This is page numbers 1011 - 1034 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 indigenous.

Topics

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Monfwi

Masi, Mr. Speaker. In that case, I'd like to ask this government what their action will be on this particular subject. I was copied on a letter to the Minister of Infrastructure and ECE the other day, June 1st or 2nd, from both the chief of Behchoko and Whati in full support of this cell phone coverage in that area. If Northwestel won't do it, would the Minister of Infrastructure or Finance, in combination of both departments, commit to funding the extension of cell coverage to the Highway No. 3 corridor between Behchoko and Yellowknife? It is really badly needed now, Mr. Speaker. Masi.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

There are three priority needs that are related to broadband and telecoms that have already been identified from the GNWT. The 50 and 10 megabytes per second, that's the speed which has been spoken recently in the House; the importance of resiliency and redundancy in our networks which hasn't come up here but has certainly come up in the past in the House; but the third one is cell coverage. I certainly want the Member to know that I know that this is a priority. It's already a priority within my department. As far as providing that as a service that we have to increase the ability to have better cell coverage, I'm not in a position to say right now what we're going to do, but it's almost becoming a bit of a theme week for me that I hadn't expected. It's very clear that we're going to have to have a very clear plan to achieve those three goals. If ever it wasn't clear, then COVID-19 has made it very clear now how important those things are to being connected, whether it's education, health, or otherwise. Mr. Speaker, I certainly do expect that I will be making faster progress on this than maybe what would have happened before COVID. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As per my Member's statement, I know I get very emotional. Whenever I talk about the missing and murdered Indigenous women, I remember the stories. I see their faces. It's never going to leave me. As mentioned in my Member's statement, I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Status of Women what the federal delay in development of a national action plan to address the calls for justice outlined in the MMIWG final report means for the NWT in terms of development of our own action plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for the Status of Women.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to be fair to the federal government and acknowledge that the work has been happening, but there are times like this through the COVID-19 where events have not been able to take attention to or have been slowed. Of course, the pandemic we've been facing is a priority for all governments, and face-to-face meetings have not been available or planned after recent government transitions since the report was tabled last year. We would all like to see our work advanced together so we can have the benefit of discussions and experiences from across the country. Having a national action plan provides the opportunity for more collaboration and leadership. This does not, however, prevent us from continuing our own work in the Northwest Territories and advance the calls for justice. We have been working internally on identifying further actions we require, and we'll continue to implement them and engage with Indigenous governments, communities, and others as appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

I hear what the Minister says, and I disagree. With COVID, how many deaths have we had with COVID? We've had way more deaths with Indigenous women and girls, and it hasn't been taken as seriously. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to developing an NWT action plan to address these calls for justice without waiting for this federal action plan?

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

In my Minister's statement, I mentioned that the Northwest Territories has been a leader in responding to the report, and I can commit to moving actions forward. My hesitation in suggesting that the Northwest Territories develop a wholly standalone plan is that we do not align in many cases with the expectations of Indigenous governments, communities, and particularly Indigenous women and girls. This requires collaboration. Much of that is occurring, and the discussion is happening throughout the development of this national action plan. I believe the inquiry recommended a national action plan because it recognized that the scope of the issues identified require Canadian society and all of Canada to be engaged. With that said, we've already undertaken actions in response to the inquiry's report. In our initial response, doing our part, we've identified things we're doing now, things we can do right away, and others we can continue to work on doing.

In addition, an interdepartmental working group was set up to coordinate the Government of the Northwest Territories response for calls for justice, and this working ground includes representatives from two departments, like I mentioned. They are also tasked with doing an in-depth review and analyze the calls for justice. I appreciate that the Member does not want us to let the calls for justice found in the report to sit on the shelf and collect dust. We all need to continue our focus on making this change, but I don't think we need a separate standalone action plan to work on making that change.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

The Minister has mentioned collaboration with Aboriginal organizations and women's organizations within the Northwest Territories to get this work done. Can the Minister explain to me if they have a working group now with the Aboriginal groups, and who are they collaborating with outside the government right now on this plan?

