Ronald Bonnetrouge

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a return to oral question from March 29th, 2021, in which the Minister stated that they're currently developing their own threeyear energy action plan to be released in the spring. The plan would include, you know, costeffective residential biomass system investments in other NWT communities.

Mr. Speaker, I've grown cobwebs waiting for the report. This is really I'm just wondering from the Minister, because they were working on it and currently developing, it said at that time, why nothing was progressed on this file at all? Mahsi.

Mahsi for that. I'm just wondering which organizations you would work with in the communities to advance this. It sounds like, you know, a really well thought out program to really encourage speakers with languages. I'd want to know what you actually pay the mentor for their services but I'm just wondering if their you know, if you've had lots of turnovers in this and whether there was any complaints about any of the pay, because I don't know what they're getting paid right now. Mahsi.

Madam Chair, I'm just wondering if this is the section where we can discuss the curriculum change? No? I'm booted out then.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a week ago today I raised the mandatory vaccination policy. The GNWT has its own, but the thing with the mandatory vaccination policy it stems from the federal government and usually all provinces or territories mirror federal government policies. And so it spread into the Northwest Territories and the Northwest Territories modified theirs and called it COVID19 vaccination policy. And within that policy, employees were required to be fully vaccinated by January 31st, 2022, or they risk losing their jobs. That's not false; it's there. You just got to read...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wasn't quite clear on what the Minister stated about the unvaccinated population, whether they're given the options to do all the testing regardless of the facilities that they would have to enter. If I could get that clarity. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. On the issue of the mandatory vaccinations policy, or COVID19 vaccinations policy, the mandatory vaccinations list, I note that from the amended vaccination policy guidelines, that the definition of COVID19 is the coronavirus. That was at the beginning of the whole outbreak in 2020. This has not been updated to include the omicron variant and the science behind the omicron variant. There's nothing. I've never seen it since the omicron came out. There's no science to say what will work to cure it except to stay home. And it didn't distinguish, and I say it again, between...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for that answer. My concern here is, and I mentioned it several times, because one of the requirements is it's saying to work in a RCMP facility, it's federally regulated all right. I know about the flights and that; I wasn't alluding to any flights. But for the facilities, like in my community we have a facility the settlement maintainer can't go into there. But employees out of Hay River who typically and normally, perhaps on a weekly basis, do come into our communities anyways. I'm just wondering if those employees can cover that facility and...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi to the Minister for that. I think we can argue this all day if we wanted. But anyways, I think my question was can we make any allowances for the settlement maintainers in the small communities who aren't vaccinated, you know, to not work in the RCMP facilities but to have people from the regional centres come in to do those duties? Because even what she' saying, I'm just not clear yet, you know. I'm not sure if I read somewhere where we're getting rid of the vaccine passport for travel. I don't know why they would do it there. But I don't know if she can reiterate if...

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I've got questions under the apprentices. I want to first thank the Minister and her department for initiating the journeyman housing maintainer program. Our maintenance staff in Providence are really looking forward to it.

What we notice too, because I was an employee of the LHO in the maintenance department too as a journeyman housing maintainer, but when we were there, we always looked in awe at the Department of Public Works and Services at that time, and it was always in the larger centres. Specifically this one we were looking at was in Hay River. They had a full slate...

Does committee agree?