Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. I will take that last as a comment. Are there any further questions? Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the Minister made a comment or somebody made a comment on lessons learned on projects. We have seen the Deh Cho Bridge, the highway out at Behchoko is going ahead, and we hear problems there, and there are probably other ones out there, as well. Over the years, we seem to always go back to lessons learned, but I don't know if we ever learn any lessons, to tell you the truth, or, if we do, we forget them pretty quickly. I just want to know what your department is doing; what are you doing with the information from lessons learned? Give me some examples or something that tells me that you guys, that the department, has actually learned something. Can you do that? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, considering I have only been here for eight months, I do not have a delta. I can't look at what it was before and say: this is how it's changed to here. However, I can tell you I have already learned lessons from projects I had nothing to do with the contracting of, for example, the Member's comments about the TASR, about Rae access, other things such as that, so I can guarantee to you that I am personally learning lessons and I will be incorporating those. I will turn it over to Dr. Dragon, though, to speak to the department's more formalized lessons learned planning. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think, as a lifelong learner and coming into this department, one of the opportunities that we have is to be able to look at all of the different facets of the department and where we can do a better job. I think something where we can point to where we actually learned from something was recently when we did the Rae Access Road. In that situation, again the criteria to go through and select which home community was selected was based on what the department had been doing for a number of years, and so, when it was brought to the attention within my staff, what we did was we now have revisited all those internal procedures. We have put a directive to all of our contract administrators that review all of the outgoing tenders now to confirm the appropriate BIP local communities that have been selected in the system. I think it shows that you can learn, and the opportunity that we have within infrastructure is we have a lot of projects, there is a lot of activity, and a lot of benefit for the North. We want to make sure that continues, and, by learning some things like that, we are able now to effectuate that change. It was unfortunate that it happened, but we were able to correct it very quickly, and now it has changed the procedure within the department. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess, you know, again going back to lessons learned, I was talking to somebody today, and on the Whati road there is in excess of $200 million worth of work, and right now my understanding is that it's less than 10 percent northern, and, of that 10 percent, most of it is diesel fuel and just flow-through type goods. What have we learned, I guess, if that's what is happening? Maybe I am off-base, but I would like to hear what you have to say on that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to admit that I am not familiar with the context of what you are saying, to give you the more fulsome answer, but I commit to looking into it; I will take that back. Again, I think I want to reiterate the commitment that I personally have and that I am directing my department, that we need to start doing things differently and that we do have to have things stay in the North and Northerners working. Even if it's more painful for us as a department to ensure that that work is staying, we need to do it. That is the messaging I am giving my department. How long it's going to take to change a department of -- I don't know how many people work in our department, which maybe I should know; I can probably look on my page here, but it's a big, big department. It is going to take some time for my new corporate messaging to filter down and become the reality of what they are doing, and that is going to be a learning experience, and the lessons learned is part of that.
I can tell you that there are times where I butt heads, where I am saying, "This has to change," and these are the conversations that Dr. Dragon and I are having. The other part is that both of us being new to a department that is very set in its ways is actually a really good thing, I think. I already see Dr. Dragon's influence in changing how things are going. I see the people who he has brought in, has promoted to an ADM position, an Indigenous, Aboriginal person, and that person has more than excelled during COVID-19. I see those impacts of new leadership in the Department of Infrastructure already. I commit that that is going to continue on for the next three years. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I just want to touch on what MLA Bonnetrouge alluded to, which is, you know, fairness I guess in the department when it comes to advancement, job opportunities and that type of thing. We are in the smaller communities. We know the BS that goes on. We know the reality of what happens. The fairness, sometimes it's there. A lot of times it's not. It can still be an old boys' club, for lack of better words, and I would like to know how your department is looking at addressing that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The last 13 years of my life, I have been a woman in a non-traditional role, and I now am in charge of a department that is full of those exact people. That is the profession that I have been trying to change, myself, personally, for many years, so I am well aware of that. Unfortunately, a lot of these technical positions are traditionally male-dominated positions. We have problems with getting Indigenous people into sciences, and it's not from a lack of capacity or ability. It is a lack of our education system. This is all the conversation we are having around, and I am not trying to throw the ECE Minister under the bus. We are all new. I do not hold him responsible for that.
However, this is a problem that is very systemic to the Northwest Territories and a conversation that I have had since the first day I got up here: if we want to have a successful North, we need to have Northerners making the decisions and doing the work, and that includes in the technical and the skilled sets, too, not just the labour. All I can say is, again, this is a huge, I don't want to call it a pet, but it's a huge focus of me and why I'm sitting in this seat, and I can tell you that those guys sitting over there are going to be hearing it for the next three years about getting rid of that old boy's club and changing that mentality. Sorry, Joe. All I can say is commit to you that it is going to be ongoing. I will actually task the department right now re: coming back to the Member with what are they doing to increase diversification in the department. Let's make it more politically correct. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I wasn't pleased about the comment you made about the Minister of ECE.
