Mr. Speaker, can the Minister also commit to using their learning centre building in Fort Resolution as a traditional knowledge learning centre, also in Lutselk'e? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said to the Member I'm very happy to have these conversations, but to be honest I think having these conversations are a huge opportunity for the territory in figuring out what really is needed within communities, and I'm excited to be able to kind of share with this House what that next step looks like and certainly won't be doing that in isolation on my own. This is certainly a Northwest Territories conversation and, more specifically, a community conversation, and I really look forward to having those. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, further to my statement.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise whether the Department of ECE or the Aurora College board has considered a partnership with the department of MACA school of community government to broaden training? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Having just received this report that was given to me by the Member, you know, it's an interesting concept. What I can say right now is no departments have communicated in regard to his Member's statement. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I apologize to the Minister in getting this request in late here. However, we can move on.
My second question, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to asking the Aurora College board to consider adopting a new regional community learning centre strategy run from centres in Hay River, Fort Simpson, and Norman Wells? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think this is an interesting concept. I think there's an opportunity, and there's been a few brought up over the last little while, but I think there's opportunities to use these community learning centres, and I think it's also an opportunity for my department to sit down with ECE and discuss other opportunities and maybe something comes along the lines as what the Minister's statement was getting at and the document that he provided me with earlier. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for acknowledging that we're open for advancing forward on a model designed by community participation.
My third question there, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to asking the Aurora board to consider reassigning the current full-time community adult educators who previously taught at community learning centres, or CLCs, in small communities? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just about had me confused too with Minister of education here, but.
Our community learning development centre specializes in a lot of municipal community government training. We specialize in -- the department specializes in the water treatment plant operating certificate, community government learning. So that's, you know, basically all we do within the community governance side so I'm interested in, you know, potentially sitting down with either departments and trying to figure out an opportunity to expand these and maybe working together with ECE to figure out how we can incorporate these. But at this time, I'm not able to basically commit to go to Aurora College board to take over these CLCs and anything like that. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in Committee of the Whole, the Minister of health said that this $100,000 of funding that was cut to the shelter network had to do with their ability to do online training. So my question is, does the Minister believe that training in trauma-informed practices can sufficiently be done through Zoom? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this funding was -- I believe has been around for a bit, and what it has been used historically was for training. Recently, most recently, this -- the portion of this funding was used to develop online training modules and so, therefore, you know, we all know in this House, you know, many of us have used virtual meeting spaces, virtual tools to do a lot of our meetings. You know, I have meetings on many things right across Canada with other health Ministers. The other piece of this is that this work on the modules, training modules, are fully paid for, so they will be highlighted, the first two modules, and the rest of the modules are still to be developed, but that -- like I said, those are fully paid for. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the shelter network funding is used for more than training. It's also used for sector-based meetings and gatherings in person. Does the Minister believe that in-person connections for a sensitive sector such as this are not necessary? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My staff have just recently, as of February 7th, met with the shelter network and have reported to me that the shelter network has used this funding to have face-to-face meetings, multiple face-to-face meetings throughout the year. In recent discussion with the shelter network, the staff have confirmed that the biggest gap by the loss of this funding is around these in-person meetings. I understand that it's not ideal for face-to-face meetings. You know, we have a huge geographic territory, and the cost of moving people around in the territory has become significant. And so trauma informed training can be appropriate for virtual environments, but the department is also committed to working with -- you know, to supporting the networks to find ways for them to support each other in their communities, within their own networks, within the community networks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, the building shelter capacity funding for the $100,000 that we're talking about today was not used to develop the training that the Minister talked about earlier. That's separate funding that the YWCA secured through Women's Shelter Canada.
But my question to the Minister would be that, you know, since the NWT has the second highest rate of family-based violence in the country, families turn to shelters and safe homes more than we want them to, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to working with the Minister to reinstate this funding? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, this is a very sensitive topic for many families in the Northwest Territories, myself personally, Mr. Speaker. However, when we have funds with -- that we are supporting many NGOs throughout the Northwest Territories and many different sectors, we have -- you know, we look at how we're getting the funding. And one of the things that we've had to do is look at how we're getting funding and so, currently, the department invests $3.85 million annually to fund the family violence shelters in the Northwest Territories. Through the department, they also fund $1.36 million to support funding to the shelters. And so, you know, there's a lot of money going into the shelters. And we can say with all of our NGOs that, yes, it's probably not enough. Every single NGO and the work that they do could use more money, you know, and I think that's the thing that we're trying to do, is we're trying to use every little federal piece of dollars that we can do, find, to support some of those NGOs. So although, you know -- what I'd like to say is that we are continuing to find ways to work together with NGOs and to support them but, however, you know, this is the funding that has been allocated for this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member's statement, there's a number of houses that are beyond repair within the Northwest Territories specifically referring to the Mackenzie Delta ridings. Does the department know how much of these houses that are not liveable anymore that belong to Housing NWT that are situated in the three communities of the Mackenzie Delta riding? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Mackenzie Delta. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. His concern is my concern because living in small community, you drive around, you walk around, you see many units within the community that are boarded up or that have no windows or busted up windows. So this is something that we are working towards as Housing NWT is working within our community, working with Indigenous governments, to either remediate or demolish or modernize these homes.
