Deputy minister.
Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2022
This is page numbers 3441 - 3480 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 work.
Topics
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kelly
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have much to add other than that we've looked for the resources internally and have been able to identify them, and we feel that we have the resources that we need to complete the work. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that. I'll be watching it very closely, and I am concerned about the level of resourcing, but.
I want to move on the Community Harvester Assistance Program. This program has been under review for at least two years. It was even raised in the last Assembly about how effective this was in building some food security and enabling people, particularly in smaller communities, to get out and get country foods. So it's been under review for at least two years. What is the timeline for finishing this review and securing some additional resources for the program? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Shane Thompson Nahendeh
The timeline, I'll turn to the deputy minister for giving the detailed timeline realizing the time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kelly
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have completed the engagement on the review of CHAP, and we released a "what we heard" report where we've asked to check in with Indigenous governments and harvesters to ensure that we got it right. That response is due back on February 10th of 2022. Even now, we're starting to work on some of the changes to the program, and we will be coming back hopefully in the summer with the final version of all the changes that will be made to that program.
I will just add here very briefly that there are a number of other programs, and when we did the engagement, we heard that CHAP is not the only program that is needed. There's skill development and other elements, and we've been working on those and have new programs related to those as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, can someone tell me when the last time the Community Harvester Assistance Program amount was actually increased? Because it looks like it's just a constant for as long as the Main Estimates appear, or the years that are listed here. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kelly
Thank you, Mr. Chair. While there haven't been increases to the CHAP funding, there have been increases to funding that have been used for some of the training programs that I mentioned, trapper training, some of the resourcing to ensure that others are available to access these programs, not just the CHAP program itself. So there has been some additional resources but not specifically for CHAP. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chair. I'm going to let the Minister in on a little secret. I expect that there's going to be a supplementary appropriation probably come forward maybe May/June for this set of main estimates, and I want to encourage him to bring forward an increase in funding for the community harvester assistance program. So I'll just put that out on the record.
I want to move on to the disaster compensation fund. That's a grant; it's on page 74 of the main estimates. And I see that the actual amount for 2020-2021 was $400,000. And I think this was as a result of flooding of Taltson and damage that was done to people's cabins and so on. So it's good to see that the amount has been increased to $275,000 in this year's main estimates. But it's still not even what was paid out last year, or a couple of years ago. So why is this not increased to a greater extent than just the $275,000, and what would happen if there's more claims than that submitted? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Shane Thompson Nahendeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so when we increased it, it's based on applications, when harvesters submit their applications, and that's how we come up with our numbers. Right now it's based on that. But for further detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister to explain if we have over-expenditure and what happens moving forward on that. Thank you.
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Kelly
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We requested some additional funding to review this program. It's quite similar from a flooding aspect to one that we also have for forest fires, and we wanted to do a program review this year, which is ongoing, and we did request additional funds because of the flooding along the Taltson where we knew that we would require additional funds. So to date, there have been $185,000 in claims related to the Taltson flooding. So the intent here is to review the program and make any adjustments that are needed and also to ensure that it's similar in nature to the fire one, the fire compensation program that we have as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Yeah, thanks for that information. So this review -- one of the questions I had was whether the criteria are going to change because I understand there's only some things that can get claimed. There's a maximum amount and that not everybody was necessarily happy with the amount that they received compared to the actual damages. So when is this review going to be finished and when will the criteria be changed? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole On Bills And Other Matters
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Kelly
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're working on the review right now. There are a number of criteria that were reviewed, and there were some criteria that for a specific purpose for the Taltson flooding were adjusted.
One of the things that we have here is this is for harvesters, and one of the criteria pieces, that 25 percent of your income needs to come from that. But we recognize in this day and age that many people are harvesting, but 25 percent of their income, it's quite a large amount. So we're looking at all of the criteria when we're doing the review, and we'll most likely adjust some of that criteria through the review process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.