---Laughter
Anyway, one thing that is important, though, is service. One thing that I've noticed the government lacking is that we tend to forget that we're there to provide a service to the people of the NWT and not the other way around. I'm hoping to see that change over the term of this Assembly. I'm just wondering: how do you see that? How do you see us providing that service and how can we change it so that we're there to help them solve problems and assist them in building capacity, assisting them, getting contracts, and that type of thing? You can comment. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to hand this over to Dr. Dragon. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think one of the reflections that I can give to committee in coming into a large department like Infrastructure, first of all, very much regionally based. The department is, I think, 53 or 54 percent regionally based in terms of positions. A lot of the money that we have in Infrastructure is regionally based funding. I think it's a very positive picture, there. I think one of the big reflections that I have is that, within Infrastructure, we have a lot of really dedicated employees that continue to do an exceptional job at their specific area. However, we're not strong on communications. It's one of the big things that I'm looking at in the department, how do we create more opportunities to see what the department is doing.
Again, as the Minister was mentioning, we have a lot of very specific professions. We have engineers; we have very specific tradespeople. We're looking at training programs so that we increase the Indigenous representation within our workforce, but right now, again, overall workplace representation within Infrastructure and Indigenous-Aboriginal is 45.2 percent. It's a strong one in terms of the numbers and, if you talk about in terms of our number of employees, total, we get close to, if you talk about all the revolving funds and everything, we're at about 600 employees. That's a lot of Indigenous-Aboriginals that we're putting into a lot of these categories.
The last thing I'll say is, when we're bringing in summer students, on average, we're bringing in about 60 summer students. This year is a little lower just because of COVID, but what we're seeing now is a representation that's more of a 50-50 in terms of women and men, which is a very strong, positive change. In terms of the old boys' club, I'm not sure if it's an old boys' club or just a lot of people trying to do really good work. I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. I'm just going to give it to the Minister to have just one last comment and then we're going to move on.
My apologies, I remembered what I was going to say. One of the things I've had a conversation with Joe about is that I would like to see some of the pathfinder-type service that we do in ITI start up in Infrastructure. I think we can learn some lessons. ITI does a very good pathfinding program, particularly around our mineral and resource sector. I'm going to look to have Dr. Dragon start implementing that. I also told him that, even if it's painful, people have to start answering their emails, because this has actually been something I have had from a lot of people, that a lot of Infrastructure is not great at answering emails. That is a directive that I have given to Joe and Joe has given to his staff. If they don't want to answer emails because email conversations are becoming adversarial, then they can escalate that to us in management and we will take that role on, because I'm not going to subject employees to that. However, they can't just ignore the situation and that is a conversation we have been having. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. All right, we will now turn to page 231, Infrastructure, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, 2020-2021 Main Estimates, $11,263,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. We will move on to programs and services, beginning on page 234, with information on pages up to 238. Questions? Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
One answer I think that is going to probably have a big bearing on a lot of other departments and even Infrastructure, I notice here, is fuel services. One of the little bit of bright light and good news that we got through all this is the effect of the market forces on fuel prices. We've seen that go down quite a bit. Right now, we're going to be looking at delivering fuel to our isolated communities. It affects places like Lutselk'e right up to Nunakput, all that area up the river. It affects GNWT vehicles right across the board. So many places this will affect. My quick question is: have these forecasts been adjusted for new fuel prices as they are right now because of the low fuel prices? Masi cho.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. No, because, as mentioned before, this is the snapshot pre-COVID. It hasn't been adjusted at this point. I think you could expect that you would see an adjustment in next year's estimates based on COVID. Further to that, if you would like to have a further conversation on the fuel services, I would commit to offering my department for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
I do know that, also, we did have some online conversations about the fuel prices in Lutselk'e. I know that there was a point of contention, I guess, with the community, that their prices were so high like everybody else in the North and pay the lower price, and there are a lot of factors that go into that, and I know that they get fuel delivered once a year. Again, I just want to see if we get some commitment from the Minister and the department that we can see favourable change to these prices in the near future, I guess. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we buy at market, we sell at market, so you will see that change. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Nothing further.
Are there other questions under the programs and services? Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm looking at page 236, the contributions, Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund. There was an amount for last year for active forestry carbon sequestration, $414,000. What did we actually get for that money? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This one I will ask Dr. Dragon to answer, please.
Thank you. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The active carbon sequestration in forestry is done with the Department of ENR. This looks at efforts intended to maximize forest growth and, over the next five years, we'll have 120 hectares that will be selected for forest regeneration and 60 hectares for thinning. In terms of the season, I know that they got a late start last year. They're looking for more of a robust season this year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess we're fortunate the deputy minister knows the deputy minister who served before in ENR. Is this like a scientific study, and who is actually carrying out the work? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This program is actually being utilized, I think they're using one of the universities, as well, to be a part of this project, but it's a contractor that they are having going in. Again, the site assessments occurred last year, and then the one for thinning and the other one for planting, the majority of the field work, if we look at one of the considerations of COVID, this might be it. Whether or not we could still do the field season or not, I think that's getting an update from the Department of ENR. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess I would like to be kept in the loop. If the Minister could commit to providing an update as to whether that work goes ahead or not, I would appreciate that. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We commit to doing so. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I also have some questions about the large-scale commercial and industrial something-or-other related to the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund. As I recall, there was some kind of proposal submitted to basically give money to industry that did not meet initially with Environment and Climate Change Canada's approval the first time around, so they had to go back and renegotiate something. What is this program all about? If they have to provide details offline, I guess I would appreciate it, but I don't, sort of, ever recall seeing a request for submissions or applications or proposals or whatever. What is this program all about? Who is administering it, and has it actually started to roll out publicly? Thanks, Madam Chair.
