This is page numbers 2743 - 2774 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

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a process laid out in the Public Health Act. The CPHO is an independent health official, a medical doctor. That person evaluates the situation and determines the risk of the disease to the public. That person then creates public health orders that would mitigate that risk. And that advice comes to me, and I declare a state of emergency to give force to the orders that the Chief Public Health Officer has made. So I am taking advice from the Chief Public Health Officer who is looking at the technical risk assessments, which I do not have a level of training to assess myself. Thank you.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for that answer. And I'm sure it's very technical. I'm sure even myself, I wouldn't be able to understand a lot of the information without support. So I'm just wondering, also, my next question is, is this decision just the decision of the sole Minister with this information, or is it a group Cabinet decision to extend this public health emergency? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yeah, thank you. I would anticipate consulting my Cabinet colleagues on declaring the state of emergency in the first place. But the extensions that happen every two weeks, I make that decision alone. Thank you.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I know in this jurisdiction, like in the Northwest Territories, our act is different than the Yukon; it's different than other provinces. And some of them, they work collaboratively to come up with decisions. But we, as in Northwest Territories residents, we need to know what risks are left. We were told -- like, in my Member statement the other day, we were told -- you know, we crushed the curve, like I said. You know, we've got vaccinations now. We've got -- you know, we've got public health contact tracing for an outbreak. We've got many things in place now. So I, we as Northwest Territories residents, my constituents, probably many of your constituents need and want to know what more do we have to do? What are the measures that need to be reached in order for us to come out of this public health emergency? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member's frustration but what we learned in Yellowknife in the month of May is that everything can change overnight, where one case at a school ultimately became 71 cases with a thousand contacts and 43 households in isolation. The key thing there was we had a large unvaccinated group who are not eligible for vaccines because of their age, and we had 40 percent of the people there, the youth, were asymptomatic. So they didn't know they had COVID. They had no symptoms of it. And another -- something like 20 percent had only one symptom, and a minor symptom like a runny nose, not a major symptom like problems breathing. And so I think what's really important to know is that we are still at risk for the importation of COVID from travellers in particular. And as long as the cases continue to be high in Alberta, that will be a consideration. The vaccine rates will be a consideration as well. So the end goal here is not to frustrate people but to ensure that our effective public health measures continue to be effective to keep us safe. Thank you.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my last question will be will the Minister commit to providing some type of information or working with her Cabinet and with the CPHO to come up with a list or something for us as residents in the Northwest Territories to know how much longer we're going to be in this public health emergency, what needs to happen to get out of the public health emergency, because we all know that we could live with this forever and we may never reach immunization rates that want to be reached, you know. So I would like to know some kind of documentation, some information for us to know what we need to meet before we get out of this public health emergency? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think what the Member needs to take a look at, and I'm certainly very interested in seeing as well, is the Emerging Wisely revision. It's my understanding that this is the purpose of that document, is to show us the path forward out of the restrictions that we're in now - how do we get there, what are the benchmarks. And so as we know, that's going to come at some point in the first part of June and I certainly hope to see the answers to the Member's question at that time. Thank you.

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. Presently the Office of the Fire Marshal's industry guidelines set out that the Office of the Fire Marshal can't act in the capacity of an engineering or architectural consultant or else the plan review function would be in a conflict. This is a fair rule, but it seems the Office of the Fire Marshal has taken a very strict interpretation of this whereby they won't give anyone any advice on the interpretation they'll take of the building code. The default response seems to be, go hire a code consultant, which is often thousands of dollars, to a southern consulting firm, and delays projects by a matter of weeks.

