Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister from NTPC. Sorry, I had a note that I get sidetracked.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm always very happy to talk about the Taltson project that we have underway right now. This is a project that is a partnership amongst the GNWT as one member of the MOU, but our other members are the communities and nations that are around the watershed region, so Akaitcho First Nation, Salt River First Nation, and Northwest Territories Metis Nation. We sit regularly. We had a steering committee meeting just before session commenced, and it was an opportunity for us to reaffirm commitment to the project, met with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, in fact, at that time, and we had an opportunity to discuss the next step which would be actually creating sort of project company or a project co and to determine then what kind of financial arrangement we might be able to find ourselves in in order to take this on to its next steps.
Mr. Speaker, I don't know that there's been a public release of any preliminary budgetary information at this point. I'm not going to take that step here on the floor. Certainly would be happy to come back to committee and provide an in-camera briefing but also can certainly assure the House that we are working towards getting, as I said, a project company into its -- into existence, and that will be a major next step for us. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister able to provide any detail to the first question asked, which was can she provide some specifics around the costing and timing. And I'll be very clear, Mr. Speaker - referring to what is the anticipated project cost and when would we expect something to actually prove to fruition in the sense of come online. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said in response to the first series of questions, this is not a project where there is, to my recollection, a firm budget that's been provided publicly, and this is not the place to be doing that. But, Mr. Speaker, with respect to timelines, the second question -- of the second question, Mr. Speaker, we are still working towards having the system online for 2033. Quite a lot of things do have to fall into place. First and foremost, Mr. Speaker, there are legacy issues surrounding the original Taltson Dam that date back to the 1960s and '70s, and that is a first priority for myself and for the other nation members of the MOU. But beyond that, the next step that we are in, Mr. Speaker, is to get this project in for an EA. We are hopeful to have that work done over this fall. Individual members of the MOU are each taking on parts. For example, YKDFN are looking at where the line might line here on the north side of the lake while the nations from the south side are looking at where it might begin. So that work is well underway, and we're looking forward to, with that, being able to go into an EA, again, as soon as possible so that we can move forward to regulatory proceedings thereafter. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister responsible for NWT Power Corp. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Mr. Speaker, it's difficult to sort of give a quantum as to what it's worth versus what it's timed versus how much Ottawa is giving. Like, we don't know, and that's kind of the question that's being asked. Because I don't even know if we should be pursuing the Taltson project given the fact that, remember, it doesn't go far back that the Mackenzie Valley pipeline dream died because it was studied to death and by the time -- so, Mr. Speaker, my question, really, is focused in on is this the right opportunity? Because I've heard the Taltson project when I came in the House in 2003.
So to shorten up to a sure question, Mr. Speaker, could the government consider, or has the government ever considered, maybe bringing power north from Alberta because they have a much straight -- simpler and straightforward regulatory regime that's interested in being in business and getting things done. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I would be very happy to appear in front of committee. In fact, perhaps a public briefing would be most appropriate to be able to give much more lengthy answers to all of these questions. This is an opportunity with this project to connect 70 percent of the population of the Northwest Territories to hydro. It's an opportunity to take advantage of energy that is spilling over at the current facility in Taltson Dam. It's an opportunity to link our grids, which are currently disconnected grids which is a huge problem for our energy costs and for sustainability and reliability of our system. And, Mr. Speaker, yes, we certainly have looked at running power lines south, both in towards Saskatchewan, down towards Alberta.
Transmission lines do not come cheap. There are several hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilometer. And so, Mr. Speaker, with that, this opportunity to advance the project with partners from this watershed and one that has a sustainable and reliable source of power, yes, Mr. Speaker, in my view it certainly is an important project. We're farther than we ever have been, and I think we're in a good place to move it forward and see some significant progress in the life of this government. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister responsible for NT Power Corp. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my statement today, my first question to the Minister of Health and Social Services is I'm glad to see the Minister is focused on improving care and services in in the small communities. Will she commit to creating and implementing clear service standards that make community members can expect as part of the work her department is doing. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within health and social services, there are core services -- standards do exist throughout the Northwest Territories but right now, what's happening is we are reviewing those and focusing on updating a lot of those core service standards to ensure better supports and guidance for health and social services authorities implementing these standards, and that's one of the things that we are focusing on. And hopefully that these recommendations from that review will help to move these next steps forward by this summer that we will have that finalized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that information and reply.
