This is page numbers 4061 - 4110 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 know.

Topics

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's sort of two parts there. In terms, Mr. Speaker, of knowing the processing side, that's much more complicated. It involves large tracts of land potentially. But, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the regulatory processes we have here in the territories, we already have the client services/client relations folks within ITI who are system navigators and well known to help proponents get through our system. There's a Mackenzie Valley operational dialogue that's happening right now with the regulatory bodies as well as with government to ensure that we are all working together to make regulatory processes achieve their goals but also being -- achieve their goals of being protective of the interests that they need to protect but of course of being understandable and to the proponents who are going through them. Then, of course, Mr. Speaker, there's the Mineral Resources Act that is currently seeing its regulations being developed which to the extent that we are responsible for our regulatory processes, that is a system that's being codeveloped and worked through the IGCS, the Indigenous governments -- the Indigenous governmental relations. And last thing, Mr. Speaker, you're seeing the same thing happening with public lands. So really our system as a whole now is becoming whole of government, and it's one that is already evolving significantly to be more clear, more transparent, more involved, and will continue to do so over the next couple of years of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with closure of mines and oil and gas facilities come opportunities for reclamation, a discipline where Indigenous and northern-based companies can provide this service.

Can the Minister tell me what supports or plans are in place to ensure that Indigenous and northern companies are prepared to take this work on? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with that regard, again, we're looking at multiple departments all working together. ENR does have the lead in terms of developing right now and actively right now developing remediation economy document and strategy so that we best understand where the opportunities lie. ITI and ECE work together in terms of understanding what training opportunities exist and what our labour market needs are going to be over the next few years, including in the remediation sphere. So both of those things are underway. Again, all three departments are actively involved in discussing, one with the other, to make sure that we're also keeping in touch with industry and private sector so that we're not just off developing these things in a vacuum; we're developing these things in lockstep with what's happening in the private sector and so that we can, of course, best take advantage of those opportunities. 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'd like to start just by commending the GNWT for some of the creative options it already has such as deferred leave where a worker can take a reduced pay cut for a number of years and then have a year off with leave without pay, or options such as flex days where workers can increase their working hours in a day to get an additional day off. All of which are great programs that cost the GNWT no money but help with retention.

However, Mr. Speaker, I believe we need to go further and try and formalize some policy around a four-day workweek. I have talked to workers who have requested to work four days with the reduced pay cut and have been told no, and those workers have told me they're not already -- they're already not working full time, Mr. Speaker; they're just sitting in a chair, and I don't see why we wouldn't approve them to get that time off. So I think there's a number of different ways to do this but we need to review our policies.

And my question for the Minister of Finance is whether we will review our current leave policies with the aim of allowing more workers to work a four-day workweek? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Finance.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I heard the Member's statement earlier, I already had a thought of pointing out the fact that there's the ability to work a compressed schedule already. There's the work -- the ability to work a flex schedule already. There's the ability to look at, you know, having deferred leave. There's actually a very flexible set of opportunities in many regards for the employees in the public service. So, you know, whether it's a question of there being some specific employees who may have requested access to some of those programs and being denied, those specific requests should probably come in so that they can be examined individually. I'm not sure that this is necessarily the time to say that the entire system itself isn't being flexible enough when, as I've just noted and as the Member already said, there's quite a number of flexible opportunities already in existence.

At the end of the day, there's operational needs. Some positions aren't going to have the operational capacity to be as flexible as others. Again, I can't say whether or not those are the examples that are being provided here by the Member. But that's always going to have to be an examinations that fundamentally we need to make sure we're providing our programs and services and providing the positions and the staff to do so. But beyond that, Mr. Speaker, we have quite a flexible array of options already and would encourage people to make use of them. Thank you.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that and, you know, I get that certain positions perhaps need the one-off policy, but I think we could really be a leader here and we could find positions and pilot a four-day workweek. Perhaps it's a -- it's a summer Fridays model, which is becoming more common. And then I think we would need to do it as a pilot project and evaluate things such as, you know, were less sick days taken; was there a decline in productivity. I know many workplaces have actually found that it would increase in productivity when shifting to a four-day workweek. So I think we need to be a little bit more conscious of how we are granting that leave to people. And so my question for the Minister of Finance is could we find some units or some appropriate positions and pilot a four-day workweek? Thank you.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's no plans right now to be piloting a four-day workweek. There are plans right now and work underway to develop a GNWT-wide public service strategy, government -- you know, human resources strategy. So to the extent that we'll be engaging and available to members of the public service to have feedback and to discuss where and what they see as some of the challenges in terms of our -- you know, whether it's morale, whether it's opportunities to be better engaged, whether there's learning plans, whether there's other options, you know, that -- that's the kind of feedback I'm interested to hear. I am not -- as I say, right this moment, there's not a plan to introduce a pilot workweek other than to say that I would certainly encourage folks who are thinking about flexibility to look at the programs that exist and to make those requests, and that might be a good initial step to make sure that they're accessing the programs that are already there. 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 questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

