Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Premier provide my communities with a timeline for when Housing NWT will begin investing in staff housing for teachers in small communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Probably a better conversation to have directly with the Minister of housing, but I know that there's about, I think, 900 individuals and families on waiting lists for housing across the territory. And so housing is really focusing on addressing those issues, working on ensuring that houses that need to be replaced that are past the end of their useful life are replaced, and so that's where a lot of the focus is right now. Nonetheless, this is still a live issue, and we'll continue to make progress where we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain the process for assessing whether or not a departmental business plan action is effectively addressing a priority of this House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the point of having the business plans is exactly to provide a venue and a vehicle for doing this exact work, providing us a four-year timeline so that this House can actually and effectively look at whether or not the department is achieving the business plan as set out, whether or not they should be questioned during the course of main estimates, whether or not the funding that's being proposed in main estimates aligns to what they're seeing in the business plans. The Department of Finance does set out a template. We do have expectations of what goes in that template, and that includes if there are annual evidence-based progress, performance measures, so on. So, you know, again, I'm not going to stand here, Mr. Speaker, and go into great detail, but that is really what the foundational purpose of those business plans is, and they're meant to be a vehicle and a tool for being held to account in this House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me how many of the core departments, agencies, health authorities, and educational councils have monitoring and evaluation staff to effectively select priorities that align with the GNWT mandate and priorities of this House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an area, Mr. Speaker, where it's, I think, good to acknowledge that only a few short years ago we had very few evaluative staff in the service of the public service, and we certainly have increased our roster over the last few years and increased the focus through initiatives such as government renewal which really does expect all departments to participate in monitoring and evaluation. So, at present, Mr. Speaker, we have seven different departments and agencies who have their own embedded staff, but in the absence of that, Mr. Speaker, we do work with the policy staff. We, being the Department of Finance, do work with policy staff with individual departments and further are looking to find ways to continue to broaden and strengthen the training so that folks can undertake this work, whether as a specialized entity or within their own roles as policy staff. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre -- or Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We look so much alike.
Mr. Speaker, many of the actions that are purported to address trauma are about staff training. Some have targets about the number of times a committee meets. Can the Minister provide rationale about how these sorts of actions directly impact the root causes of trauma? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to start by saying that the number of times a committee meets doesn't address the root causes of trauma, and that's certainly to say right now -- I'll certainly be more than happy to go back to the department and through the business planning, overseeing that we do make sure that our commitments are more clear than simply the number of times a committee meets.
With respect to training, though, Mr. Speaker, the frontline public service staff -- well, all public service staff, those writing policies, those interacting with individuals, those who are trying to direct the work of their departments, having them being able to provide a truly trauma-informed lens on the work that they do is fundamental. And so to that effect, Mr. Speaker, I would defend the efforts of trying to make sure that every single member of the public service understands the root causes of trauma, their interactions with people who may have experienced trauma, and their role, indeed, in preventing trauma and healing trauma. So, you know, happy to talk further to the Member about some of the elements that I acknowledge might not be getting to that, but certainly with respect to trauma, I do hope that our public service continues to take it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member's statement today, I talked about some challenges and certainly some opportunities we could all do to help with the trades and development of workers here in the Northwest Territories, including our economy. Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what can she do to help with the Department of ECE, and in also further partnership with the Aurora College, to help recognize further trades, in particular, as I noted landscaping and horticulture, as well as the lather and interior mechanics systems, also known as drywall. Thank you.
Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of ECE.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we currently follow the national, what's called the NOT Code, so the trades that are identified under national standards, and so that's the system that we adhere to to make sure that we're being consistent with the whole country. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Those two trades I had highlighted are red seal. Mr. Speaker, I'm asking the Minister what actions or initiatives could she take to help initiate the conversation to allow some type of access opportunity to this accreditation. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the clarification from the Member. And so what we'd be looking for there is really demand. So there's a number of different trades that are available across the country, a number of different trades programming that is available to students in the Northwest Territories, and if we had the demand from students and from people wanting to seek that kind of particular -- oh my goodness, I've lost the word that I'm looking for, Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry. Certification. Thank you. If we had the demand for it, then we would be able to pursue that through Aurora College. But really it is student-initiated demand to make sure that we're filling classrooms as best we can. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate what the Minister's response was in the last one. So I mean, I can't specifically criticize demand or opportunity, but that said, she can also facilitate through the process. And the simple example I'd say is that when an electrician goes for their second year and it's not available at an Aurora College, they can then be referred to down south and it's a bit of a process. In other words, if it doesn't fit we can find a way. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister find a way to help access other programs as noted are available in Ontario, Alberta, BC, etc.? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So the Member is absolutely right. When programs are not offered here, then often our students will go down to Alberta, for example at NAIT. So quite often, we end up with students who are doing their first and second year here in the Northwest Territories, and then their third and fourth year are being facilitated at other institutions. Predominantly, they end up going down to Alberta. I will also say the chair and board of governors of Aurora College is looking at other ways of increasing their trades offerings and making sure that they're increasing access to students across the Northwest Territories, and I really look forward to seeing the evolution of those programs as they come. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the Auditor General's recently released housing in the Northwest Territories report, there's some shocking findings, actually. And I think it deserves it's -- what the press are calling it, scathing, which is unfortunately all too often what we hear about Auditor General reports in the Northwest Territories. So as these findings were very similar from reports of 2008 and 2012, how is the Minister going to do something different? Because both times, housing has responded to these reports, they have failed to make progress. