This is page numbers 2121 - 2162 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 health.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that mental health is an important and challenging issue. There are, in fact, resources available right in the community. The child and youth counsellor position at Mangilaluk School is filled, and it is available to anyone who needs the help. There are some vacancies in the Community Counselling Program, but we have, as the Member may know, recently taken a new approach to community counselling so that there aren't wait lists.

He mentioned children, and I have a few things to say about children. The kids help line is available to children and youth. It's available by phone. It's available by text. It's available by Facebook Messenger. It's available by live chat online. It's a great resource. There is a lot there for kids. I also want to mention the Strongest Families Institute app. This is something that people can obtain a referral to through the Community Counselling Program. As I mentioned in my statement yesterday, there have been very good reviews about how helpful the counsellors are in that program. The Breathing Room app, which will be next of our five mental health initiatives, will be live on April 1st, and it is specifically for youth with anxiety and depression.

Finally, I want to promote the Nipaturuq magazine, which I sat here and read yesterday afternoon. It comes out of Inuvik. The third issue is all about mental health. It has first-person accounts of how people are coping with mental health challenges and how they are moving themselves into wellness. I don't know where to obtain that magazine from, but I am sure that the people in the Delta are familiar with this literary award-winning magazine produced in Inuvik focussing on mental health at this time. Thank you.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

It sounds all good on paper with what we are providing with regards to services. We do have a shortage of counsellors in our community. The one counsellor, she phoned me the other night in dealing with issues coming up in our communities, but I'm not only talking about Tuktoyaktuk. I'm talking about Nunakput as a whole: Ulukhaktok, Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk. We needed a person, like I said, a person to come in or a team to come in to work with the community on the depression, the alcoholism, anything, anything that they want to talk about to get off their chest. We need help. A lot of people, we don't have laptops for everybody. Not everybody has laptops and iPads and access to stuff like that. I really look forward to trying to work with this Minister to try to help our communities.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Helping communities and residents is what I'm here for. I hear the Member when he says not everybody has the tools to access Facebook, telephone numbers, and so on. There are some accommodations available through the health centre with respect to using the phone, as I understand it. Where communities don't have resident counsellors, there is a travelling team that comes in from time to time with assistance and sees people over a more intense period. I don't know if they would consider sending those teams to Nunakput. I am not sure how well-staffed the resources are there, but that's something I could certainly inquire about.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

I want to thank the Minister for that. That travelling team that she just brought up, they should be sent into all communities, other than the central locations. The smaller communities are needing it. You know that, Mr. Speaker; you live in a small community. What we have to do is we have to start trying to help them, in regards to trying to heal them and trying to move forward because this COVID-19 has been hard on everybody. I want to thank, again, the Minister, and when are we going to get these travel teams into Nunakput since she brought it up?

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

I appreciate the question, but I don't have that operational level of detail with me. What I can do, what I said I would do, is inquire about when the travelling teams might be available to go to the communities in Nunakput, and I will do that on an expedited basis so that the Member has that information.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Nunakput.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to meet with the Minister in regard to working together for small communities and try to do a plan, like how I used to do it back in the 17th Assembly, bringing people into the community, as an MLA, travelling with them and to assist them and to help them. I look forward to working with the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

I am always available to the Member for Nunakput. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

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

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The Employment Standards Act attempts to carefully balance the rights of workers and the interests of employers. Recently, I had a constituent raise concerns about how a simple complaint has taken more than four months to get sorted out. Can the Minister tell us whether response times are actually tracked for Employment Standards Act complaints, and can he share a summary of that information now? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are service standards that have been developed for the Employment Standards Office, and those relate to how long between making a complaint or an inquiry and receiving a call back. The length of time between a complaint being made and a decision is not something that has traditionally been tracked. There is a wide variety of factors that determine how long a complaint would take to finalize or come to a decision. There are complaints that take one phone call to be decided upon, and then there are complaints that take months. It's feasible there could be complaints that take years because there are so many variables. Sometimes, even the complaint itself, the two parties don't agree on.