In my statement, I mentioned that Cabinet says that a review's been conducted of the Mining Incentive Program. Can the Minister confirm whether that has been done and explain why it has not been publicly released nor the response from the department. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been an evaluation of the program done in June of 2020. I know some of that information and some of the matrices that go with it have been shared with committees. No, it has not all gone out to the public but that's not necessarily unusual. Not every evaluation or program review that is done by the GNWT necessarily goes public. In fact, it would be unusual for it to be otherwise. So that said, I'm certainly happy to take this away and take a look at, perhaps as the Department of Finance who would be more of the lead in terms of their evaluations, program evaluations, to look at what more we could release publicly on this particular program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Yes, and I would like her to release it publicly. I've asked her privately about that, and now I've done it publicly.

Under the current guidelines and forms, applicants are not required to disclose any permits or licenses already obtained to commit to comply with them or disclose billing compliance to ITI if successful. Can the Minister commit to make these changes to the Mining Incentive Program applications to ensure bad actors are not eligible and only legitimate work is funded? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I am -- the forms have gone out for 2022-2023, but let me be clear, I don't think we -- we don't want bad actors and nor do I believe that we are a wash of bad actors. It is expected that if someone's going to be getting funding to undertake any kind of work anywhere in the Northwest Territories that in order to do so, they're going to have to be compliant with whatever regulatory requirements apply to their project. And I will note I'm told that in the past, in fact ITI has declined to fund projects where their permitting was an issue within the timeframes allotted. So, you know, again, I -- maybe what I'll say is for the 2023-2024 term for the next round, we certainly can be express about that in the forms. There's no harm in doing so. And it just reenforces our commitment to our regulatory process, makes it clear, and allows applicants to have the opportunity to access client services folks if they need some assistance to make sure that they are properly applying for the regulatory process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I think that was a yes, and I'm more than happy to take that as a commitment from the Minister, and I think it's a positive contribution I've made to help mining in the NWT.

So there is no requirement, though, in the -- for applicants to disclose whether they are in debt to GNWT or other governments or have unpaid taxes. While GNWT may be able to check some of this internally, the onus should be on the applicants for full disclosure, and those in debt to government should not be funded. Again, can the Minister commit to make these changes to program applications to ensure bad actors are not eligible and only legitimate work is funded? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And Mr. Speaker, that was a yes. Again, I'm confident that the folks that are applying are going to be going through the regulatory process so we will amend the 2023-2024 applications to be clear about that. And let me throw another yes out there.

We will -- again, for 2023-2024, happy to make it very clear that you can't have outstanding debts to the government if you're applying. That, again, that's already the case. The forms may not be express in that regard, and there's no harm in making that very clear, that anyone that's going to be getting funding from the government can't have outstanding debts to the GNWT; they need to be in good standing in order to access further funds. That would certainly be part of that.

So there hasn't been a concern. Again, we tend to have, fortunately, good actors here. But as the Member has said, let's reword them and let's make that clear and make that known, that the folks that are coming up to the Northwest Territories are, in fact, doing so above board and in good standing. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Two yeses in a row? Wow, that's great, let's keep it up. Go for a third one.

I could not see anywhere in the evaluation criteria or the applications where environmental innovation or efforts to reduce environmental disturbance is rewarded in any way during the Mining Incentive Program.

Can the Minister explain how environmental best practices and innovation are considered in all Mining Incentive Program applications? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So Mr. Speaker, a lot of the projects, in fact I gather the majority of the projects that are coming through the Mineral Incentive Program, are early stage or fairly low impact projects. So these are not -- they're at the front end of the life cycle, and they're not necessarily ones that would have a significant amount of disturbance. That said, Mr. Speaker, the Member's quite right, I am quite committed to promoting the fact that the Northwest Territories is and will be a growing leader on ESG - environmental, social, and governance factors - and so while we're at it, why don't we look at our 2023-2024 guidelines and make it again very express that we expect industry in the North to adhere to what we already I think saw happening and to what we think is a value -- that brings value add to the industries and to proponents. Namely, that they -- that they do maintain and consider the highest stakes of ESG, or environmental, social, and governance factors. So, you know, it's a yes that has to come with a bit of wording to follow. But, again, we're confident that that's the kind of industry we want here, and it's the add industry we have so I don't expect that that will be -- that we'll be -- I expect that we will be able to find some language that reflects that for the next year. 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. Just I have a couple more questions for the Minister of Infrastructure.

She mentioned that her senior officials will be meeting today with the National Defence. My question is is -- will she reach out to the contractors, their senior officials, and maybe have a tripartite meeting so that we can get the project moving? You can all talk, and you can see how you can resolve to move forward. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the meeting is happening now and, you know, I'm going to get a brief probably towards the end of the day, and then we'll -- I'll reach out to the Member and see what we can do because the Member is right, it is an important project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.