This is page numbers 957 - 1010 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 going.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't think it is too burdensome for us to be able to track every time we lose a language speaker, and I don't think it's too burdensome to track every time we gain a language speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess I will ask this question one more way. Can the Minister commit to tracking how many fluent language speakers we have presently, and every time we lose one, that that is tracked somewhere and presented in the data? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

I'm not a statistician, but I'd think there would be a lot of effort expended to do that that would be better spent teaching languages. The Member wants to know every time someone becomes fluent. Well, hopefully, we're not going to be able to track that because it's going to be so many people. You go around to different communities, and they're doing different things. In certain places, they have early childhood where it's immersion. I don't think we're giving those children tests on a regular basis to determine, "Are you fluent, or are you not fluent?" It's not a simple black-and-white thing. There might be people who don't want to share their language or share that information with the government. You know what I mean? I don't want to knock on people's doors and say, "Do you speak an Indigenous language?" It's not so cut-and-dry, Mr. Speaker.

The bottom line, however, though, is that we have a division in Education, Culture and Employment that is committed to revitalizing and strengthening Indigenous languages, and there are a number of initiatives across the government where millions of dollars have been spent on this every year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. These questions are for the Minister of Infrastructure. I would like to ask the Minister if she can provide an up-to-date business plan for MTS. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister of Infrastructure.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A business plan update and a paper with recommendations for public sector business structure of MTS was delivered to the department by a consultant in 2019. A consultant has recently been engaged, a second consultant, to propose an alternative private sector business model. The department will review and consider these recommendations to inform a business structure recommendation paper to be completed this summer. After that time, we will be prepared to present recommendations to the committee. I commit to the Member that I can have further discussions with them on his points of view in that model. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Can the Minister confirm if she can make the contract between MTS and ORSI available, if not to myself, then to the appropriate standing committee, so that we can determine what we are dealing with?

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Contracting regulations prohibit me from sharing the ORSI contract in whole. It was established through a competitive RFP process and contains proprietary pricing information that, if released, would be unfair to the contractor. However, I do commit to the Member that I will look through the contract and see what parts I could provide to the Member that do not have any proprietary information.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

My understanding is that one of the unions will be negotiating with ORSI possibly mid-summer. I am just wondering if there will be any impact or possible impact with these negotiations on the government's ability to ensure timely delivery of goods and services to communities.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

The union and ORSI have recently reached agreement on terms and conditions of their memorandums of understanding for 2020. PSAC is the only union that hasn't completed the 2020 agreement with ORSI. Given the track record that ORSI has had with the three maritime unions, we don't foresee any issues with PSAC. GNWT is not part of the union negotiation process. However, the delivery of goods and services will be well under way by the time PSAC negotiations start. PSAC members work the yard. Vessel crews are under two different unions: that's the Seafarers International Union and the Canadian Merchant Service Guild. Currently, we don't foresee any issues with PSAC, like I said. In that respect, there should be no affect on the ability to deliver goods and services this summer.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the issues I brought up, I guess, about procurement and the hiring, can the Minister confirm if her department is going to do a review of MTS to address those concerns? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

In the pre-COVID era, I had directed my department that I wanted a review of MTS, and I will continue to do so. 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. Just going back to my Member's statement about Internet speeds and Internet connectivity, my questions are for the Minister of Finance. My question is: have there been any recent efforts from her department to help improve Internet speeds in our small communities? Marsi cho.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Finance.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Internet speeds in small communities right now are subject to a target that was set by the federal government of improving to a national rate of 50 and 10 or 50 megabytes per second. We certainly aren't there yet, but that is a federal commitment, and it is the role of the GNWT in this regard to act as an advocate and a supporter; an advocate with our federal partners and a supporter of our local service providers to ensure that they are taking steps to achieve that goal.

With respect to the federal government, Mr. Speaker, there are some important funding initiatives under way that we will be looking to ensure we get our share of, the CRTC Broadband Fund and the Universal Broadband Fund that are meant to advance those goals. As I say, it certainly will be our intention to take every effort to see that all of the communities in the Northwest Territories are moving towards achieving those goals. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you to the Minister for that response. I guess, for the other part of my Member's statement, I mentioned the fibre optic link. I was just wondering why Lutselk'e was bypassed as part of this plan.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

That particular project, I acknowledge, simply was not looking to divert itself toward Lutselk'e. It was a project that ran up the Mackenzie Valley, and that was the design and intent of the project, to run up the Mackenzie Valley. To my knowledge, to be very honest, there is no understanding that I have right now that Lutselk'e is easily added to that. That remains a challenge. It is one of our satellite communities, and I anticipate that the next likely scenario that will see significant improvement is with low-Earth-orbit satellite systems that are hopefully coming online in the next couple of years. Again, in that regard, the GNWT is an advocate to ensure that we have access to those systems and that service providers are able to make best use of them once available.

Question 279-19(2): Home Internet Connectivity
Oral Questions

June 2nd, 2020

Page 968

Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you for that response. Again, just trying to get some better understanding for the other side: let's say if we have a committee meeting there right now, we couldn't do it. That is a problem. I need to bring more public awareness to this. We couldn't do any meetings right now as a House, just because it wouldn't be doable because of the lack of infrastructure there for this. I guess I will need some commitment. My next question is: what commitments can the Minister make to further improve Internet speeds in our smaller communities such as Lutselk'e?

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

All of the eight satellite communities, eight communities that are on satellite services, they are sadly stuck at 5 megabytes per second, as I understand, which is a slow speed. It is far below the standard that the federal government is seeking to bring all of Canada up to. There is going to be some significant work there to do. Again, though, we aren't a service-providing business; we are a government. That does change our ability and limit our ability to act as a service provider. That said, the Government of the Northwest Territories is very keenly focused on the national target and very keenly focused on ensuing that our role, again, as a supporter to the Northwestel or other service providers and as an advocate at the federal government level, that we are fulfilling those roles as best we can to make sure that we are getting all of our communities up to the federal standard as quickly as possible.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for those responses. I did have another question, but I would just try to navigate my way through this. Just from hearing your responses, I think it's important that we need to know what is being done now to fix this problem. I want to hear what the Minister has to say to fix this problem now. Marsi cho.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

We are all struggling right now in the North. Even Yellowknife speeds are slower than what would be ideal. It makes it difficult in the time of COVID to be doing our work, to be in school, to be self-isolating when necessary. I am certainly alive to the challenges. As far as what is happening now, Mr. Speaker, I know that Northwestel, as a private industry partner, has been active and does have applications in to the CRTC. It's perhaps not really my role to speak to what they have on the go, but I would certainly offer to work with them to perhaps provide a briefing to committee of what information is available.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I think it's come up in this House already, the need for a plan that does again acknowledge the role of the government. Sometimes, it's a somewhat limited role of the government, but still, the role that we do have, there should be a plan in place. I certainly want to assure that that work is underway so that I can come back and be in a better position to give some concrete examples of what we can do, acknowledging at the same time what we can't do. To that extent, I hear the Member's frustration, and I will commit to moving forward to get that part of my work done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.