This is page numbers 3755 - 3792 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.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're always a little hesitant to speak not only on behalf of other departments but on behalf of prior Assembly's so it's going to be difficult for me to say what did or did not happen over the last 20 some years of a government.

Mr. Speaker, I can say that at this point, one of the reasons that we are so focused on -- as some have said, you know, the concerns around they're not being more cuts despite the fiscal situation is because this Assembly has prioritized social wellness; it has prioritized health indicators; it has prioritized education outcomes, and all of our departments need all of their resources to be able to achieve the goals that we've set for ourselves in all of those areas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you. Can the Minister tell us where the 2,700 positions are located and which department they work for? Thank you.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think the Member and I are going to have to get our calculators out together. As I've said, I have the main estimates open in front of me. The 2022-2023 Main estimates show 3,900 staff of the departments, or a total of 6,249 public servants including all of the public agencies. So I'm certainly happy to look at what numbers or mathematics are being used and see if we can't figure out a solution. 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 for the answer. And, yes, I'm looking forward to the meetings then.

The Minister often speaks about our difficult financial positions, and this is what I'm going to use again: 2,700 positions from the time when Nunavut and GNWT split. 2,700 positions must cost GNWT a lot of money each year. So does the Minister have a plan to control position growth? Thank you.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one thing that we have that I've overseen in the last couple of years, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the conclusion of, is a human resources plan that is GNWT-wide. It might come as a surprise to some, as it did to me, that the GNWT did not have a GNWT government-wide human resources plan but work is well underway to, in fact, do exactly that. That allows some corporate planning so that we are best achieving the goals of the Assembly's as they come forward but doing so in a way that allows for leadership development, effective recruitment and retention, career pathing, succession planning, and in that sense, Mr. Speaker, we are adding positions where we need them, adding them in a responsible way, and ensuring that we do that to the best use of the people of the Northwest Territories who are being recruited in, trained in, and then able to deliver as public servants. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions, Member for Deh Cho.

Question 987-19(2): Arctic Winter Games
Oral Questions

March 4th, 2022

Page 3761

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. One of the Members mentioned the carnival yesterday and that usually triggers an event within all of us, and everybody gets excited about it. I think the Member got so excited he left yesterday. So I'm just using that as an example there for -- and I've heard about carnivals yesterday and today another event: The Arctic Winter Games. And that triggers a lot of excitement for many of the young people and especially -- well, all ages in fact about sports in the Northwest Territories and getting together of all the different territories and regions to compete, whether it be -- you know, there's dog racing, skiing, probably curling. But many, for the small communities could be like snowshoeing and a lot of different traditional games and stuff like this.

I'm wondering if the Minister could provide an explanation or the path forward regarding the Arctic Winter Games, since we haven't had it for a while, to the House? Mahsi.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you. The Member's right; the games were cancelled last year because of COVID. But my understanding is the games are going to Fort McMurray and the games will be in January of next year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister. So I think last year it was cancelled for the Whitehorse one. So did Whitehorse get written off, or what was the deal here to move to Fort McMurray? Mahsi.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Nobody gets written off. There's a process. So the international committee, they decided that, for whatever reason, it's going to be in Fort McMurray but I think it was that's what the cycle was who was supposed to be up. But there is a cycle, and it's I believe Yukon, northern Alberta, Nunavut, the NWT, and Greenland for part of it. We had Russia on there but that has been changed. They have now been removed from the cycle presently. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The Minister answered one of my last questions, which I was leading up to, was the elimination of the Russian delegation.

