Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For many years, it's been the policy of this government to support direct payments for housing, the funding, to Indigenous governments from the federal government, so we will continue to do that. I'm happy to support Indigenous governments in their advocacy to the federal government. I never want to stand in the way of funds flowing directly to Indigenous governments. So I want to make that very clear. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And some of the programs that was provided back in the early days was programs like the homeownership assistance program, the home improvement -- the homeownership improvement program, the senior citizens home repair program, emergency repair program, and they also provided public housing. And so, Mr. Speaker, and it would be -- will the Premier advocate for restoring and reinstating these programs in partnership with the federal Government of Canada and ensure the use of that -- these funds for the delivery is directed to regional Indigenous governments? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, we have a number of those programs. I'm not -- I won't say I'm an expert on past programs from previous decades, so I don't want to speak too much into that. But we are advocating to the federal government when it comes to housing. We're happy to see money go to Indigenous governments.
I'll also mention that the GNWT provides a lot of social housing in the territory, and we also meet our own funds. So we are doing that as well to advocate for a renewed agreement with the federal government where we'll see increased funding to support social housing at the same time that we are supporting Indigenous governments to access funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you know, some of the policies that are in place in government now sometimes don't really meet some of the community needs. So, Mr. Speaker, with CMHC funding set to expire with Housing NWT by 2038, there's an urgent need to build capacity with Indigenous governments immediately so they can deliver and manage their own housing.
Will the Premier work to ensure that the annual federal public housing funding, along with the operational maintenance support from CMHC, is directed to regional Indigenous governments so they can begin building and maintaining their own public housing units? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is why it's so important to settle land claims and implement self-government agreements, so that Indigenous governments can begin providing, you know, appropriate social housing, if that's what they wish to do. In the meantime, the Government of the Northwest Territories provides social housing, and so we need to ensure that we have an agreement with the federal government that is supporting our ability to provide that social housing. And like I said before, at the same time, we'll support Indigenous governments in their aspirations around housing as well, and we'll do that by going to Ottawa together and advocating together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, over one year ago, just a few months after Alberta's government announced proposed changes to gender affirming care, Northern Mosaic Network reached out to Minister Semmler to get answers to questions. The community members shared with that organization about how to access -- how their access to gender affirming care would be impacted.
So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain what actions she has taken to -- since then, to address the concerns of our 2SLGBTQIAA+ community members on access to safe health care out-of-territory? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first, I want to assure NWT residents that health care services for transgender individuals, including children and youth, will continue to be available within our health system. If the Northwest Territories clinical experts in transgender care cannot meet the needs of the residents, a referral can be made to an out-of-territory practitioner. What I have taken -- steps I've taken is to ensure that concrete steps to a safeguard access for NWT residents are put in place. I have directed my department to secure alternate out-of-territory care pathways for these individuals, meaning when a service is not available to the Northwest Territories -- to a Northwest Territories resident in the Northwest Territories or Alberta, physicians will refer patients to a jurisdiction where they may continue to receive the care they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. Mr. Speaker, considering that the Alberta Premier's visit to Yellowknife for the western Premiers' conference, the Northern Mosaic Network has reached out to both the Premier and the Minister to collaborate on an action plan to address the state of trans health care for NWT residents. And I'm so glad to hear that she has directed her department to secure alternative pathways. However, will the Minister also commit to meaningful collaboration with Northern Mosaic Network on trans health care for NWT residents? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, yes, but I'd like to explain a little bit more. So we are already -- we have an established working relationship with the Northern Mosaic Network. They helped draft the Northwest Territories guidelines in 2020 and in April 2024, representatives from ECE met with Northern Mosaic Network to discuss and review an update of those guidelines which will incorporate new research that they're conducting with the University of Manitoba. And we look forward to seeing the recommendations that come from this work, and I am fully committed to continuing our collaboration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government has noted the importance of stabilizing operations in Enterprise. Can the Minister of MACA explain what goals or targets community services would have to meet in order for the department to be satisfied that the governance and financial issues facing the hamlet have been resolved? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Deh Cho. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First off, I would like to say that, you know, it's a last resort to put a government under public administration with the GNWT, and we've worked with the community many times throughout the last few years, including before our Assembly started, in order to maintain the government structure of Enterprise. So this isn't a new issue. This is a longstanding issue within the community.
So right now we're working with the public administrator who's in place right now to determine an action plan on what our processes are and how we're going to move through that. So one of the main issues is getting ahold of the accounting processes. There has been no documented accounting procedures done in quite a while, and we don't have any financial statements after 2023-2024 season -- or year, sorry. So the goal right now is to determine what our path forward is and how to get to where the community's back on track again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Can the Minister discuss what steps the new administrator is currently taking to enter into municipal service agreements with Hay River and other NWT communities to deliver or operate services, public utilities, or facilities in Enterprise? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, we are a little bit too early to determine that. We just had our administrator put in place, so it's currently -- the actions that he's doing right now is going through the operations of the community, finding out what resources are needed to operate. Currently, right now, they are operating as they were, so they've already had agreements in place or some agreements in place. So those are currently being worked on, and then obviously if there's any more that's needed, he will work those out in order to satisfy the community needs. So, again, it's just he's in the state of processing what exactly is needed and have a plan coming out with that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister say whether there is a timeline or -- yeah, a timeline for when residents should expect an election to be held for the hamlet of Enterprise? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So currently, like I stated, with the new administrator put in place, you know, the assessment is developing a work plan on how we move forward with the community and the governance structure. Currently, at the time, it's all new so there is no timeline at present; however, I will say that I would rather have the residents govern their municipality than us, and the sooner we can get to that point and have a well-oiled machine of Enterprise back in order, we will have that in place and ready for them to take over. Our goal is to have some public meetings here as soon as June, and I hope to also be a part of one of those public meetings. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, summer is approaching, and many of our young people will be on school break, so talking about drug crisis right now is appropriate to send a message to the young people in our communities.
