This is page numbers 1299 - 1316 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd 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 land.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Lands.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for the question. I did have the opportunity to meet with a number of the Yellowknife MLAs and talked about it. We have a draft process that we are working on. We shared it with the City of Yellowknife, but we are now finalizing it. We will hope to have it within this session.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

I do believe that is a mandate commitment that is well ahead of schedule, so I congratulate the Minister on that. However, Mr. Speaker, the process guide is really only the first step. It is how and when we will transfer the land that matters, so what I am looking for in order to stop asking this question of the Minister repeatedly is: can I get a firm date when we expect the land transfer to the City of Yellowknife to be completed?

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

The Department of Lands is very much committed to transfer vacant land to the City of Yellowknife or any municipality that wishes it. Unfortunately, I cannot give a firm date because it depends on a number of things, the City of Yellowknife, our Indigenous governments, as we try to work forward. It is about working together. If we need to, we will address small parcels of lands or projects moving forward right now.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

I do believe that, if we cannot get a firm date based on the process guide, then some work needs to be done. Mr. Speaker, I recognize that one of the solutions with land transfer is to break it down into smaller parcels. I am glad to hear the Minister say that. I spoke today in my statement about Deninu Kue First Nation trying to build an RV park on interim land that requires one of the largest land claims in Canada to be settled before they can build an RV park. Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a disconnect between these problems. Is the Minister willing to create a similar process for transferring land to Indigenous governments outside of the formal land claim process?

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Mr. Speaker, the department is able to transfer land to Indigenous governments, much like it does to any applicants for public land. When the Indigenous government is interested in acquiring land, their corporation or the business arm of their organization needs to submit their lease application moving forward.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That answer almost had everything, and then he said, "lease application." What I am looking for is a process guide to transfer land in fee simple. Is the Minister willing to do that? I am sick of leases. I want to transfer and provide some certainty to our Indigenous governments, to our municipalities. Is the Minister willing to create a process document for land in fee simple or Aboriginal title, whatever it may be?

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

The Member is probably going to not like my answer: no. We are working with the municipalities, and we are working with Indigenous governments. We need to work through a consultation process. I just spent the last two hours with an Indigenous government actually talking about this process. We are working with everybody to try to resolve this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In my Member's statement today, I alluded to some differences in definition between the federal government and the GNWT and how they refer to "northern" or "Indigenous" content within their procurement guidelines. I want to kind of get away from that a little bit because assumptions can be concerning when it comes to procurement, and I want to have a very good understanding of how the NWT is benefitting from the Giant Mine Remediation Project. What I am wondering from the Minister of ENR today, Mr. Speaker, is: how many contracts have been awarded to NWT businesses, both as suppliers and contractors, and what dollar value percentage of the entire value of the contracts does this represent?

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I answer the questions, I want to clarify that, although the GNWT is a co-component of the Giant Mine Remediation Project, the Government of Canada is ultimately the project authority when it comes to procurement. The percentage of contracts the Giant Mine Remediation Project in 2018-2019 awarded was 91 percent; 79 percent of that was northern Indigenous suppliers, and 12 percent went to northern non-Indigenous suppliers. This, the 2019-2020, saw 83 percent of this amount given out; 81 was to northern Indigenous suppliers, and 22 of that was to northern non-Indigenous. In regard to the dollar value, in 2018-2019, there was $26 million out of the $28.8 million that went to northern and non-Indigenous suppliers; 2019-2020 saw $45.85 million out of the total of $49 million.

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Before I go on to my next question, I would like to request that those numbers be provided in writing and also the definitions used for each of those, as well, pretty please. Thank you. My second question, Mr. Speaker, is: a significant focus of the Giant Mine Remediation Project needs to be training and apprenticeship; this is an opportunity for the Northwest Territories to develop made-in-the-North experience for remediation workers for a future remediation economy. How many apprentices are currently working on the Giant Mine Remediation Project?

