Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of ITI.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, we have $1.5 million in our mineral incentive policy program that provides funding to people who are, for example, doing exploration in the territory and working to advance projects. Typically, in an annual year, we see some of the funding for the MIP program actually return to the territory if people are unable to use it. So events in the territory like forest fires can actually have an impact on whether or not the proponents can use the full amount. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has the Minister spoken to industry or done analysis of why those funds aren't able to be accessed and bring policy reforms to correct that so we can get all the money out the door? Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, industry, tourism and investment staff do get the money out the door. The question then becomes whether or not proponents can spend it in the calendar year that they have, and there's different reasons why that could be impacted. It could be impacted by their ability to stack with other funding that they want to stack with based on commodity prices. It can also be impacted by events here in the territory. Like I explained before, wildfires had an impact on people's ability to spend some of those dollars as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister believe this program -- sorry, does the Minister believe this program should be expanded at a time when mining is in decline, at a time when exploration has dropped by 50 percent when we need more people out there looking; does the Minister believe this program should be expanded? Thank you.
Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, I want more exploration in the territory. I think our biggest wins in speaking to Chamber of Mines, in speaking to proponents, in speaking to industry leaders in the territory, our biggest wins is to get on infrastructure projects that should have been completed decades ago. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are for the Minister of ECE in regards to the Colville Lake School mobilization. Can the Minister provide an update since our last correspondence that we've had during the summer months there? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the questions from the Member. So the intention is to have -- and working very closely with the Department of Infrastructure to have the Colville Lake modulars move to the territory long before winter road season starts, and so we're looking at doing that this fall, and having them set up in the Northwest Territories and ready to get onto this coming winter road season. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for the update. Critical to the mobilization for these three pieces of modulars are -- my understanding and looking at the information the Minister provided is two of these modulars are extremely wide and extremely long. It would be 24 feet wide to be specific. And knowing the windy blind spots on the winter road, will the Minister commit to working with the counterpart for Minister of Infrastructure on minimizing preparatory measures for the transportation such as additional resources to flood the three river crossings to ensure that safety measures are taken prior to the shipment? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is working very closely with the Department of Infrastructure on this. This is certainly out of ECE's wheelhouse but safety is always, you know, a top of mind item for the Government of the Northwest Territories, and I can certainly follow up with the Minister of Infrastructure. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that response here. And will the Minister provide a draft journey management schedule so that leadership on the other end would know that this government is taking preparation measures for winter road shipment? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'd be happy to work with the departments and working groups in order to put something together as an all-of-government response for leadership from the Sahtu. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment if she could give this House an update where the polytech is on the work plan of the department and the college and when can we see some type of movement forward on this particular initiative that's important to the growth of training and education in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the mandate agreement that was issued in collaboration with the Aurora College board of governors earlier this year, there is a timeline associated with it, in the back of it, that shows all of our milestones that we intend to reach, and we are on task to reaching them together. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't call that esoteric but there was some interesting -- I didn't follow any of that language other than there's a timeline, we're meeting the timeline, and the timeline's on time. I mean, you know, what public information can be delivered in this House today as to where or what we can expect? In other words, have they met all their qualifications to now transition formally into a polytech? Are they doing a public announcement in the next six months or three months that they will be talking about the next phase such as how do they fully transition Aurora College to a -- like, those kinds of things. I think the public is curious as to where it is in this point in time because the topic has disappeared. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to be respectful of trying to keep my time low.
So in the implementation plan in the mandate agreement, it starts with identify first the made-in-the North degree, so the very first one for Aurora College. They identified that in the spring to Members of this House and have subsequently identified it publicly as well as their Bachelor of business administration specializing in Indigenous governance, which we're all very excited about and very excited to see that come.
They are currently working on their process with Campus Alberta Quality Council application. That process is due to start this fall. And they've signalled, you know, who they want on their team, which is part of the process. And now they are working to align schedules with the Campus Alberta Quality Council. So that as well is still on time.
The board of governors continues to work together on moving forward with both infrastructure, their federal engagement, establishing mechanisms for third party funding, and continues also to work on their program expansion. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd qualify that as the third best answer I've heard today. So that was pretty good.
So, Mr. Speaker, the next question is simply this: Is the government, is the Minister, is the department, still committed to this project? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day the transformation really is about offering programs that Northerners want to see and that we as a territory need for people to have access to. So those are things like continuing with nursing, reinstating the education program, and beyond that especially within the trades. And so absolutely we're committed to the education of northern students. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to continue on with questioning from yesterday for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs regarding the recommendations from the after-action review.
The review recommended that the government come up with a structured process to review, prioritize, and act on the findings of not just this review but all the previous after-action reviews so we don't keep repeating mistakes over and over. The government said it agreed but then explained how findings are being brought to the territorial planning committee, but this process doesn't seem to be transparent or leading to efficient and effective improvements.
