit so that there are more people providing that information on a regular basis and making sure it is getting back. Much like all the Ministers have supports here, we want to make sure that there are supports to the board members as well so that they can help flow information as seamlessly as possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I have looked at the NICO Socio-Economic Agreement, but there are no sanctions or penalties for non-compliance or failure to reach targets. It is basically an unenforceable best efforts arrangement. For example, with employment and training targets, why not make a payment into a training or education fund or program if the targets aren't reached? Can the Minister explain why our government continues to sign best efforts agreements without any teeth, without any sanctions or penalties? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our government has long taken an approach of working in collaboration and partnership with industry and Indigenous governments, which has evolved from a time when we did not have the authorities and responsibilities that we are going to be having since devolution has taken place.

That said, we believe that our approach is working. These agreements have been signed and fostered billions of dollars in procurement and thousands of jobs for residents of the Northwest Territories since they were introduced in the 1990s, Mr. Speaker. The socio-economic agreements are one of those tools that we use to bring our partnerships to the table. There are targets that are set, but these are just targets. We are responsible for a degree of this because we are responsible for workforce development.

With that being said, again, as I have said, these are successful based on our accountability, and we do demand a face-to-face meeting with the companies and Indigenous governments and ourselves and local communities. We believe these things are working. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister for confirming that this is another one of those unenforceable agreements. I tabled a University of Victoria study in the fall that pointed out how our socio-economic agreements are rather poor, and lots of ways to improve that. I would like the Minister to explain how that review, or any other work that is going on within the department, of our weak socio-economic agreements played into what was negotiated with Fortune Minerals for the NICO Project.

As the Member may not know, this agreement with Fortune has been in the works for some time, and we will continue to work on it. We signed with them last week in Vancouver. Its structure and its approach has been based on previous agreements that we have negotiated and put into place with the Government of the Northwest Territories. While we are reviewing our socio-economic agreements, the work is ongoing, and it has not reached a point where any conclusions or decisions have been made or could be reflected in the Fortune agreement.

The Minister didn't answer my question, but of course, he is not obligated to do that.

The Tlicho government issued its own news release on the signing of this agreement, the NICO Agreement, and they said that they believe it is a breach of the Tlicho Agreement and entirely inconsistent with this government's policy on engagement with Indigenous governments. Can the Minister confirm that there was no real consultation with the Tlicho government before the signing of this agreement and explain why?

For those of you who don't know, these are agreements on broad benefits for the Northwest Territories. It was negotiated with Fortune Minerals by our government and my department specifically on behalf of all residents of the Northwest Territories, including those in the Tlicho region. There is no requirement to engage the Tlicho government. We had hoped that, given this level of benefit to the Tlicho people, they would participate in the ceremonial signing agreement and be witnesses to this, but they chose not to.

That said, in December we met with the Tlicho government to discuss the contents of the SEA. We presented them with the substance of the agreement, including employment and procurement targets, and took comments from them ahead of finalizing and sharing our final SEA with them and Fortune last week.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I would like to thank the Minister again for confirming that there was no serious consultation. You would think that our government would talk to the Tlicho government before deciding where the learning centre might be located or where a legacy project might be located. That is not the way we should be doing business.

Mr. Speaker, lastly, it appears that this agreement was rushed through without consultation with the Tlicho government, signed at a mining conference down south, and entered into before a new higher bar might be established in the Mineral Resources Act. Can the Minister explained why this agreement was signed in Vancouver and rushed through before the Mineral Resources Act might establish higher standards? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

As the Member knows, we are going to be sharing the specifics of our bill very soon in this Legislative Assembly, and that would be an appropriate time to comment on that.

With that, I would like to say that, generally, legislation of this type takes periods of years to come to and enforce after supporting regulations are developed. I wouldn't anticipate that we would want to wait until that act came into force to pass negotiation benefits for our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.