Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So following up on my Member's statement, I have questions for the Minister of education about early literacy.
So given that we have now adopted the BC curriculum, will the NWT similarly be adopting BC's approach to regular early literacy screenings conducted by teachers from kindergarten to grade 3? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, ECE is currently reviewing BCE -- or sorry, BC's early literacy screening model as part of its quest to strengthen early identification here in the Northwest Territories as well. So some NWT education bodies, Mr. Speaker, have already instituted early screening with students, and it is certainly my goal to see that this is applied consistently across the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So that's a promising start. So given that other jurisdictions throughout the country, including Ontario, BC, and the Yukon, have now implemented policies requiring science-based methods of teaching early literacy, is it within the Minister's scope here in the NWT to similarly implement policies regarding early literacy instruction, or should this be left up to each school board or school or even individual classroom teachers the way it is now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, here in the Northwest Territories we certainly have a unique governance model that's found in one place across Canada, and that is here in the Northwest Territories where we really have a decentralized system here, and so what you find is that ECE sets the overall JK to 12 framework and funds the system while regional education bodies deliver programming and employ school staff. So what that essentially means as per the Education Act is the department just decides what the what might be, so what is our overall goal, which might be in this case, you know, high quality early reading supports for students, and then it is the education body that determines the how, so how that's going to be achieved. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So given that the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read report determined that the balanced literacy approach risks violating the human rights of Indigenous students in particular, and the fact that balanced literacy is still the dominant approach here, does the Minister consider the Right to Read recommendations to be relevant in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In short, the answer is yes. Yes, the Right to Read report is definitely very relevant here in the Northwest Territories as its focus is on equitable access to effective reading instruction, especially for Indigenous students. This report finds that queuing or balanced literacy approaches are not supported for teaching word reading and calls for explicit systematic instruction in phonetic awareness, phonics, decoding, and fluency. It's important to note here, Mr. Speaker, that the new NWT-adapted curriculum includes these foundational components as part of the new curriculum implementation. One of our focuses is to strengthen the consistency of these practices across education bodies, and it's also important to note that literacy is baked into courses right across the curriculum, not solely found in, for example, language instruction. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, following up on my Member's statement there.
Mr. Speaker, February the 6th, my Member's statement were readiness for the Mackenzie Valley Highway. My question today is readiness for Imperial closure. My first question: Will the Minister support a joint Mackenzie Valley Highway and Esso closure readiness session in Norman Wells? We got a commitment for the highway readiness session. Now I want to bring two together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of ITI.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member. I know he was busy at work at these engagement sessions last week. I would say one of the things that's really critically important here is the timelines of these projects might be different as well as the business and trades needs of these projects as well. And so while there might be similarities, I think what we might find is that we might be able to be a lot more specific and a lot more purposeful in keeping these two projects separate. But I am certainly happy to work with the Member to see how we can kind of capitalize on some of those meetings to make sure that we're bringing together the right people at the right time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that reply here. I look forward to working with her office on a joint arrangement.
My next question: Will the Minister direct the regional office to develop an impacts assessment report from community members through an interview? It's such a huge impact. You've got to hear it for yourself. It takes more than three minutes on a statement to capture the essence and the magnitude of the situation. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in short, yes. When we were working last year with the community of Norman Wells when fuel was not received last winter, we made sure that we were talking directly to businesses in the region to understand those impacts. And so these weren't new relationships or new conversations at all. So certainly making sure that we're continuing those conversations and continuing to learn how we can work together on the next phases is going to be critically important. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final Supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that reply here. It's extremely -- and I can't emphasize how extremely -- it is for residents of small communities to hear from the government. And for that, I respect the visits in previous months here by the government. My last question, Mr. Speaker: Next month the Minister of Infrastructure is touring the Sahtu by winter road. Can the Minister of ITI coordinate a joint hall meeting with the public on that timeline? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately my calendar does not align very well next month with the Minister of Infrastructure. But we do, as much as we can, work together and make sure that we're briefing one another before we go into communities, and so I can commit to the Member to ensuring that I am having conversations with the Minister of Infrastructure both before and after his visit, and I look forward to hearing all about his tour up the winter road. And I can also commit to the Member that I will be meeting with Imperial Oil next month as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following from my statement earlier today, I have questions for the Minister responsible for public service.