So, first, will the government establish a public dashboard or some other mechanism that is accessible to everyone in the public that lists all the recommendations coming out of past after-action reviews, the government's response, and charting the progress towards actually achieving the recommendations? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of MACA.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in regards to establishing a dashboard, we don't have any plans to put anything up there as of yet, but I will commit to checking with the department and see what we can do to put something out there so that there's the availability for residents to follow on what actions will be taken for all 35 recommendations. That being said, the recommendations that have been put out there, our goal, to make sure that we're committed to implementing them, following them, and making sure that our task is to have the least impact on communities that don't have the ability to fully implement what some of these recommendations are. For an example, they may not have the capacity to fully implement all the training right away and will need the government's support, which we will do.
So, again, to put that on a website or a database just for everybody to review, I don't know if that's possible, but I will commit to looking into it so we can see what we can do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in order to ensure accountability to achieving recommendations, we also have to be clear as to what the recommendations were actually saying or actually recommending. For example, Recommendation 19 is to create an emergency social services plan to address what will be done to support vulnerable populations in emergencies. The government has said it agrees but then offloads this responsibility once again to local communities when what the report said was missing is a territorial emergency social services plan because social services are a territorial responsibility.
Will the Minister ensure that a territorial emergency social services plan for vulnerable populations is created and that the GNWT will take a lead on implementing actions that we know ahead of time will be beyond local capacity, such as airlifting vulnerable groups or housing them together during evacuations? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As this involves more than just MACA, every community, every agency, every NGO, every department is responsible to have some form of emergency plan. These emergency plans are not always run by the government. So, you know, a lot of this falls under EIA and with the emergency social services, but the goal is to have documented four emergency plans all vulnerable and residents who need assistance, to have the assistance available in the case of an emergency, whether it be a local emergency, small emergency, territorial emergency, or regional emergencies.
So our goal is to have these working groups in place in order to assure from the community level all the way up to the territorial government that these plans are in place to help residents navigate during an emergency. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I know the Minister has mentioned over and over again that some of these responsibilities fall to local communities. Will the Minister ensure that funds are actually available for communities to implement the preparedness activities, the things they're committing to in their emergency plans, rather than simply offering templates, workshops, information? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Having been at the other end of this, I totally agree. We do supply a lot of funds to assist local communities in emergency planning. There are some funds available for training, whether it be on the ICS system, which the GNWT also does some of that training and support community governments in the ICS training. And part of that being we need to make sure that what services or training that's being provided is something that's needed or the community's capable of doing. Some of them might need the resources of other communities or the government.
So I will look at what we need for some of these communities, and we'll work with the community governments, continue to work with community governments on fulfilling their capacities and making sure that they're ready in the time an emergency as needed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is for Minister of Finance. So my first question: Can the Minister of Finance provide a timeline of when elders with arrears and outstanding mortgages be completed within this fiscal year. With the high cost of living, especially in small communities, this will benefit many of our elders living on fixed income. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't provide a timeline. I can say that the Minister of housing and myself have actually spoken about this as recently as yesterday and that we are looking to see some solutions for this as quickly as possible. My hope is that there is a solution ready within this fiscal year. Obviously, at this point we've only had some initial discussions, the Minister and I, so I'm a bit hesitant to put that kind of a marker on it but I agree with the urgency. Thank you.
Thank you. Can the Minister provide information as to how many elders' arrears in writing off old mortgages files are completed. Currently, we still have many elders that their pensions are being garnished and they are on payment plans. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that type of information, particularly where they are already under some form of a garnishment by the GNWT for these arrears, that information is held by the comptroller general's office, and I would be happy to get that and make sure that it is shared in an appropriate way. I want to make sure there's not any sharing of information that shouldn't be made public. But certainly the Member can -- I can make sure that using the tools of this House that the Member has that information. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.
Mr. Speaker, this is the same questions that I asked Minister of housing, so it still relates to finance, so do I need to --
-- ask the question (audio)
Okay. Okay, then, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Speaker, overcrowding is an unfortunate result of the ongoing housing crisis. Can the Minister commit to allocating additional houses in Tlicho communities aside from what is already allocated in the budget to deal with the overcrowding situation? Thank you.
That is a far stretch. If the Minister is willing to answer it, we will. If not, we'll have to bring it up there. Minister of Finance.
Mr. Speaker, I don't have the ability to allocate houses. But it does relate certainly to the work that myself and the Minister of housing are actively involved on, and there is shared responsibility in the mandate for the GNWT between Department of Finance and Housing NWT to work on the housing assessment. It's being led by housing. I know that Minister spoke to it yesterday. But the Department of Finance has been involved in support and certainly would be involved in support of arrears, dealing with arrears, and all of those issues in some ways do bundle together, Mr. Speaker, that they'll help improve the overall housing spectrum within the Northwest Territories. So certainly commit to continue working with my colleague and with the Member who certainly brings that firsthand knowledge of what's happening on the ground. So, again, I'll commit to getting those meetings moving, Mr. Speaker. Totally acknowledge the urgency. Thank you.
