Debates of March 7th, 2023

This is page numbers 5695 - 5762 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

Oral Questions

Members Present

Prayer

Celebrating Engineers and Geoscientists in the Northwest Territories

Homelessness Programs Offered by Housing NWT

Celebrating National Social Work Month

Minister Absent from the House

Child and Youth Care Counsellors

Future of Local Housing Organizations

Fort Simpson Diesel Plant Upgrade

Renovation Delay Effects on School in Tuktoyaktuk

Crack Cocaine Addictions in Tlicho Communities

Surety Bond Review

Homelessness

Hay River South Constituency Office Services

Budget Shortfalls for Regional and Social Services Authority

Eulogy for Jessie May Snider

Recognition Of Visitors In The Gallery

Committee Report 47-19(2): Standing Committee on Social Development Report on Homelessness Prevention: Supporting Pathways to Housing NWT Residents

Portables for Magalanik School

Evaluation of Child and Youth Care Counselling Program

Fort Simpson Diesel Plant

Surety Bond Review

Health and Social Services Deficit

Homelessness

Local Housing Organization Funding

Child and Youth Care Counsellors Staff Integration

Back-Up Generators during an Outage

Child and Youth Care Counsellor Equivalencies

Return to Written Question 58-19(2): Frank Channel Bridge Replacement

Tabled Document 876-19(2): Government of the Northwest Territories Bridge Inspection Form - Frank Channel Bridge, July 2021 Tabled Document 877-19(2): Stantec Consulting Ltd. 2021 Frank Channel Bridge Inspection Report dated February 12, 2022

Tabled Document 878-19(2): Plain Language Summary for Bill 72: Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act

Tabled Document 879-19(2): What We Heard: A Forest Act for the NWT, February 2023

Tabled Document 880-19(2): Letter dated December 26, 2022 from Alternatives North regarding Comments on Forest Act Summary of Policy Intentions

Maximum Allowable Rent Increase for Private Rental Units

Extended Adjournment of the House to March 27, 2023

Bill 76: An Act to Amend the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act

Bill 72: Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act

Bill 73: An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, No. 4

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

Tabled Document 813-19(2): 2023-2024 Main Estimates - Legislative Assembly - Deferral of Department (Page 5)

Tabled Document 813-19(2): 2023-2024 Main Estimates - Environment and Climate Change - Deferral of Department (Page 73)

Report Of Committee Of The Whole

Orders Of The Day

Committee Motion 371-19(2): Tabled Document 813-19(2): 2023-2024 Main Estimates - Legislative Assembly - Deferral of Department (Page 5), Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

March 7th

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Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to talk a bit about the, I guess, water research and monitoring. And, you know, after a couple years of flooding here, how much additional work is going into that to monitor, like, especially for Hay River and the Hay River watershed, are we doing any extra work so that we can, you know, get some idea whether -- and somewhat predict, I guess, whether we may see flooding? Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

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Shane Thompson Nahendeh

For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy Minister. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON Thank you. Deputy Minister.

March 7th

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Dr. Kelly

Thank you, Madam Chair. So we have a staff of several hydrologists that work diligently on looking at and creating outlooks. They do not have predictive capacity. They do work with their colleagues in the federal government and upstream with other governments. Predictive capacity on rivers that are subject to ice jam flooding is very, very challenging work. What we can do and what we continue to do is look at the snow survey data that is collected and make sure that gets out to the communities. Our hydrologists work with MACA and with communities themselves during these times where the -- and we do put out public announcements, as you've seen, when there is the potential for flooding. And then there's -- during flooding, there's daily information that's posted and sent out to folks who are part of a distribution list. And when it's not flood time, there's monthly outlook emails that are sent out that express what's going on with respect to water levels, water levels and snowpack throughout the territory. Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON Thank you. Member for Hay River South.

March 7th

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Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you -- I guess, you've identified some criteria there, but I -- can you expand on that bit because, you know, we talk about, you know, volume of snow; we may have some rain down south; we have cold weather possibly that could impact it; we might have -- you know, you say that with ice we -- you know, it makes it difficult to predict as well but, you know, if it -- it just depends what the weather's like we could have thicker ice. If we don't have a lot of snow, that could cause that as well. We have, you know, in the Hay River for instance, we got the mouth of the river and the -- you know, the channel and that's getting, you know -- I guess basically the silt is increasing, the amount of silt that's in there. Does that have -- you know, what kind of impact does that have. We've got two channels there. We've got the west channel and the east channel. And so I'm just trying to get an idea, you know, what we're looking at when we look at flooding aspects. Thank you.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

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Shane Thompson Nahendeh

For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Deputy minister.

March 7th

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Dr. Kelly

Thank you, Mr. Chair -- Madam Chair, my apologies again. Not having a good day with that; I'm sorry.