Mr. Speaker, does the GNWT agree that internationally-educated nurses have valuable contributions to make to our healthcare system and can help stabilize our health care workforce? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, absolutely there's no doubt that that's true. We do want to ensure, of course, that we work always with the Association of Nurses and the authority to make sure that we are meeting the best possible standards for all staffing here, but certainly aware that that is an opportunity that we want to look at, that we are finding all the best possible available staff wherever they may be from. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that confirmation from the Minister. So following again from my Member's statement, would the Minister commit to investigating the possibility of establishing a supervised practice experience program here in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can certainly say that that conversation -- this wouldn't be the first time that that conversation comes to light, that myself and the Minister of Health and Social Services are both very live to this, would like to work on this. So, again, just acknowledging and wanting our frontline staff to know that I am acknowledging that they are already quite busy, but in terms of figuring out that pathway, how we can provide that opportunity and provide that service, again, absolutely happy to look into that. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to be 100 percent clear -- I heard a lot of words there -- can I just get a yes? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yeah, Mr. Speaker, I am obviously not being asked for a solution today. We're being asked to work on a solution. So yes. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just going to give the Premier a moment to get back to his seat. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, can the Premier explain what plans to -- sorry, what plans exist to monitor and evaluate success or areas for improvement of service integration and ISD units as they begin to expand beyond Yellowknife to Fort Simpson, Inuvik, Hay River, and other communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question. So service integration is the umbrella term we use for our efforts to integrate services across departments and ensure that residents are able to approach the government and get the services they need without having to bounce around between different departments. Under that, we have Integrated Service Delivery Yellowknife which is what used to be called integrated case management. So I just wanted to get the terminology straight while we begin talking about this. And so to monitor and evaluate how we're doing when we roll out the service integration initiative, we are currently developing a monitoring and evaluation framework that should be done in the very near future, within the next month. And what we're going to do is use that -- we're going to test that by evaluating the Integrated Service Delivery Yellowknife site. So that's formally known as integrated case management. That site's been active for quite a while now, and it'll serve well to test out that monitoring and evaluation framework. We have integrated service teams, so service integration teams in four other communities, and as we go forward we will then be able to use that tool to monitor the progress and efficiency and effectiveness of those teams as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier elaborate if future plans for service integration and, indeed, those service delivery teams will dovetail or overlap, where appropriate, with the work of EIA to strengthen relationships with NGOs that provide crucial expertise in social service delivery? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And yes, those things go hand-in-hand. Integrating services doesn't just mean integrating the GNWT services; it means integrating with our partners and those are often NGOs who deliver services across the territory that are vital to many of our residents. The Member mentioned transitional housing in her statement earlier, and I was just over at the transitional housing site by the Folk on the Rocks here and speaking with the Yellowknife Women's Society staff about how they are integrating their services and working with the GNWT, EIA, and other partners to deliver services. So we are already seeing the benefits of working more closely with NGOs and better supporting NGOs, and we fully intend to continue that work. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier tell me whether the -- if the success of service integration, and its predecessor ICM, would encourage EIA to increase this unit's capacity and budget into future years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So right now we have a budget before us, and it has in it what it has in it. But with that being said, we've already -- we've recently put a lot of money into service integration, into transitional housing, into better supporting NGOs across the territory, not just here in Yellowknife, and so as we move forward the idea is that we would get better at breaking down barriers and working across departments and government, and we want to move to a place where we don't need pathfinders to work with someone to go and access individual government departments. We want to make that easier for people. So in the long run, the goal is to get to a point where we don't need teams like this anymore and hopefully doing things more efficiently and actually saving money in the long run. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of ECE.
Mr. Speaker, last year in the spring session the ECE Minister stood up and talked about the surplus from the YK 1 and 2 school boards, and that funding of $14 million could be used to help with the shortfall of Jordan's Principle. Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister is does the Minister believe is it appropriate for her to instruct schools on how to spend their surplus dollars rather than ensuring that she provides school-adequate funding for Indigenous students herself? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the dollars that school boards do have come from dollars appropriated from this House for the purpose of delivering education. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So far stop-gap funding has been totally inadequate. Is the Minister telling Indigenous families she does not have enough money to fully fund their children's education? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the funding that's appropriated by this House to education bodies across Northwest Territories is determined through the school funding formula. That school funding formula takes into account the inclusive schooling directive which is where we find a lot of the supports, like therapeutic services for example, that Jordan's Principle funding often supplements. We're in the process of reviewing the inclusive schooling directive because we do acknowledge that the education body, our students across the Northwest Territories, and their needs have drastically changed over the course of that directive being in place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister confident that her government can soon reach some kind of agreement with the federal Government of Canada to help restore funding for the Indigenous students that have been cut so far this fiscal year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I continue to advocate, with all of my Cabinet colleagues, in regards to the issue of Jordan's Principle. In addition, I've been advocating alongside Ministers, education Ministers from other jurisdictions, especially my territorial counterparts, and will continue to do so. And at the same time, we are reviewing our inclusive schooling directive as well as making sure that I am reaching back into education bodies in regards to our support assistants initiative to find out if that works for them or not. Thank you.