So, Mr. Speaker, I noticed there is a vacancy on the board for the representative for North Slave. Can the Minister of Justice speak to the current capacities of the Legal Aid Commission? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll have to take that question as notice. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my statement, my questions are to the Minister of Infrastructure.
Can the Minister of Infrastructure share with anticipation whether there will be a Sahtu regional sailing reason, what actions are taken with or by MTS and Cooper Barging discussion. Masi.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First off, I want to thank the Member for acknowledging some of the hard work that's been done by the infrastructure staff over the last little while. Obviously navigating climate change is -- no pun intended, navigating climate change is not an easy task considering we have no control over that. However, the actions being taken by the MTS, our infrastructure staff and MTS, has many plans and layers of it to hopefully have a successful navigating system. And it's really hard to tell right now what that might entail due to the fact of we don't know what the water levels are going to be like.
So we are closely monitoring those water levels, and we're closely monitoring, you know, the ability to get barges and tugs up and down the river. And those plans have been underway for a while now. So our goal with MTS is to have somewhat of a barging season, which includes a smaller section of barging from Dooley Crossing, as stated earlier, to the Sahtu area and potentially from north to the Sahtu area. So looking at many options. And so the goal is to work with another barging company to try to get fuel and freight into the Sahtu region. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that information. I'm glad to hear that there is a preliminary sailing season, hopefully sailing season discussions.
The Minister answered my next question, so I'll skip that one there and add another couple more. If water levels permit, will the Minister, to avoid and detect hazard areas, will there be a water depth surveillance crew accompanying the barges? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MTS wouldn't be navigating the Mackenzie River without buoys set up by the Canadian coast guard. So that's a safety thing, and that's something that we'd -- like he said earlier in his Member's statement, we don't want to risk the environment, so we will wait for Canadian coast guard to put up the buoys in order to navigate the Mackenzie River. And from previous briefings, I know that they're really anticipating getting out there and looking at our waterways. We know some of the trouble spots of getting through, like the Fort Providence rapids -- rapid area, the Sans Sault area. There's quite a few areas that are concerning, and the coast guard would go out there and navigate them and send smaller vessels through first to determine whether or not they can get the buoys out there. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final Supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that information there.
Moving along to my next final question here, is there -- can the Minister share the information, how much cargo is booked for the Sahtu, whether it's fuel or dry or modular units? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a very good question. I don't know if I have the details handy yet. I know that they're waiting for a keep point to determine whether or not we would even be accepting freight in Hay River to put on the barges or whether or not they would hold off. So we'd have to wait to determine to see what we're getting, so I'll have to get back to the Member and let him know what freight's for the area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, not to preclude the work done by the Member for Yellowknife North, but a longstanding concern I have heard from nurses, prior to my time being a Member, is that of staff-to-patient ratios. And so my question to the Minister of Health and Social Services is whether or not she's willing to commit to do a review to staff-to-patient ratio to address a longstanding concern of frontline health care staff starting with Stanton, and present those results to all Members? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a conversation that I've been having with my staff and, you know, what happens across Canada, there are some jurisdictions that do have this, you know, and then there are areas that they -- you know, there might be some difference that they don't -- you know, they don't put it out on -- in public, so we don't have that access to the information. But what I can commit to is that looking at -- and I don't want to do a broad across the board, but what I would commit to is working with my staff to figure out in some of our higher priority areas, especially within our hospital settings and looking at rural and remote, you know, we can take a look at this and see where we -- you know, how we compare to the jurisdictions that do have public information out there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that's really great to hear. Is there any way that staff would be involved in that process in terms of frontline staff because that's really who was bringing these concerns to the floor. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I appreciate the work that the frontline staff have been raising and, you know, we are hearing them. Again, I -- you know, I want to acknowledge that our system and our processes aren't as fast as they want them to be. And so we do hear you. We have plans in place. With this, you know, I'll take -- like I said, I will take this back with the department and with NTHSSA, because that's our operating arm, and look at, you know, what we have across -- you know, and then, you know, the feedback from the staff can be that, you know, when we look at -- and I'll just say some of the patient ratios that I've seen online and then I compare them to our inpatient beds and our staffing, we can't use that as, you know -- and that's why I think what you're saying is we need to hear from the staff because if we have staff that they have a lot of casuals that are filling, you know, vacancies and things like that, it may impact how, you know, they're -- the pressures that are on them.
So like I said, we will take -- I'll take this back, and we'll come up with a process on how to do this work and then -- you know, and even bring this back to Members to share, you know, what the ideas are and what we are going to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final Supplementary. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that.
So last week when standing committee on social development heard from the public administrator, he spoke of a people strategy. Will this strategy be ongoing and a living document so that this piece around patient-to-staff ratios can also be incorporated? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as this -- the people strategy is to be released, as I get the fulsome -- you know, I had the highlights of it early on before it was being drafted. So as soon as I have the people strategy draft, and I'm more than willing to send, you know, as soon as I have it, to standing committee on social development to be able to, you know, have a conversation with them of what's in that document. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