My next question to the Minister is the work plan developed with the public administrator promises improvements to the healthcare system within the year. What specific recruitment and retention targets, such as vacancy rate reductions, will the Minister use to measure success in small and remote communities and will she report those results publicly? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what we will be publishing right shortly is the people strategy which goes into detail on our updated plan for recruitment and retention that's guided by feedback from staff and residents. I'm looking forward to being able to brief standing committee on that strategy. While the success of this strategy is -- will not be seen instantly, it aims for this as to be continuous improvement and feedback from the staff. So one of the things with part of the question is assessing the progress in small and remote communities, so one of the key areas that we are striving to document is these vacancy rates. So in these frontline positions, so how long it takes to fill these positions, as well as responses to exit surveys, when employees leave our system, and we can use this data quarter -- to compare quarter to quarter, year to year, and so that we can see whether things are improving with the people's strategy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that information.
My last question, in my statement I noticed that -- I noted that fully staffed small communities relieve pressure on regional centres, on the territorial hospital as well. How will the Minister's department track and report the system's wide impact? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, while there's limited access to care in small communities, patients often have to travel elsewhere. And with our limited, you know -- Members of this House have brought up many times other alternative measures that we are looking at right now as virtual care and also with the public administrator going into each of the regions to see what is actually needed and what can be implemented as soon as possible in those small communities that could help promote the health of the people in those communities while reducing their need to always have to travel into the regional centres. While improving service delivery and access is essential, we -- I totally agree that we need to make sure and to track the progress and impacts of those improvements. So our ongoing work to strengthen service in small communities includes building a robust, more monitoring, and reporting tools because that's something, you know -- in health, we continue to just go and find ways to resolve the issues and then we don't usually do a good thing because we're a 365-day, year, so those are things that we are working on. So the tools will allow us to measure performance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as Members are aware, the business community and newcomer community in Yellowknife are very anxious about expiring work permits. Can the Minister please share what provisions she is seeking from the new federal government on drastically reduced allotment of spaces in the NWT nominee program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. I'm assuming Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a starter I am seeking that our allotment of 300 be restored with greater flexibility. This has been communicated in a letter. And I intend to travel to Ottawa as soon as we're done session so that I can continue that conversation in person. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. I'm glad that she is seeing the urgency on this.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister elaborate if she's working with her Cabinet colleagues to ensure information about critical service extensions, such as driver's license and health care access, is being made accessible to organizations that support newcomers? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Both myself at a political level and also at an official's level, the government is working to ensure that we are unified. In support, sometimes we do receive outreach from newcomers who do require support, and we're always as MLAs happy to provide it. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for that. Will she be speaking to her federal counterpart about the need for newcomer services specifically, not just permanent residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm very happy to share with the House today some greater detail of what I have started the conversation with, with the federal minister. That includes restoring our nominee allocation with greater flexibility. It also includes engaging directly with northern stakeholders. Nothing beats hearing a personal story from a Northerner to help understand our northern and territorial context. It also includes extending the GNWT -- or working with the GNWT to extend work permits to people working in the territory and increase investment in settlement services. And one of the things I hear greatly about is that there are gaps in how we can apply those settlement services in the territory. So that conversation is not only around increasing supports, but also broadening supports. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier in the day, my constituents are very frustrated with the high cost of power in the Northwest Territories. We have a limited rate base, and we keep squeezing them, and there's nowhere else to charge. So does the Minister have some concrete policy proposals, infrastructure investments, or other forms of change that we can bring to our power system to give Northerners some relief because they're tired of paying these bills, and it's driving people out of their homes as I said. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of NTPC.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the energy systems of the Northwest Territories are in dire need of significant nation scale investment. We need the federal government to be paying attention to the situation we find ourselves in. Residents across this territory are facing not only the high cost that they currently pay. That is also significantly subsidized by the GNWT just to keep the power bills of where they are.
Mr. Speaker, we are not alone. The Yukon right now is proposing a 34 percent increase to their power bills. Nunavut pays an even larger subsidy than we do on their power bills to keep their bills lower for residents.
