This is page numbers 4163 - 4204 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

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Minister responsible for ECE.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the Member said that she wasn't quite sure who to direct it to. So I appreciate you putting that confidence in me that I could answer the question.

ECE is not a lead on any sort of a population growth strategy; however, we do lead the labour file and recognize there is a significant need for labour in the territory. It really is holding back a number of industries and holding us back from providing the level of service that we want. So there is a lot of effort going into this from the HR standpoint, and I know health is doing work in terms of HR. We are looking at how we can attract more people from outside of Canada to the territory.

And we've been doing that every year. Our numbers have been going up. We made significant gains. So I don't want to say that nothing is happening. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when we look at the population growth numbers for the territory, we're not a territory that's growing. I know that the Yukon and both Nunavut have seen growth in their territorial population numbers. Here in the NWT, we have not seen the same success.

And while I understand that there are -- there is work, sorry, going on within Health for recruitment, I laid out four different suggestions today as to how we can be very proactive as far as increasing our labour pool, increasing our population here in the territory. And I -- while I understand that we have a very broad spectrum of expectation on what our government does, increasing our revenue source needs to be one of them.

And so if -- if all of the answers I got today generally was we're not really looking at that right now, then -- then where do we go from here as far as proactively growing our territory? Because we need a growth strategy. We need a higher revenue source, and we need a higher population in order to get that. So what are the next steps? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I agree, we need to grow our population. We need to increase the number of qualified professionals we have here in the territory. And that is why myself and the Minister of ITI have spoken about the immigration file and how we can better combine our efforts. And perhaps that is looking at amalgamating our resources and using them more efficiently. But there is -- I can assure the Member that while I can't just say yes to everything that she asked, I can say that this is a -- we do have a renewed focus on this, and we are moving in the direction that the Member would like to see us move.

Unfortunately, we have 22 priorities here. Immigration was not chosen by this Assembly as a priority, or population growth. So that has resulted in our focus perhaps being on some of the other -- some of the other areas that -- you know, especially me as the Minister of ECE have had to focus on. Thank you.

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Yes, thank you very much for that, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for that response. It's one that I'll continue to come back on because although we have 22 priorities, we also have to pay for them. So we have to look at different revenue sources, and people are definitely our greatest resource, and the North is an excellent place to come and set down some roots. So thank you.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So maybe a warning to the next Assembly: Don't ask for 22 different things if you don't have a plan to pay for them, because I agree, we need to focus our priorities; we need to ensure that we can pay for what we want.

All of -- you know, I often hear that we want more of this, we want more of this, more of this. But on the rare occasion, we do hear some suggestions on how we can increase our funds, our revenues. But for the most part, we hear, more, more, more.

So I thank the Member for raising this issue that we do need to -- to raise our revenue, do need to put a greater focus on our economy, on our population, and on our labour force. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for -- oral questions. Member for Monfwi.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Okay, mahsi. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Mr. Speaker [Translation] speak about caribou -- about caribou. The funding for caribou has been -- it's not as much as it was. And we also know that caribou has been declined, but then we also know a lot of information about why is it the way it is, and -- and with funding -- with funding that is not as much as it used -- used to be to do a research, doing caribou declining, they say.

I'd like to know the answer, and I'd like to have that answer so the [Translation Unavailable].

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Hopefully I get the -- I got the message here. So to be clear, there has been no reduction in the survey. What happened in 2020, we had money in the budget to do the survey for the caribou, and then COVID hit. So then we've been playing catch up. The money that was here that we had in the budget for this year is going into the next years' budgets. We do the survey every two years. So we do the research. We work -- we bring in some of our Indigenous partners to go travelling with us as part of our survey group. So we do the survey.

The money was spent last year. The results are in this year. And so we have the survey done. So we haven't reduced it. It's just that the budget has been moving from year to year because of 2020. So it used to be every second year. Now we're back to '21. So the next one is 2023. So the money will be in the budget for that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi, just so you know, there's going to be issues if you're going back and forth. As mentioned earlier, we're having issues with the translation. So I know the Minister -- well, a lot of us didn't hear everything that you just said, but -- just so you know that. Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Okay, thank you. Okay, well, that was good. Thank you for the information for the -- to the Minister just provided.

Okay, so that was from last year, and then this year it's different budget. So budget increases have been made to enforcement. And he just said -- he mentioned some there already.

So can the Minister explain the reason for reducing the budget for scientific research while increasing the budget for enforcement? This is for the enforcement. Thank you.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Okay, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we didn't reduce the scientific research funding. It was in 2020, we were doing the research; COVID hit; we weren't able to do the research. So we did it in 2021. So we moved that money from 2020 to 2021. In 2022, the money will be moved to 2023 because every second year, we will do the research on that.

As for the enforcement, all it is is that we've been asked by the Indigenous governments to add an additional camp, which we've done. We now have three camps there, so. And 24/7 to have staff there. So the Indigenous governments have asked us to make sure we have enforcement out there, and we are working with our Indigenous governments to meet the needs to make sure that we follow through on making sure people don't hunt the caribou in the mobile zone. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, based on what many elders and harvester have seen with their own eyes, they feel there is a lot more than 6,200 caribou. Can the Minister explain how herds are counted? Thank you.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for that detail, I would have asked the Member to give the question to me earlier, but I can try to explain it the best we can. So we do have -- and I believe there was a technical briefing provided by the Wek'eezhii Water and Resources Board with our staff. It -- committee, which was made public.

So we do have airlines -- or we charter aircrafts that we survey it. There's a longitudes and latitude checked. They check on the -- the -- the herd, the calves, and the cows and that in the Bathurst area. And that's how it's corrected -- or calculated.

So there is a map, and it's showed. If the Member wishes to see the map again or another briefing, I'm more than willing to get the staff to meet with her to provide further detail. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

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

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when the Minister's staff confiscate caribou from harvester and later on -- later those charges are dropped or are unproven in court, can the Minister commit to providing an apology and financial compensations to those harvester? Thank you.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't make that commitment. There's a process. There's a legal process. Once that process is done, then we can look at each matter moving forward. But right now, we have a process. We need to follow it. We're going through the justice system. And we ensure the meat's not wasted. It's given to other Indigenous governments so that the meat is not being wasted there.

I need to really stress, though, folks, is the herd size is 6,240. That's 1 percent of 1986. So in 1986, we had a huge population. Now we're at 1 percent, 6,240 caribou as from our survey. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Minister of Inuvik Twin Lakes.

(Audio)

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to make an attempt to ask the questions that I think my colleague from Inuvik Twin Lakes may be wanting to ask.

On Monday, the Minister of Infrastructure spoke about delays to the Inuvik airport expansion. It's my understanding that that -- those delays are partly due to a cost overrun of $40 million.

Can the Minister speak to whether or not the GNWT will be on the hook to pay the cost overruns, or will the DND pay for that given that it is a hundred percent dollars for this project? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's very early to tell at this time. Work -- we are working with Canada to substantiate the costs and that they have to go through their own process, which means going through a treasury board to be able to secure additional funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't think I need to tell the Minister that we really can't afford $40 million that we did not have budgeted for this work.

Given that there is such an urge at this moment with arctic sovereignty and the key role that the -- that Inuvik plays in that, can the Minister tell me whether or not it seems favourable that the Government of Canada will accept these costs and if -- and not only that, actually provide further funding for expansion in Inuvik? Thank you.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is right, the -- the work packages have come in significantly over budget, more than the GNWT estimates and more than the third-party estimate that was developed using some information that was collected from regional contractors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.