Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, recently there was a proposal for housing that had gone out and been awarded. Dozens upon dozens of people pulled the contract to look at it, and it boiled down to five people presented a bid and ultimately four out of the five were disqualified for that housing bid and hence there was one that remained. Now, I'm not here about saying one bid should matter over the other, and I'm not picking a bid or a winner, but the fact remains is that after the bid was awarded there's a thing called an appeal period. But the bid continues to be awarded to the one standing company only. So what's the point -- sure. To the Minister, what's the point of having an appeal period if it just gets ignored and the contract just follows through as if no one else matters at that point? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, a contract was recently awarded and announced for the Northwest Territories, 84 modular units in the North. There is an exemption period, an appeal period, and housing is moving forward with the construction. And the exemption or the oversight of the bid will be used as a lesson going forward if there's any discrepancies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in the standard we use for hiring process, if there was a competition and the job ends up finding one winner and there's an appeal period, no one's technically awarded the job until that appeal period is going. Why is this so much different given the fact that it's the exact same concept except we award millions of dollars and we put millions of dollars at risk during the appeal period that we could end up paying for it twice in theory? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, again, thank you to the Member for the question. It is quite concerning and -- to him. But Housing NWT needs to move forward with our modular construction because, as everyone knows in this Assembly and in the Northwest Territories, we need homes and we need more homes for Northerners. So if we continue to wait for appeal periods and vendor complaint processes, holding up the entire process, that means we're losing time to build homes and move those homes into communities. So it is a vendor complaint process, not an appeal process, and this will inform future process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Mr. Speaker, these are very complicated processes and waiting a week or two does not change the ultimate outcome of this. Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask the Minister would she be willing to go back and revisit this process because if a contract eventually identifies the successful bidder, we should allow the people who want to appeal at least a reasonable amount of time to put their case to say maybe an error was made in awarding the process but yet only courts will solve that problem, and we could have a full transparency process if the Minister is willing to investigate this and see if she can amend the policies. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, just repeating my answer, it is a vendor complaint process and this will inform future processes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a question for the Minister of education.
When students face challenges like overcrowded housing, what supports are available to help them stay in school and finish their education? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, many of our schools in the Northwest Territories have a staff member that they dedicate to supporting students and families. These days as well, we have many of our schools who have our kind of peer counselling program or wellness worker program, and so those are roles as well that also help students work through the variety and spectrum of challenges that our students are experiencing these days. And other programs that have seen quite a lot of success are our healthy foods program in our schools, which do draw students in. We end up with warm breakfasts, warm lunches, multiple meals during the day. And then in addition to that, education bodies can look at their staff and cohort and what the needs are of their students and have chosen different ways to address that and make sure that they're supporting students' needs where they're at. Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of ECE explain how the department is working to connect with young people and keep them engaged in school in small communities? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within our system, the department of education largely connects with the teachers themselves and the educators and makes sure that they're providing them with the support that they need. This can be either through meetings that I have with chairs and superintendents, along with officials from the department in our ed leaders’ meetings that happen multiple times a year. This happens also when I sit down with the NWTTA multiple times a year. But there's also professional development that happens from the department to the teachers, and a lot of that can be led or directed by what it is that the education body is looking for, because it's our teachers that spend all their time with students across the territory at the end of the day. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of ECE commit to working with families to better support students and improve attendance and engagement? Thank you. In small communities.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the opportunity I have to connect with education leaders is through our education leader table meetings, and I can certainly commit to continuing to bring this forward to them. Attendance is something that we talk about quite often, and the Member has my commitment absolutely to continue to keep this top of mind and top of discussion because it's vitally important that our kids are in school. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have more questions for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Can the Minister tell me when the GNWT sets securities, does that process take into account the wide spectrum of future possibilities from bankruptcy to planned closure? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of ECC.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for the question. The answer is certainly, yes. As the regulatory process proceedings roll along, the department provides a number of estimates, you know, whether it's regarding a regular closure and what that remediation process looks like. So I'll give a couple of examples. We would offer, you know, advice on water management, fuel and equipment, mobilizing and demobilizing in the event of a regular kind of process of shutdown. We also provide estimates in the instance of the worst case scenario where a business was to go bankrupt. And, you know, those security estimates take various things into consideration. You know, it assumes that the third party contractor will have additional costs because they'll have to be brought into site. It assumes that the fuel on site would potentially not be salvageable so that cost is calculated in as an example. And it also assume that crews and equipment, in order to do that work, would need to be mobilized to site. That's an example of some of the work that we do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain what happens if and when a resource development company goes bankrupt and the GNWT is left with the bill? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that's a question that really has a number of possible directions as to how it could be answered. Certainly, you know, at the end of the day we have securities that are set through the process which we hold as a government to ensure that we have resources to do that cleanup at the end of the day. Having said that, you know, we have processes here where we may come for supplemental appropriations if that was to exceed the budget that was available. But we would also look at other possible ways to ensure that that work is done in the most economical way to ensure that we're staying within the commitments that are made and realizing that part of that process is really ensuring we have a balance of securities held overall to ensure that we're able to do the work at the end of the day but we're also, you know, considering that there are instances where things may not go as planned. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of ECC. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the previous Minister of Infrastructure committed to establishing a building standards framework or Act which addresses accessibility concerns repeatedly raised by the human rights commission. Mr. Speaker, does the current Minister of Infrastructure have an update on the initiative to create a building standards framework or Act? Thank you.
