This is page numbers 6257 - 6302 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

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that information. So I know that the government -- and I think we've had this discussion in the House, the government does get federal funding to fly in dentists into small communities so that they are able to get dental care into the communities. And I'm just wondering, and I did send the Minister, like, the approval, what's authorized. And I'm just going to -- I'm not going to worry about 17 and over right now, even though that is a big issue, but 17 and under, like a recall exam/polishing is one in every six months. So I'm just wondering if the dentists that we're consulting and with the hygienists, are we even meeting these needs for our Indigenous communities, our kids under 17 in our communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that what the Member is talking about is the contracting that GNWT does on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada for NIHB. And so we let those contracts and they are primarily for travel costs - they are for travel costs. The dentist needs to get approval from NIHB for the services provided. And in terms of the services that they do provide, as the Member knows there is a pre-approval process, and the dentists make their own determination of what service is most required by the patient. That's not something that we have oversight over. Although I will say we license dentists and we also supervise the complaint process. But in terms of what the dentist decides to do with the patient in the chair, that's on the dentist. Thank you.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so, Mr. Speaker, you know, I could -- you know, I could highlight in probably three Member's statements on the article that I read and the history of dental therapy in Canada, and it looked at how Indigenous communities were lacking any oral preventative services. And so they came up with plans, and the plans were to train locals, send them back to their communities, and here we are again with no dental therapy schools and, you know, we've got a bill in front of the Minister. So now I just want to know if the Minister will look at other ways to ensure that preventative care is being completed in all communities and are making sure that these targets are met in all these communities that NIHB has outlined in what their approval schedule is for this? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question. I think the first thing that we need to do is meet the benchmark of two visits to each school each year. That would be a great start. We have had real trouble recruiting both dentists and dental hygienists in the Northwest Territories. And we have, of course, not given up on doing that but when we put out the requests for proposal in March, we got zero results. And the result is of that is that we are severely underserved by dental health specialists, and that's across the board. And I know that people can go to their health centre and ask to have service in a location where a dentist is and have their medical travel paid there. That's not a great solution, but it is one potential solution. It's not helped by the fact that in Inuvik, the dental clinic seems to be staffed intermittently and by locums. It's difficult to have a continuity of service there.

So I recognize that this has had an impact on preventative care, and it's a problem. If the Member has any ideas about how we can do more to recruit dentists and fill those contracts with -- pardon me, recruit dental hygienists to do the school work, even on a locum basis, and how to attract dentists to doing this work, I'm certainly very interested to hear it. And I'll look up the website on the history of dental therapy.

I don't really understand why this profession has fallen by the wayside and has been taken over by dental hygienists. I think there's some scope of practice issues there. I did hear however, last week, that the University of Saskatchewan was considering relaunching their dental therapy school which might, in the end, be of benefit to us. Thank you.

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 Environment and Climate Change on the review of the Project Assessment Policy. The Minister committed to have the review completed in December of 2022 in response to my written questions in March of 2022.

Can the Minister tell us the status of that review and whether the work to revise this antiquated and regressive policy will be done in the 19th Assembly? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Environment and Climate Change.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

I could quickly say yes but expand it a little bit further. The Member is correct; the Department of Lands had completed an initial review of the Project Assessment Policy when we merged lands and ENR. Further work on the policy has continued through the Department of ECC. And as I've said the Project Assessment Policy will be revised before the end of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. Well, that's the good news. I'm just kind of waiting for the bad news now, but. In response to the written question I submitted in the House in March, the Minister said there would not be any public engagement work with Indigenous governments on the review of the policy. We have, you know, public engagements on such mundane matters as renaming the old Stanton Hospital, a product survey, you know, for liquor and cannabis, but we're not going to ask the public about how GNWT should be involved in environmental assessment of major projects? I just don't get it.

Can the Minister explain why the department does not want to seek public input into revising the Project Assessment Policy? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct, in my written response I said no, we're not going to do public. But, Mr. Speaker, the Project Assessment Policy already exists and is being updated based on feedback and concerns shared by boards, IGIOs, and the public, during the Tlicho All-Season Road and the Giant Mine process. The Project Assessment Policy is an internal policy that defines how the GNWT works internally among departments for project assessments and will continue where the government is the proponent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. So a key feature of the devolution agreement was the establishment of an Intergovernmental Council to allow the public and Indigenous governments to corporate and collaborate on matters related to lands and resources management. And, Mr. Speaker, that sentence is taken directly from the IGC website.

