Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to a review, she said she is, but of the public housing program to explore rent-free option for seniors, especially in light of growing concerns about affordability and aging in place. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The rental scale, we're undergoing a review right now. One thing I have asked Housing NWT is to include some work by researchers that have done a lot of analysis from housing and housing in the North. So working with like poverty specialists, working with people that have done many PhD dissertations to add their recommendations to Housing NWT. So it's not only housing that's looking at it but we're trying to do a fulsome review that recognizes the challenges and realities in the North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister for Housing NWT. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Alright, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to have the occasion, of course, now to return to my Member's statement, not fully, obviously, but the subject I raised, which is the encampment fatigue process and the formalizing of a policy so we know what we're working with. So, Mr. Speaker, my questions are directed to the Minister of housing, of course, as you can imagine, and I'd like to ask her, what can we do about getting -- or I should say, what can we do about creating a transparent policy on encampments? Because, Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a variety of responses, and some of them are fair, some of them are reasonable, and we want to make sure that we have public input in it, and so people understand we have a progressive policy that's responsive but fair and has good reasons why we're doing or not doing something. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Mr. Speaker, again, a number, a really important question, considering the number of encampments in and around the city over the last few years. As Housing NWT, we commit to developing a standard operating procedure on how we will, within government, work together and with other partners for spring of 2026. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we'll have lawyers saying we have a government obligation to do something. We have lay people that say that that's untrue. We have technocrats that say it's somewhere in the middle, Mr. Speaker. Why are we waiting to come forward with a policy that would make most of this at least follow a consistent direction? And I think that's usually where I stand at the beginning, which is we need some level of consistency, and we can bleed fairness and whatever necessary into the mix. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't get the question, but fairness and equity, yeah, that's really important how we apply this across the board. Again, really important as a government that we apply this, but with the encampments over the summer, we've asked them and we've worked with them and we've counseled them and we've provided them weekly visits and we're working with the integration service delivery team and Housing NWT and the Yellowknife Partnerships Committee. The one big thing with all of this encampment discussion, understanding not many people want to live in shelters, but there is shelter space available. And applying a policy across the board is important and having that public engagement is important. So, again, like I committed to, we'll have a policy in place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Final supplementary. Member from the Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the last part of the question was actually exactly where the Minister just went, which is I'm concerned about the declaration made by people in absence of a policy. So in other words, they say shelters aren't safe, they have nowhere to go, they say we can't cohabitate with their partners, which in a lot of ways is wrong, but we don't have shelters that respond that. Will this new policy take into effect that if people are making declarations of that nature or citing these types of concerns, we can come up with a policy that is flexible but sensitive enough to the broader concerns. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The difficulty with Housing NWT and with housing in general is we need to come up with comprehensive solutions across the board for housing. And it's not a one size fits all. And we've seen that. We've seen that in encampments. We've seen that with homelessness. We see that with elders that are unable to pay their rent. Housing NWT, we have to move beyond what we're currently doing, and I've said this before, we can't just be market and public housing or market and social housing. We have to look at transitional housing, we have to look at supportive living, we have to look at all possibilities across the housing continuum. But, again, we need the support of all partners, including Indigenous governments, including the federal government and, hopefully, hopefully, Building Canada Homes will provide some of that support, but we'll see what happens there. But again, we need comprehensive solutions and it can't be one size fits all, because it's certainly failing us at this time, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following up on my statement on infrastructure projects in Inuvik around Arctic sovereignty and security. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Infrastructure. Could the Minister ensure that the commitment, the funding commitment to build a new airport terminal building in Inuvik is still in fact on the books.
Thank you. Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Inuvik Airport, as we know, is a key transportation area to the North, and a lot of work has been done to get the new terminal going. A lot of good hard work done by previous MLAs and Ministers. And it's well on its way. The process has been started a long time ago, and we hope to have more information soon about the air terminal. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and that's great news from the Minister. I appreciate that. Can I ask if the Minister is still committed, or the department is still committed to working with the regional contractors, regional Indigenous governments in the region when this project begins in full. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is part of the process, and like I said earlier, this process is well underway. I think it's no secret that we've tendered this, and it's come back out, but we're in the process of getting this out there, and we're committed to working with local contractors in the area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you again to the Minister for that. He mentioned it was tendered earlier this year. Can the Minister give an update on the current status of the tender process and when we anticipate this project started? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it's no secret that the current process has been suspended due to a court proceeding, so I cannot speak about it and we'll hopefully hear something soon in the new year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs has repeatedly referred to the importance of the Incident Command System when questioned on emergency management and public safety. The independent action report makes three separate ICS recommendations, but the GNWT has only fully agreed to implement one of those, for one of those recommendations to mandate and maintain ICS training for elected officials and emergency managers. The Minister is only making that training available to MLAs. Why isn't the Minister ensuring that that training is mandatory for all public officials in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The ICS training is the standard across Canada. That training is being provided to all -- sorry, offered to all communities who are interested in it to help with the community emergency plans and their preparedness. The public service has had many workshops to have their staff trained and have the ability to stand up staff for surge capacity. Also, I think it's important to remember that as elected officials and somebody who's been involved in emergencies in the past, we tend to want to get involved. And I think that's the important part of the mandatory ICS training for elected officials within the GNWT, is to clarify our roles and responsibilities during emergencies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as our emergency management system is made up of volunteers and is ad hoc to emergencies as they arise, having everyone trained in ICS shouldn't be an offer, it should be a mandatory requirement. It's legislated in Alberta, the independent after-action report cites this as a best practice. Will the Minister legislate ICS in either regulations or in legislative amendments so we can ensure who is responsible for emergency management in the Northwest Territories is adequately trained in ICS. