Thank you. Mr. Speaker, readiness and preparedness are critical to wildfire management; however, the evacuation that occurred this summer suggests that the government's wildfire operations are still too reactive in nature. What specific steps is the government taking to improve early detection and response measures so communities are not forced to evacuate at the last minute? Thank you.
Member from Monfwi, that there is a new line of questioning so I will move you on -- that's going to a different Minister. So I will put you on the list so you're back on right away. Thank you.
Oral questions. Member from Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of ECC.
What criteria does the Department of Environment and Climate Change use to determine when a wildfire poses sufficient risk to warrant evacuation? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from the Deh Cho. Minister of ECC.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within the wildfire management policy, there's a number of criteria that are looked at and every fire that is detected, a new fire gets some form of action. So there's -- some of the factors that come into play are location of the fire, available resources, proximity to values, proximities to communities. So as these fires start on the landscape, the fire experts within the department take a look at the current situation. They go out, a fire assessment is done. That information is then taken and put into an initial action plan which is used to determine whether or not that fire receives an initial response, a sustained action response. And that really depends on, like I said, many of the factors that I recently raised. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Okay, how did the department work with the Department of MACA and the community of Fort Providence to determine when to issue the community evacuation order? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, environment and climate change does daily assessments of all fires and specifically ones that are a threat to values or communities. Those daily assessments, that information is gathered. There are multiple joint agency meetings that take place daily where that information is relayed to all invested parties. MACA would work closely with the community in deciding when the actual evacuation event would take place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of ECC. Final supplementary. Member from Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given that information, what improvements is the department making to its wildfire detection assessment and response protocols to prevent delays in evacuation orders and to better protect communities from imminent wildfire threats? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, after the 2023 after-action review, there was 25 recommendations that were received by the department, all of which were accepted in principle. So some of the major points I'd like to raise here, work that's ongoing has increased:
We've increased the number of fire crews, aircraft equipment available across the NWT.
We're mobilizing crews and aircraft earlier in the season to complete training ahead of the earlier start to the wildfire season.
We're conducting aerial surveys and thermal imaging to detect and address holdover fires at the beginning of the season to ensure we're ahead of those;
Hiring a dedicated safety officer to ensure that the physical and mental health of our staff is top of mind;
Installing backup communication networks to ensure that we have operational capability and if we run into a similar incident like we did in 2023 when our internet cable went down.
We established new qualification and certification standards for wildfire response.
We're expanding the GNWT's internal capacity to deliver the Incident Command System.
We're cross-training between structural and ECC firefighters to enhance coordination of the wildland urban interface; and,
We've significantly improved our communication with community leadership and with other departments within our government and others.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of ECC. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following up on my Member's statement, I have questions for the Minister of MACA.
As I mentioned in my Member's statement, Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague, the Member from Range Lake, had brought to the House many times the issue of iGaming and the potential for revenue around that. I'd like to ask the Minister, can we get an update on the status of the work on the legislative framework around iGaming. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're in continued talks about the iGaming topic. I think there's more to the iGaming than just iGaming. I think we have a lot of things going on with even land-based gaming type stuff. So there's a lot going on with that. We haven't reached the legislative proposal stuff yet, but there is a lot of internal workings right now on how to pursue and move this concept forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So from what I'm hearing is we're not super close to that, having that work prepared yet. Something, certainly, we'd like to see in this Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, then if the Minister doesn't feel that we may get iGaming and get that revenue stream flowing, does he have a proposal, or will he be bringing forward other opportunities to ensure that we're funding the physical activity, sport, and recreation fund appropriately? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a few plans bringing forward to cover that fund off. One of them is obviously submitting to the government for more funding to help support that. However, we also need to fine tune what we're doing, you know, looking at expenses, looking at what we're paying for in order to contribute to the actual fund itself to make sure that the funds are actually getting to the athletes and their abilities to participate in sports and games. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And certainly, yes, I mean, that is the goal is to ensure that funding gets to the athletes, particularly the athletes in the smaller communities. And I spoke in my Member's statement about the spirit of the Arctic Winter Games. I appreciate we have a lot of high-level athletes in this territory. They do have other venues to go through and other options if they want to pursue a career or pursue, you know, that avenue for their sport. But participation is important, Mr. Speaker. So I know we have a seat on the international committee, the Arctic Winter Games international committee. Would the Minister commit to ensuring that that spirit and that we are creating sports that open up doors for athletes in all our communities so they can participate and take advantage of this oftentimes once in a lifetime opportunity for those youth. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, rest assured to the Member I've been echoing his statement quite a bit to the international games committee. Most recently in Alaska when I was there during a meeting, you know, I've requested -- or I encouraged them to look at how we do the Arctic Winter Games, participation-wise, how often the games are held. You know, these are important things to help ensure that the Arctic Winter Games are -- first of all, the ability to afford them is there but that we're able to hold them in other communities throughout the Northwest Territories. You know, it's not only us as a territorial government; it's also the International Games Committee that has to make some tough decisions and I hope that these decisions, you know, reflect the need of getting communities and small communities to the Arctic Winter Games to participate. I myself have been very passionate about having small communities participate in the Arctic Winter Games. I know there's been some question about it, but rest assured that when I'm talking about Arctic Winter Games and participation, I do that with the communities in mind. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ECE. Mr. Speaker, what is ECE doing to ensure early literacy screening is available at the public school level in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, while Education, Culture and Employment does not mandate specific programs of any type in NWT schools. Because of our decentralized system, we certainly do work to coordinate with our education bodies as we can. So education bodies are responsible to confirm and implement programs that support the delivery of curriculum within the schools, and sometimes this might include referrals to the diagnostic assessments that do happen through the school funding framework, Mr. Speaker. There's also the flexibility to accommodate local decision-making and sometimes that includes, you know, bringing in different specialty items to work with teachers, like -- sorry, different specialty professional development opportunities to work with teachers so that they can really focus on the needs that they have in their classroom. But through the school funding framework, our education bodies take on the role of supporting their teachers with extra supports in classrooms. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I noted in my statement that our last literacy strategy framework ended in 2018. Mr. Speaker, when is a renewed literacy strategy going to be introduced? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I heard the Member's comment in his Member's statement. And currently, there is no intent to update the literacy strategy in the Northwest Territories that expired in 2018. We do have, however, have our 2030 early learning and childcare strategy as well as our early learning framework which emphasizes literacy within both of those documents. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I noted in my statement that most other jurisdictions in Canada are implementing programs to ensure early literacy screening is happening in schools. Can the Minister commit to following suit in the NWT and get early screening for literacy done in NWT schools? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, within our shift to an NWT-adapted BC curriculum, the broader curriculum does have an assessment framework, an early literacy assessment tool, that teachers can use that's built into it. So assessments will be happening and will be -- the tools will be afforded to teachers to do some of those assessments in classrooms to be able to catch some of these challenges and concerns earlier on. It's important to note this is not a diagnostic assessment, and it's also important to note that there are the well child clinics that parents do have available to them before their child starts school.
In direct response to the Member's question, absolutely, within my ability and our decentralized education system, I would absolutely be happy to look at other models and commit to reviewing the screening and assessment tools that other jurisdictions are using and find out how we can potentially look at how those might work within our jurisdiction and our model. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
All right, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that. I want to return to the topic of walk-in clinics and, of course, this is not an extensive list of the people that work there, but there are people who take the samples and there are people who review the samples, and that's pretty much it. But, Mr. Speaker, when people arrive at 7:30 in the morning, there's long lines, you can't make phone calls because no one answers the phone, there's no chairs so people with mobility issues are standing there and struggling, and there's way more people there than the slots available for doing that. What can the Minister do to address that type of problem with this lab clinic situation? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, as this is brought up in the House, I will bring this back to NTHSSA and follow up as to how things are going in the lab and the walk-in clinic there, and if there's improvements that -- what recommendations that -- you know, what do they -- you know, to be able to carry out some of these things. However, at this time, there's not many things that I can say on the floor of this House, that I'd have to go back to NTHSSA as that falls under their authority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the willingness of the Minister. If she wants some simple suggestions, chairs, the little tags at the DMV --
(audio).
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the problem is people show up there wanting to get their samples processed and there aren't enough staff to actually, as I said earlier, take the samples and analyze the samples. What happens to the samples that can't be analyzed locally? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member, you know, and I will take him up on if he has any other recommendations, feel free to stop at my office and give me that list of recommendations. I'll bring them over to NTHSSA and see what they can do about that.
As for the lab recs that are -- any lab tests that cannot be done within the house, like there is a multiple types of tests that we do in-house at Stanton, and there are some that we -- they just don't have the capacity to continue to do all of those samples. They send them to Alberta through the contract that we have through the lab there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure I have to walk down to the office; I've already given her the suggestions and she's welcome by the way.
That said, Mr. Speaker, the Minister did go into the other area of where the samples are going. What type of analysis is being taken as to how much are going where, what does it cost, what does it change the process. Because I'm aware that section has requested more staffing. In other words, they put in submissions to increase the staff but someone in the chain of hierarchy keeps denying them the needed staff. And I'm curious as to what the reasoning is behind that. So the analysis and the reasons here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. I think that's a dual question there, a double question. Now I wasn't tightening at the Member. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will bring this back. And I know that we do have -- we do track the stats, and we do know what we send out. We do actually know what it costs us to send this out. So what I can do is I can get that information, and I can share it with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today the health Minister delivered a statement about care in small communities that included two recommendations that have been adopted by this working group that includes bringing paramedics into the model of care for small communities. The Northwest Territories is one of, I believe, only two jurisdictions in Canada where paramedics are unregulated. We don't have legislation covering paramedics. So how does she intend to do this without legislation to do so? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of health professionals that have worked in our healthcare system, and we are slowly regulating those health professionals. We are looking, as for instance, LPNs most currently were regulated under the nursing -- I think it's the CANN legislation that we passed last year. There is the Health Professions Act that we are, you know, working on to bring to the floor, and there are a number of different aspects under that that we are going to be bringing forward regulations under. We are currently trying to bring forward all of the staff that are currently regulated throughout Canada and, you know, there's jurisdictional scan. There's some areas that don't regulate certain things, some regulate things, so we're just trying to bring all of those forward. And, you know, I don't know where or what at this point where paramedics are, but we have had -- like, have had unregulated professions working in our system under policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the scope of practice of paramedics is unlikely to be changed without legislation to guide it. Is the department planning on bringing forward a legislative proposal or legislative changes that would bring paramedics into the Health Professions Act? Thank you.