Thank you. Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I'm aware of this, and there is a commitment to continue this process; however, obviously, with priorities of the government, things do change and do slow down different lines of work however we know that there's a need for this, and we'll continue to work on it. The Department of Infrastructure, municipal and community affairs, department of housing have been reviewing all the existing regulations, and we're hopefully going to advance some of this here in 2026. And, yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that was a fairly non-committal answer. Hopefully advanced -- I would like to get a bit more concrete from the Minister. This is certainly one that's important to me and repeatedly raised by the human rights commission. Would the Minister be able to offer a commitment that we're going to advance work on this and perhaps have a legislative proposal in 2027? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's always nice to try to commit but we all know how we work here in the government, and we get sidetracked with doing other lines of work and our priorities on legislative proposals change. And yeah, so, I mean, at the end of the day, the policies, the legislative work, and all the background's being worked on. Obviously, I should be clear; it's not a current priority but there is work being done to try to move this along as we know that this is an appetite for many Members of this government. So, again, the commitment is to continue to work on this and move it along to try to get this out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
No, thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to return to the question I was asking earlier here. And I'm concerned about natural justice when we have five bidders, four have been disqualified, and ends up with only one. It's not about the fact that the individual company got it. It's about the process, Mr. Speaker.
So my questions now are directed to the Minister responsible for procurement Services asking about particularly around natural justice. Where is the fairness in having an appeal process that doesn't allow the individuals to actually appeal the contract that the government refuses to consider them as a wanting opportunity -- or sorry, a willful opportunity to be involved? Thank you.
Thank you, Member Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is -- one of the things we are working on right now is actually to have an improvement to our vendor complaint process. The process that we have right now is a review process, and anyone that goes through a procurement and is unsuccessful at the end of that procurement can go through the review process, and it would be explained to them where they may have been unsuccessful or why they may have been unsuccessful, and procurement shared services can work with potential proponents so that they can improve bids going forward.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to what is obviously a very specific circumstance that is being referenced here, housing does take on most of its own procurement when it services but for large contracts, they do have the benefit of working with procurement shared services, which they did in this case. And in this case, they also had a fairness advisor involved from the very beginning because it is a large procurement. So in this particular instance, again, I won't speak much more into the details of it, but I will assure the public that a fairness advisor was involved throughout the process and that there is one of the -- at least one of the disqualified parties is going through the review to understand the decisions that were made. Thank you.
So, Mr. Speaker, it seems clear there is no appeal period. There's a 'let's complain and whine period', but there's no appeal period. So, Mr. Speaker, if there's an error in the review process, the bidder, this unsuccessful bidder, is the one that ultimately gets punished. So how can we fix that, that their bid has an appeal period that's actually an appeal period where it gets reviewed with the eye that maybe an error was made and considered in the fulsome ability that it was worthy to submit and have the chance? And if it's still found wanting, that's okay too, Mr. Speaker. Where is that chance? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if a fairness advisor, for example, were to identify that there was any irregularity or concern raised, a procurement can be paused and a procurement certainly can be -- we can make a decision not to continue. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we certainly want to ensure that fundamentally that the reputation of the government to follow through with procurements when they've put out is maintained and that they continue to do so in a transparent fashion. So there are quite a number of rules that are associated to conducting a procurement and to conducting a public procurement in particular. I can say that there certainly has been work over the last few years in terms of improving that process, starting with the procurement review of the last government, and bringing forward a number of changes, not the least of which is to our vendor engagement systems, vendor performance management on the side of the government, and vendor inquiry processes on the other side. And we're going to continue to refine that process but in the meantime, Mr. Speaker, that is why there's a review so that vendors do have an opportunity to raise a concern if there is one and the government would have an opportunity to determine whether or not the concern is one that warrants interference with the procurement, the otherwise transparent and public procurement process. Thank you.
Correction, that was the Minister of Finance, not the Infrastructure Minister. I apologize. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, would the Minister be very clear to this House that there is no appeal period; it's simply a whine, complain, and lick your wounds process? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, public procurement processes are one that the government takes very seriously. It is very important to ensure that when an RFP goes out that it is adhered to, it is put out publicly. The very nature of the process is that there will be a successful bidder and there will be not successful bidders. And what we do at that point, Mr. Speaker, is to ensure, again, as I've said, that we throughout the process are monitoring what's going on internally, that when there's a large procurement, there's a fairness advisor from outside of the government to monitor that process, and if there are concerns raised that suggest that the underpinnings of the process are not adhering to the standards that we expect of them, then we certainly can look at whether or not to cancel a procurement or pause a procurement. But, Mr. Speaker, when there's an unsuccessful bidder, they can participate in the review process to understand why they were unsuccessful. The fact that someone's unsuccessful does not necessarily mean that the process was not adhered to or that the process was unfair. Notwithstanding the specific circumstances, but because we believe in good process, we are going to continue to improve that process and make the ability of vendors to come forward in different means better. That review process right now is one that continues to feed in so that going forward public procurement adheres to the highest standards. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I've heard in this House before that the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs and municipal and community affairs are leading the development of an emergency social supports framework to better integrate NGOs into emergency management planning. So I'd like to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs if the SPCA and other organizations involved with the welfare of animals are involved in these plans. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