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like anything else we do, I don't think any community would appreciate if the government went in there and told them that they have to get ICS training for their volunteers in their communities. We support the training, we support the community emergency plans, we support their EMO organizations to provide the training. Anybody within the GNWT who's involved in the EMO organization has the ICS training or will receive ICS training to support any emergencies for communities, local emergencies, well I’m going to start by saying that we don't have any emergencies for communities, local emergencies, regional emergencies, and our territorial emergencies. Although it would be nice to legislate and enforce that everybody that's involved has to have this, we have to understand that we have a lot of small communities where, you know, we wouldn't be able to hire people full-time within these small communities to do that. There are communities that volunteers are very important, volunteer fire departments are very important, and this also relates to emergency management organizations. There is members within the EMO organizations that are volunteers, and we have to support them that way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that response shows one of the problems with our system. I'm going to come back to that at a later day. The Minister talked about the role of the GNWT in ensuring training. The independent after-action board has recommended that ICS training is -- sorry, institutionalize ICS in all GNWT operations because regular exposure to ICS outside of emergency context builds familiarity and improves operational efficiency during a crisis. Why won't this Minister make commitments to incorporate ICS into day-to-day operations, Mr. Speaker?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe the Member didn't hear me clearly, but I did state that ICS training is part of our training within the GNWT, and our commitment to that is by having those involved in surge capacity in the departments ICS trained in order to deal with emergencies. Again, we cannot control municipal governments and tell them what kind of training they have to take. We can only support their community emergency plan and their EMO organizations with the provided training. 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 Finance this time. Mr. Speaker, in the government's response to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment's report on the regulatory framework, they spoke to the Building Capacity in Indigenous Governments Program. Mr. Speaker, has this program been fully subscribed since establishment?
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the subscriptions to this program has grown over the years. In 2023-2024, we had six secondments. In 2024-2025, we had eight. In 2025-2026, we had seven. And again, it's well received. This program has actually been through a review, positive feedback all around from the participants. And as such, the program will be continuing with some adjustments to make it even more accessible for Indigenous governments across the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister kind of got to my next question which was to be the question of the success of the program. So, considering it's been successful, it sounds like, can the Minister describe the adjustments that are being made to make it more accessible? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the top-up funding that is available, we right now provide $40,000 in funding for each potential placement. This recognizes that there may be some gap between the salaries that apply to a GNWT public servant and wanting to ensure that folks are able to take on these secondments and not facing a gap to their employment level but also not burdening unnecessarily another government or Indigenous government. And so the gap is just to make sure that we're putting that money towards salaries and that in that sense would, again, make it easier to apply for any government to take these positions on. They are valuable for us to have our staff working and learning within the context of Indigenous governments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister did a great job explaining the program, didn't quite answer the question, but I'll move on to the next one.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So right now, Mr. Speaker, if there are more placements or a need for greater salary dollars beyond the capacity of the funding, those funds do come from internal resources to individual departments so sometimes that can be if there's an unfunded position that they can use that money towards, or if there's some other program where funding hasn't fully been utilized they can use that towards this program. Obviously, we had a finite amount of resources in the GNWT and at this time this is not one where I am anticipating anything further going into the budget for this. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from YK Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health and Social Services here. I received a phone call a few days back about somebody being released in the care of one of the wards, the psych wards, here in Yellowknife. Now, it's not specific about this individual but the concern about the care of custody back into the community, and the parent who called me about this issue is that they said when their child is released, they're literally dropped off at the day shelter. So, they go from full services and supports, clearly, I mean, I won't go at length, but what they're done is then they're dropped off at the day shelter where they can't access housing, basic services, income support, etc. Is there any way to do this better and create a system of protocols that we can actually help people get integrated back into the system, even if you get ICS or other type of people?
Oh, my apologies. Thank you. And you're right, Mr. Speaker. Is there any way you could do -- is there any way you can change the way this format is currently structured? Thank you. My apologies.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know the circumstances and I'm not going to speak to this situation specifically. I don't know the age of the person, but I do know that our child and family services does have a voluntary service agreement that if you're over 16, and I believe that there are different circumstances around it, that, you know, if you don't have -- if you're homeless, they can work with the youth or the young adult -- or, you know, a youth, to try to find supports for them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the record, they're an adult. Secondly, they're under control and custody. In other words, they have a release date. They have to stay there just to make sure we're in contact. Mr. Speaker, I guess I'm really asking is, can the Minister make sure that there's protocols, that we just don't dump them on the street, you know, a van pulls up, throws them out and says good luck. Because people are at their -- you know, as they approach healthy stage, I just don't want to put them back in the next most difficult challenging experiences. Can we ensure that that policy is articulated to these folks and we even bring in ICS to help reintegrate them in the community. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for this question, and I know that in our system, you know, I've recently had this conversation with my department, that there's a whole continuum of mental health and addictions and the supports that go along with that spectrum. And so what I've actually gone to my department is to work with NTHSSA and themselves to figure out where all of these gaps are and so and what can we do and a lot of it's going to probably take partnerships. But, however, I can -- you know, if I can work with the Member to get more detail on what actually happened with this situation, then I can -- I can bring that back to NTHSSA to see what their process is and then, you know, figure that out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. I apologize to the Yellowknife North. It's your turn.
