Glen Abernethy

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Justices of the Peace Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The transportation component provides compensation to communities relative to the value of the cost of return transportation between Yellowknife and Edmonton via air and/or road. The cost of living component provides compensation to communities relative to the average expenditures for a food basket of goods and services compared to Yellowknife. Yellowknife would be a base. We would be looking at the cost of goods or the basket of goods in every other community as part of the formula to determine what other communities are getting, but if we’re using Yellowknife as a base, we need to make sure...

I indicated in my previous response that transportation is one of the primary components of this. There are two components. There is transportation, which used to be the VTA, and then there is the cost of living component.

If you go back and look at the history of negotiations over time, when we got rid of the housing allowance in the Government of the Northwest Territories in the ‘90s, that amount was negotiated by way of an increase into the base salaries of all GNWT employees. So housing has already been incorporated in. If you look at the increases that have occurred to the salaries over...

Ultimately, the authorities are responsible for the schools themselves, but we do a lot of maintenance work for schools as negotiated. In the case of Inuvik, I’m not sure what the situation is with the snow, but I will certainly look into that and get back to the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hear the Member’s point. We do planning studies with the department that is leading the build. In this case it was Education, Culture and Employment, and they identified the requirements, the things they would like to see in the building, the input from their staff, the input from the boards, the input from the community. All that is incorporated into the design. We build what is asked of us to build.

In the case of the school, we heard clearly from the board of education, from the Department of Education, and we incorporated state-of-the-art kitchen facilities, music...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 19, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2013, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Protection of Family Violence Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that Bill 15, Gunshot and Stab Wound Mandatory Disclosure Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Once again, going back in time into history, the VTA that we used to have in the ‘90s became part of the component of the northern allowance. When we factored in the transportation component, that transportation component works out to about $3,400 in Yellowknife and we’re trying to equalize to those rates. Those are no longer realistic rates. The cost of getting out of Yellowknife has actually decreased in the last number of years as opposed to increased. So if we were to actually base the rates on the cost of getting out of Yellowknife, it would be a drop, and that hasn’t been negotiated.

I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a long question or a question demanding a long answer, but I’ll do my best to do it in a short period of time. The northern allowance is a negotiated benefit and it cannot be unilaterally changed or reduced or eliminated by the GNWT.

Many, many years ago – in the ‘90s – we used to have a housing allowance and a vacation travel assistance allowance. Those were eliminated as part of a negotiation. As a result, housing was rolled into the salary. At that time, there was a significant increase in salary, whereas VTA wasn’t. VTA became part of what is known as the...