I'm wondering if the Minister can direct his staff, because there's a big lull in our small communities and there's not enough expertise, I should say, in the small communities related to sports training, and perhaps maybe we need to put more funding towards sports training so we get better representative and at the elite level anyway for our Arctic Winter Games participants and whether we can start, be proactive and start the training in all the areas of sports, especially to help the small communities too but to include everyone. Mahsi.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as for the responsibility to get our athletes prepared, that's the coaches at the local level. We do have funding programs there. There's been some challenges with the teams and you've seen it in the press. We do have a potential solution. We haven't taken it to committee yet and I want to make sure I take it to committee so that they can get the -- government operations, so they can see what's going on, what we're proposing. Then we will make it public. But right now, we were working with our communities. There's regional organizations called the Mackenzie Recreation Association in the Beaufort Delta. Sahtu Recreation Association as well. They meet, the communities meet, they come up with a plan when they're going to do events. There's also funding available through various Municipal and Community Affairs programs, and there's sport and rec councils, the Mackenzie rec and the BDSARA. There's funding there available that communities can access it. And we've worked on with aboriginal circle as well, building our athletes up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Deh Cho.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for that. Yes, the department has the funding. The department can get the expertise to help the small communities, especially with coaching. If they can provide the funding so that we can hire expert coaching to help our athletes become elite, you know, athletes, and it takes a fair level of training do and this would really help a lot of our youths since, you know, post-COVID, you know, with their mental health also. And I really think it's a great idea to really look at this and advance it and then also to think about the dogs, the dog sled racing to be part of the Arctic Winter Games because we do have many events in the NWT, a circuit with dog racing that happens within the Northwest Territories and in northern Alberta and different places. I'm wondering if the Minister could comment on that, mahsi.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a couple of questions there and I apologize to the Member if I missed the -- miss an answer on -- or some of the questions there.

In regard to get out there and hire specialists and that, we have money available to train coaches. We work with -- there's programs through Sport North. There's the NCCP program. So we try to get out there. We try to get -- that's the -- sorry, National Coaching Certificate Program. I apologize for using acronyms there, Mr. Speaker.

So there is programs out there to help train our local people. We do have the ability to bring people in, various organizations, work with communities to bring people in there.

In regards to dog mushing, my understanding it was still in the Arctic Winter Games and I apologize if it's changed, but my understanding it is unless it's outside Canada. So it's available when northern Alberta, and it's very much youth oriented. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you. This is to the Minister of Finance.

Can the Minister commit to establishing a decentralization initiative within the Department of Finance to review how and where the Government of the Northwest Territories can put positions into small communities? We need to look at job descriptions and update them to ensure people are used fully and efficiently. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Finance.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one might recall not that long ago, although certainly several Assembly's ago, when human resources was separate from the Department of Finance. There's been a number of different times over history where different efforts have been made. There is nothing in our schedule or plans right now or in our priorities of this government for a new restructuring of human resources or formal decentralization.

What I can say, Mr. Speaker, is two things:

Firstly, we have the remote work policy now whereby positions that are located in headquarters or in a regional centre could be occupied by someone who lives in a smaller community or outside of the headquarters. So there is that now as an option.

But secondly, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the job descriptions specifically, that is one of the action items under the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework, and it's one of the first things we will be doing to ensure that we are in fact matching up what the actual needs of the position are so that there's hopefully more people who are eligible and qualified to achieve those roles and so we can make use of the tools like the IGCP. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you. Yes, I know that at one time lot of those positions were in the small communities. Now that they took it back, we know that it's going to be -- it's going to take a political will to have most of -- see those jobs transferred back to the small communities.

So can the Minister commit to working with the Housing Corporation or other partners to ensure housing stock is available in the smaller community to support decentralizations and support economic growth outside of the capital city? Thank you.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I hope I'm not going to far in saying I think this Cabinet does actually work generally quite well together, and certainly when initiatives come forward through, whether Cabinet, Financial Management Board, the kinds of conversations and issues of looking at what impacts there are between one initiative and another, is exactly something that we do all do as a group here.

So with respect to being responsible for the public service, being responsible for, you know, continuing to have the recruitment and retention element, we are certainly going to want to make sure that any new staff have somewhere safe to live. So I can certainly commit to continuing that and try to update Members as we go through those types of processes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

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

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Finance commit to undertaking a review of the fiscal responsibility policy to ensure that it is meeting the intention of guiding the GNWT into a financially sustainable position? Thank you.