So can the Minister explain why his department does not intend to work with Intergovernmental Council in reviewing the Project Assessment Policy? Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated just on the last question, this policy defines how the GNWT works internally for the project assessments. Again, it's an internal document. The policy is, again, about the GNWT's -- on how the GNWT organizes work together among departments for environmental assessments prior to making any submissions to co-management boards. 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. This may be an internal document, but it's public interest. I've raised this numerous times in the House, and it does involve expenditure of public monies as well. You know, this government has taken a keen interest in large infrastructure projects; it seemed part of Cabinet's mandate. GNWT's going to increasingly become a proponent in environmental assessment. And this Project Assessment Policy seems to be aimed at controlling the presentation of evidence and expert opinion that is not consistent with Cabinet's views.

So can the Minister tell us whether this government is really committed to evidence-based decisions and how will that be implemented in the context of GNWT-sponsored projects and related decision-making? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for the question. The government is committed to evidence-based decisions. There is nothing in the Project Assessment Policy that prevents the presentation of evidence or expert opinions in the co-management process. Currently the GNWT, led by the Department of ECC, is working to define how the GNWT can be more transparent in environmental assessments, including decision-making of the GNWT projects. 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. My questions are for the Minister responsible for housing. Can the Minister tell us when the Fort Good Hope Seniors Centre is going to open? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, thank you, to the Member for this question. I know he's been advocating, and he's been asking the question over and over. And I just want a drum roll. I'm excited, I am happy to say the nine-plex in Fort Good Hope, the seniors complex, will be open and people are moving in tomorrow. So we did stick to our date of June 1st. And we won't be having an official opening. We've already had that already, as the Member had said.

And I want to thank the Member for constantly advocating because seniors in the Northwest Territories is very important. We need to get units in the smaller communities as well. Also the staff as well for looking at this project, the Sahtu district office, the local housing authority. The community is very excited and very happy for this to come forward. And also, I'm very happy to fulfill one of the Member's questions and what he was bringing forward. So we've met the date of June 1st. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very happy to hear that, and I'm sure all of the people moving in tomorrow are even happier. Great news.

I guess my question, in a bit more serious tone though, is that this has taken a couple of years. We still haven't, on the public record, figured out exactly what happened. I know there were some contractor disputes. There were some inspection issues. But do we have a figure now about what all of this cost us in extra dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for asking the question. But I just don't want to shed any -- I don't want to take away the excitement. But the project originally cost us $3.5 million. But we learned a lot of issues that we could have dealt with prior to a project like this rolling out. We do support local contractors. We do support building capacity. And unfortunately, in this case, we did see some issues that we could have addressed earlier. We own it as Housing NWT. We owe it to be supporting local businesses. This does not discourage us in going forward. But presently, this project is tied up in litigation right now. And it's going back and forth. I just don't want to take that away but just reassure the public and reassure the Member, housing has learned from this, and we will be improving our relationship with our local contractors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Question 1551-19(2): Fort Good Hope Seniors' Centre
Oral Questions

May 31st, 2023

Page 6266

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recognize that when there's contractor litigation that, you know, we don't quite know that. I guess I'm looking for a commitment that at some point the housing could release some public information on this. What we often do is we sign NDAs and we add a few more million dollars on to the project and then no one will say anything about that. And it's happened many times in this Assembly, and I would not want this to be a case. I think it is a project that is -- the Minister said there are lessons learned. I would like to see what those lessons learned. And I think that at the end of the day, we owe it to public to know what the final dollar figure was on this building. So can the Minister take that back and try to find a way that we will actually say, at some point, what this cost us in millions of dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. And like several of our programs -- I mean, our infrastructure builds throughout the Northwest Territories, I also want to acknowledge that we are still able to commence construction even during COVID and the restrictions, and I'm proud to say that housing was able to fulfill this contract and being able to get this build completed and done. And also recognizing that this number is not going to be $3.5 million. It's going to increase obviously. And those numbers and this situation is brought before the courts. Once a decision is made, I will be able to provide that information to the Member but it's not going to be by the time we're done this government. But it will be provided. And like I had said that we have learned a lot of lessons during this process as well too. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Richard Edjericon

Richard Edjericon Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to let you know that I'll be tabling my Member's statement and questions tomorrow as written statements -- written questions so I could get my questions answered because I didn't get a full answer here today. But, again, I just want to add one question to the Premier that I'd like to have that commitment.