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for the question. I believe that housing has a lot of work to do. And I've mentioned this during the press conference and several interviews with media over the last couple of days. In terms of what are we going to do better is we need to do a lot more -- we need to do more follow-up. We need to do more quarterly reporting. We need to keep those decision-makers that are making decisions accountable for reporting and to getting things done, completed, especially around when we look at houses across the North, the unit condition rating is quite shocking that in some reports, we have up to 90 percent for unit condition ratings. But when you go into the home, it's not a 90 percent unit condition rating. So we need to look at how we're doing things and how we can do things better. One thing that I do note moving forward is I've asked the president that we provide quarterly reporting from the LHOs to the districts to headquarters to the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the past, saying on outset we're going to fix these problems has always been the case. So follow through does remain important. But we have contributed significant financial resources for new buildings of homes in this Assembly. We're supposed to be on track for 211 new homes. So what confidence can the Minister give the House that that money is actually going to complete these projects and get those homes on the ground? Because this audit leaves a doubt in my mind. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm confident with the team at Housing NWT, with the team we have at headquarters, and having these internal discussions over the last couple of days, we have to drive this. And we know that with this Legislative Assembly that housing is the number one priority. And I have made my expectations very clear to staff that we need to drive this and get this done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister saying it's a call to action and she's going to address this. Those are the right words to say; we need more than that. Will the Minister put the results of this audit and addressing the results with an action plan, will she tie those to performance pay, to promotions, to some sort of internal metric at Housing NWT that will have real consequences for staff if they're unable to address the concerns of these audits, which I'll remind you, go back now to 2008. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And again, I have stressed the urgency to staff, to headquarters and district staff, that this is something that needs to be addressed. It's been 13 years since the last OEG audit, and it hasn't improved. The Member is correct; it hasn't improved. It's probably gotten a lot worse. But in terms of performance pay and performance reviews, these are internal discussions, and these are human resource issues, so I'm not prepared to discuss them on the floor of the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following up on my statement on devolution, my questions are to the Premier today. Starting with the first one, can the Premier explain, since our 20th Assembly began is there any discussions or progress that have been made on transferring total devolution, control of devolution between this government and the federal government? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And of course, we signed the devolution agreement, you know, it's a little over 10 years ago now, and we do a lot of work related to that agreement. Of course, all of the land and resources legislation that we advance is under that agreement and it's done in partnership with the other signatories to devolution. And so any discussion about devolution necessarily includes those Indigenous governments who have signed on. So we continue to work through that process. We continue to work with our partners. We're working closely with Canada, the Yukon government, and Inuvialuit Regional Corporation on implementing the legislation for the Tariuq Offshore Accord. So a lot of work is going on with devolution, and I'll be meeting -- me and some of my Cabinet colleagues, we'll be meeting with the Intergovernmental Council in the coming weeks to discuss future steps of devolution. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier answered my next question, and that was discussions underway with the Council of Leaders to support total control transfer of devolution. So I see that there's discussion going on, so I am going to waive that question and move on to the next one.
Can the Premier explain on the expectations that we can expect from the plans, if there's any in place for further talks for the remaining term of this Assembly with the federal government? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the devolution agreement, it commits the parties to further negotiations. And so one of those -- I didn't fully answer the Member's second question. I don't think I wanted to leave a little bit because I figured he would ask that. And so one of the commitments is to review the McKenzie Valley Resource Management Act, the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which really guides our regulatory system in here. And so we are having discussions with the Intergovernmental Council. Those discussions are beginning on what that future might look like. That is really one of the key pieces that still needs to be devolved to the territory. I would love to see it devolved to the territory, so we didn't have to rely on the federal government to make changes, to provide direction, and things like that. It's still the major outstanding piece. That being said, we are one party to the devolution agreement, and I'm not going to speak on behalf of the Indigenous governments. Some may support devolution of that piece of legislation, and others may not. So we really do have to work through the Intergovernmental Council to try and make this happen.
In the remainder of this Assembly, we're looking forward to continuing with the land and resource legislation and passing that, introducing implementing legislation for the Tariuq Offshore Accord, and to advance discussions with Canada related to the devolution of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. And I'll wrap it up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Premier for that update here. I'm glad to see that, to some degree, Mr. Speaker, we have the progress of the current system where the IGs and this government are sharing royalties. They're upgrading legislation with their MRA. My question is, has there been a five-year review as identified in the agreement done to date? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That'll be the discussions we're having at the next Intergovernmental Council meeting, and I'm happy to update the Members after those discussions. Thank you.
Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sorry, Mr. Speaker, I lost my notes. I'll have to go again.
Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to ask questions of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
So far too many students are entering in NWT schools with challenges preventing them from learning basic reading, writing, and numeracy skills. We heard from an education authority that one Yellowknife elementary school is dealing with 67 students who have arrived at school not even able to speak. So given the necessity of therapeutic support workers in schools such as speech-language pathologists, does the $14 million that the GNWT has set aside this year to fill gaps left by the changes to Jordan's Principle funding, can schools use some of that $14 million for therapeutic specialists, or is it exclusively for educational assistants? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the support assistant initiative funding is strictly to be used for classroom assistants, also known as education assistants or support assistants for classrooms. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So that is discouraging to hear. Can the Minister clarify, if there are individual children requiring these supports, can individuals still apply for Jordan's Principle funding to fund, say, speech-language pathology services, or is that no longer available to any NWT students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