That doesn't solve the problem, Mr. Speaker. This is a national scale problem. We're not on the North American energy grid. We're on our own. We have almost 20 some different individual micro grids, Mr. Speaker, and so we need the federal government to look at us, to look at projects like Taltson that will start to link our systems, that will look at some of the micro hydro projects that are being examined by Indigenous governments on their lands and, frankly, to consider whether or not there's some other pilot projects that are happening elsewhere in Canada that need to happen in the North so that they're regulated for the northern climate, northern context, and can be brought online to actually fundamentally change the systems that we're in. That's how we're going to get this problem solved. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, my honourable friend from Yellowknife Centre talked about the challenge to the Taltson project and perhaps the optimism around it that might not be realized, and certainly, these are large scale infrastructures. So she said with projects that will take time and investment to pull off and, of course, federal investment. Hopefully, our northern Prime Minister understands that. Nunavut pays more in subsidies. Will the Minister increase the power rate subsidies to give Northerners a break? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are still currently in this process of a general rate application that was required by the public utilities board, so at this point we are waiting to see what the public utilities board comes back with.
We are also then very much eagerly anticipating the response of the public utilities board to the 13 different policy proposals that we have put forward as a government to look at ways to change and improve the overall structure and system of the GNWT or of the Northwest Territories power systems, and that includes looking at things like power systems plannings and how people might be able to have net metering changes and communities can enter into independent power producer arrangements. Those are all things that will start to change the way that we are operating. But, again, at the moment I'm waiting on the public utilities board, and I am sure they are diligently doing their work. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, some of -- the net metering policy is long overdue, so I hope the board agrees with the Minister because we could have had some cheaper renewables a long time ago if we had a more favourable rate like they have in Yukon. So we're in 2025, Mr. Speaker. We have AI technology. We have new technologies. There's lots of companies out there who are promising to save this government money by implementing some new systems, some new RFPs.
Will the Minister look to the many, many options out there of AI and new -- emerging technology companies that can provide cheaper power with our current systems. They can optimize our systems to lower the costs which will result in lower rates for Northerners. So will the Minister commit to looking to those solutions? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, always happy to look at other options. There is a wealth of change happening in the energy space. Everything from AI managed battery technology that can look to optimize the battery systems and to the actual management of a diesel -- even a diesel generator, all the way over to micro hydro or micro nuclear which is just really tiny little facilities, not on a scale that we were -- would have before seen that are still only at a piloting stage.
So the short answer is yes, Mr. Speaker, and the longer answer is we need to make sure that whatever which of these solutions we choose is one that's properly geared to the Northwest Territories, to the Arctic, and that's where we need the federal government to be our partners because getting technology brought up to speed for the North doesn't -- isn't always something that's on their radar. It needs to be on their radar too. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Indigenous elder-led counselling; it's not just a service, it is a lifeline. If we require every mental health worker to have a clinical degree, then we may be regulating some of the elders out of a job. With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, how many elders or Indigenous counsellors are employed as part of the community counselling program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail with me, but I can get back to the Member with those numbers. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my understanding that some small communities do not have regular in-person access to counsellors who provide mental health supports. What steps is the department taking to address these gaps and ensure equitable access to this free service to all small communities across the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do provide mental health counselling across the Northwest Territories; however, there are some vacancies in some regions and that we continue to struggle with as many of our counsellors within our program, as the Member has said, you know, they are clinical counsellors and they should have -- be able to register, and we encourage them to register as soon as they are hired on under that, which also then, like the Member says, provides a barrier. Some of the people that have been working in our system for years. But we do provide virtual telephone counselling and fly-in services to those communities that do need it, and then when there is something going on in the community, usually the leadership will reach out to the department and we will arrange to have counsellors go into those communities when there are things going on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.
She touched base on some of them, but I will ask this question. What is the GNWT doing to work with small communities that are currently without a counsellor to address these vacancies? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, I'm not going to repeat my answer. And what I will say is that with the Indigenous governments, you know, we do sit at the Council of Leaders, we do have bilaterals. We do have the community wellness and recovery fund that we do encourage Indigenous groups to access if they want to provide other, you know, traditional counselling, traditional elders with their traditional healing aftercare. So I do know that many of our Indigenous groups have been accessing this funding. There are some that we are continuing to work with on being able to access this fund. And this year, I think, is the first year that it's almost been all used. So that's a good news story, that the Indigenous groups are knowing about this and they are accessing it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions here are for the Minister of Justice. I would like to ask about Charter issues related to the Public Service Act which specifies currently that all members of the public service, by default, will be represented by the Union of Northern Workers, or UNW, for the purposes of collective bargaining except, of course, for the teachers who are represented by the NWT Teachers' Association.
So my first question is can the Minister of Justice say whether the act as it currently stands substantially interferes with GNWT employees' rights to freely associate under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, especially in instances where employees may wish to leave the UNW and join or form a new association. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