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Currently, the interdepartmental working group I referred to includes the Department of Health and Social Services, Justice, Housing, and we are working at looking at Education, Culture and Employment, Indigenous Affairs. There are a number of departments working together. The focus is to start to look at doing our part because we realize that a lot of our departments are doing initiatives and programs around the report.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. My question was: who outside the government have we been collaborating with? I guess I'm not going to get an answer to that because I want to ask if the Minister can tell us if we can expect some type of plan presented in this House and we can begin to implement these justices to the 231 calls for justice? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

I appreciate the Member wants to hold this government accountable for taking meaningful action with this. Urgency is required. I will commit to providing more regular reports to the Member, and offer the same to the committee. I agree that we need to continue to focus on this work and make sure we're moving forwards with some actions. 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, the community came together during COVID, and a lot of communities in my constituency, they worked together. They did do work to protect themselves because of the highway going in. Just to give you a little context for the House, on a letter dated May 25, 2020, from Madam Premier's office to my office, there was a request made for funding to fund the checkpoint going into Deninu Kue. They did take the steps to protect themselves. In my humble opinion, that's the GNWT's job. They should be coming in and protecting our small communities. Further to that, in this letter, the letter stated that they will not fund this important safety measure. For me, this is not okay. My question to Madam Premier: can she explain why this funding request was denied? Marsi cho.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Honourable Premier.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason that we had to look at it carefully and, at this point, said "no" is because we have our own enforcement at the borders. There are some liability issues. The municipalities do not have authority to do that. We haven't come down hard on them because we understand the fear that they are facing. We're trying to support them, but we also have to recognize that there are legalities with that. The other major thing that has come with that and the request for funding is that Municipal and Community Affairs has been collecting the debts, the monies, that has been spent by community governments on the COVID-19. However, the Canadian Association of Municipalities put in a huge ask for $10 billion to the federal government. Until we hear, that $10 billion would be divided amongst all of the municipalities in Canada, so we're waiting for the federal government to hear if they're going to fund that because it would be inappropriate. All along, the GNWT has been trying to work with the federal government, so it would not be appropriate for us to fund the municipalities here when they're already asking for more money and then having to figure out: do we claw that back? What does that look like? We are lobbying the federal government, as well, that municipalities need money, but we're waiting to see if the federal government rolls out with that $10 billion bailout for the municipalities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Madam Premier for that response. I'm just going back to the letter, too. There is a reference there that is a roadblock. It's not a roadblock. I said to the media before this is like a checkpoint. It's a self-isolation measure. Even though we have our security checkpoints at the borders, and I don't mean to point, sorry, they're still bypassing our four major centres where people are supposed to self-isolate. They're still getting into the small communities. These checkpoints in the small communities work. For my next question, just from hearing her: can Madam Premier commit to funding, or even partially funding, these checkpoint initiatives if the federal funding does not pan out?

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Some communities are working in partnership a little bit differently than other communities. Some communities are working with their Indigenous governments on their checkpoints. Indigenous governments did get money. They got money from the federal government for COVID-19 with flexibility on being able to use it. We want to help our municipal governments. It's not a matter of if we want to help them or not. We do want to help them. We are waiting for the $10 billion ask to see what that happens with. We're still collecting the debts from our municipal governments, as well. We're looking at other options. We're actually looking with some flexibility, perhaps. The ECE program has a small community employment fund. The municipalities could look at adding that into their plans if they were willing to do that. All departments, including ECE, have been very flexible during the COVID-19 to try to make sure that our programs meet the needs of people.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions, Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. As I mentioned in my statement earlier today, there has been no communication from Cabinet to Regular MLAs on what GNWT is doing or not with regard to creditor protection proceeding on the Dominion Diamond group of companies. Can the Premier tell us when GNWT began participating in the legal proceeding and what roles do we expect to play? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Honourable Premier.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That doesn't go across all departments. It really is specified. On that, I would defer the questions to our Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, it works out well to have those two roles combined in this particular instance. The Department of Finance does have the lead in terms of monitoring the CCAA proceedings and does work with Justice in terms of providing legal counsel and coordinating instructions to our external legal counsel in partnership with ITI as they, of course, have relationships with this industry more directly. Back to the Member's question about when we got involved, we do have experienced counsel involved in CCAA proceedings based in Alberta. We were notified of the filing on the day it was filed, and that is how we got involved. Thank you.