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you. In regard to apprentices, I do not know the exact number. Right now, we know that 62 percent of onsite employees report themselves as NWT residents.

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

The numbers again today are very different than what is being reported in the annual report from the Giant Mine Oversight Board, and so I would love to be able to figure out with the Minister where the discrepancies are coming from and to better understand if it is a difference in definitions used or if there is something else happening. However, my next question, Mr. Speaker, is: companies that do not follow their contract responsibilities under the federal Aboriginal Opportunity considerations are fined by the federal government; given that the repercussions of that and the damages of that are felt by the NWT and not by Ottawa, what is the process for those fines? Do the fines go to Ottawa? Are any amount of the fines left behind here in the Northwest Territories? Is there any NWT benefit to those fines?

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

There are contract deductions are brought back to communities mostly impacted by Giant Mine via contribution agreement. In 2019-2020 the federal government provided approximately $957,000 in funding to positions within Yellowknife Dene First Nations, North Slave Metis Alliance, City of Yellowknife, and Alternatives North. In addition, approximately $450,000 has been provided to Yellowknives Dene, Dechinta Naowo, for environmental monitoring training program.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question was in regard to specifically the fines received by the federal government for contracts that don't fulfil what they call their "Aboriginal criteria" for their federal procurement process. It's outside of other contracts that the government provides for remediation or for partnerships with Indigenous governments. This is very specific to people not following what they say they are going to do with the procurement contracts that they have with the federal government. Maybe I can request that in writing. I can do that tomorrow in a written question for the Minister.

My next question is: one of the recommendations of the Giant Mine Oversight Board was for the federal government to appoint a special envoy to develop and implement a comprehensive and integrated economic strategy for the Giant Mine Remediation Project. This role or this position would act as a liaison between the federal, territorial, municipal, and Indigenous agencies. What I'd like to know is: has this been done with the federal government, if the Minister knows that? If the federal government has not done this because this is so important to the Northwest Territories, would the GNWT be willing to appoint a GNWT staff member to do this work? Thank you.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

The project team met with Giant Mine Oversight Board in August, discussed the specific recommendations and to clarify the intent of the special envoy. The GMOB clarified that they would like to see focused attention on solutions to help remove federal procurement barriers within the federal government. The project team committed to bringing this forward to senior management in Ottawa on a broader scale. It should be noted that through the project's socio-economic working group and senior advisory body, the project team already works closely with Yellowknives Dene First Nation, North Slave Metis Alliance, Tlicho government, City of Yellowknife, Alternatives North, and Parsons, to address socio-economic aspects of this project. I'd also like to note that Parsons and the project team will be hosting a three-day online industry day event, October 20th to 22th. The Member talked about it in her Member's statement. The intent of the industry day is to provide local contractors in the community with advice, advance information on upcoming work and procurement opportunities at the site. More information can be found on Parsons' website. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Through my Member's statement today, I mentioned that some of our responses for COVID in terms of cases. It's important that we keep our Aboriginal governments up to date because they each have their own populations to deal with, their own people to respond to. This goes to those three presumptive cases that we have, that currently we're looking at. My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. My first question is: when will the Department of Health and Social Services let the public know when these presumptive cases are positive or negative?

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Member for the question. The issue here is that our rapid testing machines are not validated for positive tests because we've had so few positive tests. In fact, none since these machines were procured. The situation is that we need to have them validated by the Alberta lab. There is some transportation time. Then, we get into the queue in the Alberta lab, and they provide us with the results. As soon as those results are known, we will inform everyone via public health advisory, the way we did on Friday with the presumptive cases. I can't speed it up. There are factors beyond our control. We are as anxious as everyone else to hear whether these cases have been validated. In the meantime, we have taken the precaution of treating the presumptive cases as positive cases and responding on that basis for maximum precautions.

Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Marsi for that response from the Minister. I understand there is an investigation as well. Are there any big updates on this investigation?