So in terms of the question from the Member, we have 293 units in the Mackenzie Delta riding. 265 are occupied. We have one that is surplused, approved for demo. We have four that are approved for sale. We have three that are ready for occupancy. Four, repairs in progress. And we have 16 that require repairs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to thank the Minister for the detailed answer. You know, we have companies within the region of Mackenzie Delta that can conduct these demolitions. Will the Minister look at acting on the concern and have these hazards removed before an accident happens? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I completely agree that we need to remove many of these boarded up or derelict buildings. The situation is it's hard to get money for housing. It's even more difficult to remediate or demolish older housing units. Our budget for Housing NWT is $500,000 a year. We have 2900 units across the North. It costs up to $50,000 to remediate or demolish a unit considering the contaminants or the age of the unit, the space within the solid waste site, and sometimes we have to ship that material south. So it could be difficult but we are willing to look at partnerships. We are willing to look at arrangements. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Final supplementary. Member from Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, it is quite hard to look at removing some of these units because of the contaminants that are in there but, you know, they work with the Indigenous governments, with these local contractors, maybe something -- we can find something out.
Can the Minister commit to a timeframe as to when these projects can commence within the Mackenzie Delta region; hopefully this calendar year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I'm willing to commit to meet with the Member to discuss this further. We do have funding available. It's called the community housing initiative funding. We could work with Indigenous governments or local government or bands to look at some of these opportunities and perhaps advance them in his riding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Oral questions. Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member's statement, the questions, how many Indigenous employees have been hired through the career gateway program in the last fiscal year, specifically in the Deh Cho riding? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Deh Cho. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd be very happy to get that breakdown of information. The career development program -- or gateway program has been quite successful. It's now went from being undersubscribed to oversubscribed which is a problem we like to have. But I don't have the numbers in front of me. I will certainly get them to the Member quite quickly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Department of Finance track how many Indigenous employees enter the public service through the career gateway program tracking their progressions into senior positions in the public service? In other words, are we seeing development and succession for these employees? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do track, again, folks who are coming in through the Indigenous Career Gateway Program. The degree to which we might be tracking their succession thereafter that, I'll have to double check, Mr. Speaker. I can say that only as recently as June of 2023, until then we did not have a formal succession plan within the human resources, not even a formal strategic plan for human resources. So I appreciate the question. That's exactly getting to one of the things we are trying to now do, and we do now have, as I say, a succession planning document focused on ensuring that we are, in fact, bringing Indigenous employees through succession planning so that they are moving through exactly that. So I suspect we are, based on that, doing that tracking, and I'll get those numbers, assuming they're available, to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. What other approaches is the GNWT taking to reduce barriers to Indigenous recruitment and retention into the public service? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we had launched a few years ago the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework of it and that had two key goals associated with it. The one is to increase Indigenous representation, full stop, in the public service. A number of goals and a number of actions therein, everything from creating and ensuring that there's employment opportunities, that there are no barriers, speaking with the Indigenous Employees Advisory Committee about what barriers they may observe, putting in Indigenous employment plans for every department. Different departments have different types of needs, different types of employees. ECC employees out on the ground might have very different circumstances from ITI, and wanted to get at what barriers this are for each department in not having more representation.
The second goal, Mr. Speaker, is to increase Indigenous leadership. So, Mr. Speaker, what I'd like to suggest is I'll commit to getting an update on where we are with all of those action items and have that to the Member or to the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services following up on my statement.
So child and family services has a category called neglect which is one basis for reporting mistreatment to CFS and sometimes results in apprehension of children from their homes. Is there a clear definition of neglect either in legislation or policy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll have to follow up with the Member. Thank you.
Fair enough. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do look forward to the answer on that, actually.
And with regard to plan of care agreements, they're listed as a preventative measure and yet they're increasingly used to remove children temporarily from their homes, but that can be for up to two years. So what is the Minister doing to ensure that there is proper oversight and proper legal protections for children and their families who are subject to plan of care agreements? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, plan of care agreements are not necessarily agreements that remove children from their home. Plan of care agreements within the child and family services are where the family agrees that child and family services will support the family. Depending on their situation, you know, I can't speak to when it's deemed necessary to remove that child from the home. If they're -- you know, but the reason that a lot of the plan of cares have gone up is because more people are accessing support which, in my eyes, is what I've been trying to say, even as a Regular Member, is that this program should be more supportive and the way to access services within this is to meet with a child and family services worker, to be assessed, to get the support, and work with a family preservation worker. Sometimes there are, you know, situations where, you know, family members may want to better themselves and they go away, and those children stay with family members. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