So all of the factors that the Member mentioned are things that are considered and all of those things, including the existing water level from the -- like, from the previous year, if it's high, are all things that are challenging with respect to predicting if flooding is going to occur. Our department works with the federal government, Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, to refine methods to create inundation hazard and risk floodplain maps in locations that experience ice jam flooding. So this will result in preliminary inundation maps for Hay River, Aklavik, and Fort Simpson. They also monitor and evaluate water, snow, and climate conditions prior to ice breakup. They share those snow surveys that I mentioned as well as a spring water outlook. And I also spoke about those daily updates during critical flood times. And then there's a monthly water monitoring bulletin to the public. Our scientists have written initial reports for MACA on the recent flooding events that describe the factors that contributed to the flooding as well as the uncertainty of direct linkages to climate change. I guess those are the types of things I think that the Member is looking for. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

March 7th

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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to thank my colleague from Hay River South for asking a number of the questions I was going to ask, and I want to thank the Minister for pointing out to the premier of Alberta that we signed a trans-boundary agreement with their government, not Imperial Oil. So maybe educating the minister when you're meeting with her tomorrow, getting the premier to actually read the trans-boundary agreement might be helpful.

But I guess I want to get some assurance that there's -- if we enter into this dispute resolution process, that if there is like an independent third party review, extra monitoring costs, work that we have to do, that there's the ability to recover some or all of those costs through the dispute resolution process. So that's my question to the Minister. Thanks, Madam Chair.

March 7th

Page 5715

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

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Shane Thompson Nahendeh

So first and foremost, the meeting's on Thursday, not tomorrow, and I apologize if I gave the misinformation. We would try to get the money back through the process. So we do have a process, and costs are a part of that process. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

March 7th, 2023

Page 5715

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks for that. Yeah, and I look forward to the letters the Minister's going to table. But I guess I want to go back to, you know, where we started with some of this stuff, and this was the move on the part of maybe the Alberta and federal governments to have some sort of control discharge from these humongous tailings ponds. And, look, I'd rather have a controlled discharge if the water's treated properly than this kind of stuff happening because this kind of stuff is going to happen; it's going to continue to happen until -- it's inevitable. So where are we at with this process to look at whether and how discharges might be allowed from those tailings ponds? As I understood it, Alberta was supposed to do some kind of modeling, some sort of health impact, maybe ecosystem impact work; where is all of that at and what level of engagement and involvement do we have? Thanks, Madam Chair.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

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Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, with the process, six information gaps have been identified by oil sands, mine monitoring science team, modeling environmental concentration and effect, human and ecological health risk assessments, technical -- technology-based effluent limits assessment, toxicity testing, enhanced baseline environmental monitoring, and local and regional scale environmental monitoring. And as I stressed to the minister from Alberta, until we see the science we do not want to see water flowing -- treated effluent put in there. But for further detail, with your permission, I would ask the deputy minister to enhance the answer. Thank you.

March 7th

Page 5715

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Deputy minister.

March 7th

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Dr. Kelly

Thank you, Madam Chair. So both Alberta and the federal government are looking at regulations for this. Alberta has told us that they're doing this assessment of information gaps to determine if this is the approach that they want to take. They have -- they're saying that they have not made a decision on treated -- release of treated effluent yet. We have received four of the six reports on the information gaps. We are in the process of reviewing them. We have external experts that are reviewing them with us who have experience in all of these fields. There has been one that we have responded to, and there's been technical meetings on a couple of the other ones but we have not responded to the other three that we have at this point, and we expect to get the other two as they complete their work. So the water experts at the GNWT, combined with expertise outside that we've contracted, are reviewing these and bringing forward any concerns, and then they are being brought forward through the bilateral management committee to Alberta government. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

March 7th

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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Great, thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciate that level of detail. And I support the department getting the expertise that's necessary to do this work, and I know you got -- you went out for two RFPs. I think you got another one out there now, so that's good. Is any of this stuff public, and where would you find it? Do we publish, or do we make any of this information, these peer reviews that we're doing, is any of this stuff available for people here to see what's going on? Thanks, Madam Chair.

March 7th

Page 5715

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

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Shane Thompson Nahendeh

For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Deputy minister.

March 7th

Page 5716

Dr. Kelly

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have, on many, many occasions, at the DMC, after meetings with ADMs and the deputies, relayed to Alberta how important this is to the residents of the Northwest Territories and, in particular, Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories. We have asked them to engage with Indigenous governments and with the public on this approach. They have not finalized their engagement process that they're going to use for this. The federal government has said that they will engage with Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories on their process.

We have also brought forward that we would like them to provide us with some messaging that they feel comfortable with that we can make public because they have asked us at this point to keep our responses technical and government to government right now, and we've expressed that there will need to be information provided on what this looks like. And they have said that they will work with us and understand that needs to happen once the review process has occurred. So I'll just reiterate we have asked them that when they -- if they decide to go forward with the regulatory process after they've completed this that it involves public and engagement with Indigenous peoples in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

Page 5716

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Debates of March 7th, 2023

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