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

Page 5713

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you, Madam Chair. In regards to that, Madam Chair, with the water strategy, I guess with the spill that we had in Alberta last week that -- from that Esso site, was there any I guess flags raised in regards of doing more water sampling and checking of the sites for coming up in the upcoming -- like if not now, like in the near future? Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

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Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Yes, like I said in my Minister's statement, we are working with the Town of Fort Smith to increase the monitoring on that. And as well we're working with -- I think it's the Town of Fort Chipewyan and they've -- they're monitoring as well, and we're checking their data as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Nunakput.

March 7th

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Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's all the questions I have right now. Thank you.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Member for Great Slave.

March 7th

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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, some of my questions have been answered already. But I am going to come back to, unfortunately, the ADM conversation and more so in a different manner, not so much whether you need five. But I look at some of the distribution of the percentage of funding or amounts of work that seem to be within the department under the different ADM streams proposed, and I'm wondering some look very heavy. Like, one is 48 percent of your budget is the wildlife and forest management, and then others are only like 6 percent. So I'm just wondering about the workload distribution for these ADMs. I get that for now some of the really technical stuff is probably still staying lumped together, for lack of a better word, but I'm just wondering has -- I know this will be part of the optimization but are we overburdening, say, the poor ADM of wildlife and forest management versus the one of corporate direction considering they have such different sizes of departments? Thank you -- or areas.

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, Madam Chair. So actually there's been a look at the workload and that's how we ended up with the ADMs that we have. So right now at Environment and Natural Resources, the ADM that's responsible for wildlife and fire is also responsible for all of the ops, the regional ops for the territory, right. So all the superintendents also work with them. So we looked at dividing out the workload. Fire has a large budget. That's what you're seeing there with that big budget piece, but we looked at what the workload was and tried to make those equal, as equal as possible.

With respect to the regional ops ADM, there is one issue that we need to work on through optimization and that's at ENR, the way that the budgets were done, the regional ops portion of the budgets was part of wildlife or part of environment, for example. For Lands, they have a regional ops budget. So in this budget, you'll see that there's a relatively small budget for regional ops and it's because we need to work to try to show the ENR -- the ENR one is in the actual activity. Under wildlife, for example, the regional ops is there as well, and we need to work towards for next main estimates to be able to display that better. So hopefully that helps with the explanation of why there's a difference in the level of funding that you can see there but the workloads have been balanced. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

Page 5713

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

March 7th

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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you. So just to make sure that I understand it correctly -- it's been a long few weeks. So then that means that in the next estimates we sort of start to see the ops pieces pulled out of these specific sort of wildlife forest management, for example, and moved into the regional operations so that it will become more of a fulsome look? And I see everybody nodding their heads so I'm going to say -- take that as a yes and not go back to them and ask my next question, which is around some of these pieces, like the traditional knowledge funding, the water strategy action plan, etcetera, in the contribution. And, again, I always just want to put a plug in, because I know these are great areas in which we can get youth out and money into communities and have the people come and -- what's the word -- the guardians, etcetera, all be involved.

So I'm just curious to know why we're not seeing too much of an increase here. I mean, I guess we are a bit and -- no, that's something else. But, yeah, we aren't seeing more of an increase into these types of programs where we really could be facilitating that development of those skill sets in youth and others. Thank you.

March 7th

Page 5713

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

Page 5713

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

Page 5713

Dr. Kelly

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the awkward things about main estimates is that when we go section by section, we don't see all of the traditional knowledge funding that's put forward, right. So we're seeing it piece by piece that applies to this particular section of the main estimates. I would definitely say that there's far more money that's being spent on traditional knowledge throughout the entire main estimates than what's being displayed in this one part of it. We're always looking for opportunities to include multiple knowledge systems in the work that we do to include youth and to make sure that we're working with elders in the work that we do. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

March 7th

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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess I just always come back to this one because it's -- I just know for myself and having getting into sciences and such, it's usually just one exposure to one sort of professional that might make that difference for yourself. So is it possible for us, and I know that there's a lot of work already being done here, but at some point to maybe have that all gathered together. And I get that ENR -- or ECC now is a very technical type department; however, a lot of that work that's being done there is so important when it comes to traditional knowledge and Indigenous people that I feel like we -- you know, it would be nice to know what all is being done in one place at some point to sort of look at or analyze the spending in this department and see actually -- and not just from a like how can we do it better, but how good are we doing it, you know, and maybe being a good news story about further conversation around our regulatory process and how we do involve the peoples whose land it actually is. Thank you.

March 7th

Page 5713

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister.

March 7th

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Shane Thompson Nahendeh

It's going to the deputy minister. Thank you.

March 7th

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The Chair Lesa Semmler

Okay. Deputy minister.

March 7th

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Dr. Kelly

Thank you, Madam Chair. So we do have a traditional knowledge annual report, and one of the functions that ENR has right now that will be part of ECC is the coordination for traditional knowledge reporting for the whole of the GNWT. And we're working on a traditional knowledge action plan that we have input from Indigenous governments and Indigenous people across the Northwest Territories that will be -- we're looking at for the end of this year, which will also help with that.

There are traditional knowledge line items kind of peppered throughout the main estimates here so you can see where the department is working on it. But those two pieces are where they're kind of pulled together, the work that's being done on TK within the department and also among all GNWT departments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

March 7th

Page 5713

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

March 7th

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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, and I really do appreciate that, and I obviously need to get my hands on the latest traditional knowledge report and see so that I can speak better to it.

I guess I do want to come back a little bit to the spill that did occur in Alberta that we weren't notified about. Is there a mechanism in place -- I guess, first of all, was the spill reported through their own mechanisms that we have such as the 24-hour spill report line? So were they following the regulatory process and if so, is there some way that someone in our department or our government is checking that, or do we just only rely on them notifying us? Thank you.

Debates of March 7th, 2023

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