Rocky Simpson

Mr. Speaker, Indigenous representation of public sector in 13 communities in declining. Will the Minister tell me how will the department turn this around? Would decentralization of some positions be part of the solution? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, statistics going back to 1985, when the native employment policy was first used, confirms that the affirmative action policy has done little to move the needle beyond the 30 percent Indigenous participation in the public sector.

Mr. Speaker, the current definition of Indigenous person in the current affirmative action policy, in part, includes Aboriginal persons resident at birth pursuant to section 23 of the Vital Statistics Act, and any Canadian Aboriginal persons who have lived more than half their life in the Northwest Territories. Now this group is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about NTPC. I want to take about aging infrastructure that NTPC has. I want to talk about frequent power outages. And I want to talk about temporary backup power. But my questions aren't for the Minister of NTPC; it's for the Minister of housing.

Mr. Speaker, during an extended power outage, what backup power is available to housing units owned by Housing NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One thing I haven't really heard, I guess, in the news or from the department is the involvement of the Indigenous governments in the territories who you know, who have comprehensive agreements signed. And in those agreements, you know, they have some, you know, water rights and, you know, the right to, you know, quantity and quality of water as well. So what discussions have been taking place with Indigenous governments within the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And the minister in I think in the media there had indicated that they would be using a dispute mechanism. And I'm just wondering, you know, how or if that mechanism has been used and how it will be used in this instance with the Kearl spill. Thank you.

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...

Thank you, Madam Chair. One thing I haven't really heard, I guess, in the news or from the department is the involvement of the Indigenous governments in the territories who you know, who have comprehensive agreements signed. And in those agreements, you know, they have some, you know, water rights and, you know, the right to, you know, quantity and quality of water as well. So what discussions have been taking place with Indigenous governments within the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And the minister in I think in the media there had indicated that they would be using a dispute mechanism. And I'm just wondering, you know, how or if that mechanism has been used and how it will be used in this instance with the Kearl spill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, although I understand the intent of this bill, as a politician for me it's never been about the money. It's about doing what's right for the people. And also, you know, we have to understand that, you know or to understand what people are going through, we almost have to live that as well. And there's a lot of people out there that I know that are struggling that I you know, I provided money to and I provided other supports as well. And, you know, I still kind of, you know, make ends meet. So I guess what I'm trying to what I'm going to do is introduce a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And would the Minister consider having her department look at actually building, you know, that right into the new units that are that will be coming on stream or going forward? Thank you.