That number isn't something that has been tracked. The Employment Standards Office, in 2019-2020, there were 80 complaints received, and there were 119 payroll inspections, which is something they do; in 2018-2019, there were 79 complaints, and there were 80 payroll inspections; and in 2017-2018, there were 103 complaints and 39 payroll inspections. There was an increase in the payroll inspections, and that's because of increase in the NT Nominee Program applications. Those go hand-in-hand. At the same time, there was a vacancy for a year as well as slow-downs because people were working from home, and it's difficult to do investigations that way. There was a backlog that started building up at the beginning of 2020 and was exacerbated by an increase in payroll inspection applications later in the year. That could account for some of these delays that the Member is talking about. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

I want to thank the Minister for that information. I was trying to scribble it down, but I'll catch it in Hansard. The Minister did mention that there are service standards for the employment standards section of the department. I'm wondering: can the Minister tell us whether he can share those service standards with us as Regular MLAs and perhaps even post it to the website? Because there is no information whatsoever about that on the website.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Absolutely. It's a public document. I'm sure it's available somewhere in hard copy possibly; maybe it's up in the offices. I'm not sure, but I'll make sure that it is nice and visible so the Member can find it. I will share it directly with him, as well.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

I want to thank the Minister for that. It's great to hear "yes" a few times, so I look forward to getting that information and seeing it on the website. There doesn't appear to be any public reporting requirements under the Employment Standards Act, unlike other territorial legislation such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act or other laws where complaints and decisions are made. Can the Minister find a way to make public, perhaps on an annual basis, the response times and other basic administrative information such as the number of complaints and their outcomes under the Employment Standards Act?

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

I just saw the Member's questions earlier today, and I already started those conversations with the department to figure out if there is a way that we can get that information public.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

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

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that, and I look forward to a full report from him on how he is going to make that information public. Lastly, though, it's not clear how many employees there are who handle Employment Standards Act administration and complaints and how staffing and resource needs are assessed. Can the Minister explain how staffing and resourcing needs are determined for the administration of the Employment Standards Act? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Just like anything, we look at what's the need and weigh all of the different competing priorities across the GNWT, and we staff accordingly. Right now, there is a manager in the office who is also an employment standards officer; there are three inspectors; and there is a finance, collections, and information officer. In 2020, one of the inspector positions was vacant, and for the last six months or so of 2020, the finance position was also vacant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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 understand that ENR is the project lead on the Giant Mine and is leading much of our remediation work. There is a bit of a conflict of interest when the arm of government that is responsible for oversight and regulating contaminated sites, if I also ask them to advocate on behalf of the companies to capture benefits that they are regulating, so I'd like to understand what our Indigenous ministry is doing to build a remediation economy. My first question for the Minister of ITI is: in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and our post-COVID economic recovery plan, is the Minister willing to make building a remediation economy one of the pillars of that plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Remediation has been, is, and will be an important part of our economy in the Northwest Territories. It doesn't need to be said any differently than that. It doesn't need to be in any way fancier than that. That's just a fact, and we are already doing much work in that regard. I think already, earlier today, another Minister mentioned the importance of training and education in that respect, and there is no reason why, in fact, ENR would be anything other than supportive of that. This is one government, and we are all prepared to support this work and act with one voice. Mr. Speaker, whether it's myself or my colleague who is speaking to this question, we are all enjoined that this is an important area that the Government of the Northwest Territories as a whole needs to be aware of. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

I'm glad to hear that, and I hope, in fact, we can have our entire territory speak with one voice. I think a great way to start doing that is that there is currently a petition tabled by our MP for the territory on behalf of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation calling for an apology and compensation for Giant Mine as well as supporting the Yellowknives Dene to develop the skills necessary to work on remediation contracts as well as conduct long-term monitoring at the former site. I think this is a very reasonable petition, a reasonable ask to make sure that we do remediation right in this territory. My question for the Minister is: is she willing to add her signature to that petition?