My question for the Minister is I don't know how to get rid of this very strict interpretation of their own guidelines but will the Minister at least set out some service standards that the fire marshal has to respond to their emails in a timely manner, has to answer questions about how they will interpret the code, and you know, maybe even that service standard could set out how long it takes to go through the plan review function. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To date, I haven't received any complaints about the fire marshal's office and the responses that have been supposed to be received. But I will follow up with the department. And also that, you know, the other thing that MACA is under review right now looking at our Fire Prevention Act, and it's very unclear for the Northwest Territories looking at the building code. I know the Member has brought this issue up several times but this is something that my department is currently working on. And looking at the client service standards for the Office of the Fire Marshal, I will bring that back to the department and we will take a look and a review on that as well too. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Another issue is presently the Office of the Fire Marshal has taken the position that they will not review any documents unless they are released for construction or final drawings. And the problem with this, Mr. Speaker, is that everyone else and along the process is the contractors GNWT has hired, the procurement we've lined up, all of our capital budget has worked together to get final construction documents. And then those documents are sent to the fire marshal, and it becomes this black hole before any work can start. And, Mr. Speaker, architects are willing to work in draft documents before they stamp them because they change the fundamental nature of the project if the fire marshal's going to make a change. And for some reason, due to that fear of the Office of the Fire Marshal becoming consultant, they will look at nothing but the absolute final documents when already thousands and thousands of dollars have been spent. I know this is delaying all of our GNWT projects. So my question is will the Minister change the guidelines and require the Office of the Fire Marshal to review draft documents first, just like everyone else involved in the building process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Office of the Fire Marshal and looking at the draft documents that have to be reviewed prior to the construction for the Northwest Territories, this is, you know, been brought up to my department several times. But I will bring this back to my department as well because of -- you know, we do have a number of construction projects that are happening right now. We do have -- one of their regions as well, too, we're down one fire marshal as well and this is quite concerning to the department. So I will have to follow up with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I suspect -- I would ask the Minister to also look at the capacity. I suspect the Office of the Fire Marshal is overworked. I suspect the GNWT capital budget requires them to review far too many plans and they could probably use some more staff, which I would fully support. And along that, perhaps a staff member could create some bulletins, some guidelines on the code interpretation. Right now, there are only three advisories on how the Office of the Fire Marshal will interpret the code. The last one was in 2016, Mr. Speaker. Despite the fact that the Office of the Fire Marshal is making hundreds of decisions on code interpretations, decisions that end up in court. And once a decision is made, there's no transparency for the next builder to know what the code interpretation actually was. So my question for the Minister is: will the Minister direct the Office of the Fire Marshal to create some bulletins and provide guidance on how they interpret the National Building Code that creates a transparent process so we're not restarting for every single project? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I will bring this back to my department as well to -- because looking at the 2014 bulletin that was provided to the general public and also that was to be maintained, and as we worked with the Department of Infrastructure as well too, but it's -- this is something that we need to work within our department. So I will get back to the Member and look at the bulletin as well too. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you. As I've stated many times, every other jurisdiction in Canada has a Building Code Act. The work that our fire marshal is conducting is not inherent to the offices of fire marshals. Fire marshals are for training firefighters, for providing fire safety. They are not always code compliance officers. That usually lies with building inspectors under building code acts and those acts appeal to an independent body. Nunavut's Building Code Act, for example, has an advisory council made up of experts who hear building code appeals. In NWT, those go to the Minister, Mr. Speaker. I don't believe the Minister is an expert in building codes. Mr. Speaker, so my question for the Minister is will we create an appeal mechanism for decisions of the Office of the Fire Marshal to an independent body? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Fire Prevention Act is under review by Municipal and Community Affairs. And the comprehensive work is being conducted as well. And we need to find a mechanism as well, too, that would best suit and be in compliance for the Northwest Territories and for the needs of the construction that is happening in the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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 question is for the Minister of Infrastructure who is also responsible for the NWT Energy Strategy. I've indicated that there are three basic questions to apply to all GNWT energy investments, where to cut first, technology and projects ready to go, and evaluating lifecycle emission reductions. Most of our greenhouse gas emissions are from the resource sector and transportation outside communities. Can the Minister tell us what specific off-the-shelf shovel-ready options are being pursued to reduce emissions from resource extraction and transportation? Merci, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one option is electrification of transportation. We have introduced a rebate through the Arctic Energy Alliance for the light-duty road vehicles, and we also have applied for federal funding to install some of these electrical charging stations along some of the Northwest Territories highways. The electrical vehicle technology is advancing. It won't immediately solve all of the problems of the heavy-duty transportation emissions. I can tell you that the GNWT is investigating the use of some liquid biofuels, like a renewable diesel for use by the trucking industry. And at this point, it's not an off-the-shelf ready-to-use solution for the Northwest Territories. This doesn't mean that renewable diesel doesn't have promise; however, we can solve the issues with the global supply limitations and suitability for cold weather use and storage in the Northwest Territories so it will remain a future solution for now.

The GNWT was pleased to hear that the federal government recently announced the federal funding to support the production of liquid biofuels in Canada. The existence of suitable and reliable supply of renewable diesel will help advance the additional evaluation for use in our northern climates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

I want to thank the Minister for that. Actually, you can actually drive up to pumps many places in BC to purchase renewable diesel right there. It's not a stretch to bring renewable diesel up here in the Northwest Territories.

But I want to move on, Mr. Speaker, to clearly renewable diesel is an easy and fast win whereas Talston expansion has no funding, no buyers; it would take years to build to diamond mines that would be closed. So could the Minister tell us what proven technologies with projects ready to go are being pursued by this government? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I respectfully disagree that renewable diesel is an easy and fast win. There is a limited global supply. No one makes for our climate conditions. And there's significant cost premium over traditional fuels. However, as I previously mentioned, we do see some promise and be able to work to continue to evaluate liquid biofuels.

So in regards to the projects - so here's where I get to the Member's question - the GNWT is advancing in a number of energy efficiency renewable and alternative energy projects for heating, electricity, transportation, and industry across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, our recent energy initiatives report provides details on the work and projects that we are currently advancing to be able to meet our goals for the under the 2030 Energy Strategy. So much work is underway and continues to, you know, work away at our energy strategy.

So as to -- as this report highlights, we did invest over $25 million in energy products to ensure that the energy system is secure; it's reliable; and it's affordable. So this report is publicly available on our government Infrastructure website. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for detailed response. The last question to be asked to ensure our energy investments are efficient and effective is to make sure that we actually conduct lifecycle emission reduction analysis. Can the Minister tell us whether this type of analysis is done to evaluate energy investments before Financial Management Board and Cabinet make decisions? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all emission reductions related to projects are assessed in terms of costs versus greenhouse gas reductions. You know, this is a fairly typical assessment method and also a very useful way to be able to assess projects against each other, assuming all other factors are equal. Unfortunately, it's not often the case that all other factors are equal. For example, the GNWT must balance having an energy system that is secure, reliable, and affordable. For example, one project may have solid community acceptance and have a likelihood of success, have relatively short development timelines, and provide reliable energy. This type of project may be given priority over other projects that have significant better greenhouse gas reductions per dollar invested, and that is something that our Cabinet and, you know, our departments will continue to look at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.