Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to oral question asked by Mrs. Groenewegen on May 13, 2011, concerning consent form policy regarding MLA requests for information for constituents.
The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act provides that a government office or public body may disclose personal information to a Member of the Legislative Assembly who has been requested by the individual to whom the information relates to assist in resolving a problem. The discretion to disclose rests with the public body, and the practice has been where the request is relatively straightforward, the information can typically be disclosed to the MLA. But when dealing with requests of a particularly sensitive nature such as personal information pertaining to medical, financial or legal matters, public bodies may elect to seek the written consent of the individual concerned before releasing the information to the MLA.
This practice is consistent with the ATIPP Policy and Guideline Manual first drafted in 1996 and made available to all access coordinators across government. The Minister of Justice has agreed to bring this issue to the interdepartmental Access and Privacy Administration Committee to review the existing guidelines and practices to ensure the GNWT procedures and practices are helpful to NWT people, while also meeting our requirement to demonstrate due diligence in safeguarding personal information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to oral question asked by Mr. Yakeleya on May 13, 2011, regarding declaring the residence of Bern Will Brown as a Canadian historic site.
I have been informed that Mr. Brown’s log buildings are not old enough to meet the criteria for commemoration by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, but as this is a federal program managed by Parks Canada, Mr. Brown may wish to contact the Parks Canada in Inuvik, 867-777-8825, for further details.
I also want to suggest that the log buildings best chance for historical commemoration might be for Mr. Brown to approach the Behdzi Adha First Nation Band Council -- hope I said that right. In their role as designated municipal authority, they can issue a band council resolution designating the log buildings a local heritage resource. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to oral question asked by Ms. Bisaro on May 19, 2011, regarding NWT SPCA fundraising for new animal shelter.
While there is funding available to the SPCA to assist with volunteer development -- refer to MACA’s Volunteer Development Coordination Policy at www.maca.gov.nt.ca -- no department in the GNWT has funding available to assist non-profit organizations with building construction costs.
I’m pleased to note that recent media stories have reported on this non-profit’s progress at obtaining land from the City of Yellowknife for a new shelter. In addition, media stories have reported that the NWT SPCA has been awarded $300,000 from the Aviva Community Fund and will obtain this funding once they have secured land for the shelter. It is encouraging to see this volunteer organization’s success at undertaking fundraising efforts to support its operation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
---Interjection
Yeah, 1-800...
---Laughter
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Colleagues, I’d like to draw your attention to the gallery today to the presence of Mr. Johannes Vervloed, the Consul General for the Netherlands, who is based in Vancouver. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Vervloed to the Northwest Territories on his first official visit to the Northwest Territories. Welcome to the Chamber.
Accompanying him is our protocol officer, Leslie Straker. Welcome.
My executive assistant Sue Tkachuk is up there in the gallery.
Also, it gives me great pleasure, the Speaker from the Ontario Legislature, Mr. Steve Peters, is with us today.
And his executive assistant, Maggie Head. Welcome to the Northwest Territories and welcome to the Chamber.
I’d also like to welcome a constituent of mine in the gallery today, Mr. Robert Bouchard is here with us today.
The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I’m very pleased to recognize my wife and partner of 40-plus years, Melody.
I want to recognize a number of visitors from PNWER and I’ll go through the list. Senator Cathy Giessel, State of Alaska Senate; Senator Lyman Hoffman, Alaska State Senate, and his wife, Lillian Hoffman; Mike Schaufler, president of PNWER from the Oregon Legislature; Max Black, State Legislator, State of Idaho; Mr. Jeff Morris, Washington House of Representatives; Mr. Bob Herron, Alaska State Legislature; MLA from Alberta, Ray Prins; Mr. Colin Smith representing British Columbia; Don Pumphrey, private sector representative from Yukon; Matt Morrison, CEO for PNWER; Ian Burkheimer, director of partnerships, PNWER; his dad, Art Burkheimer; Megan Levy, program coordinator, PNWER; Linda Ecklund, senior economist, ITI; Rob Earl from Alaska; Mike Pawlowski, Alaska; Carl Burges, Yukon; Steve Rose, Yukon. I also want to recognize my Yellowknife South constituent, Lona Hegeman, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t recognize a long-time hockey builder and supporter and member of the Education Hall of Fame, Mr. Ed Jeske. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, probably in the first time in the last three and a half years, I have my whole family in the House. So I’d like to welcome my partner, my wife and my big support for when I’m not home, my wife, Jenny; my daughters Chelsey, Kirstin, and Mikayla, and my sons, Matthew and Mitchell. Welcome to the House. I’d also like to welcome Mr. Ian Burkheimer, as well, and Ray Prins, who worked with my dad in 1972 at Bar C between Tuk and Inuvik on the ice road. Welcome. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my great pleasure to welcome Mr. Tony Whitford, resident of Weledeh. I think we all would agree that it’s great to see that twinkle in the eye in the House again here today. I’d also like to recognize Vivian Squires and Ed Jeske, lifelong friends there. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest Economic Region representatives. I know that Ian’s dad was having a walk in Weledeh today. I hope that went well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize Mr. Hockey of Yellowknife, Mr. Ed Jeske; the highly esteemed Anthony W.J. Whitford, as we all know him; and certainly the lovely Ms. Vivian Squires, who is accompanying Mr. Jeske on his visits here at the Legislative Assembly. I, too, at this time would also like to recognize Ms. Lydia Bardak. I believe I saw her there. She’s a city counsellor as well as wearing many hats in helping the community. Ms. Lona Hegeman, and I would be remiss to not mention this person, although Minister McLeod already acknowledged her, but I’d like to say a special hello to the wonderful Melody McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take the occasion to recognize a former colleague from my time in RWED in my past life, Mr. Robert Bouchard. I understand Robert has developed a keen interest in politics and I want to wish him all the best. Of course, I want to recognize Melody McLeod, my sister-in-law, and say welcome.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Chamber. I hope you are enjoying the procedure. It’s always nice to have an audience.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We take it as a great loss in our community to not have the Greyhound bus pull into town everyday about 4:30. I note that this is as a result of deregulation that took place, that no longer requires Greyhound to operate in less lucrative markets, and as Greyhound themselves said, maybe some smaller carriers would move into these markets. I’m sure that the entrepreneurial and innovative-thinking people of Hay River will perhaps see this as an opportunity and move into this, but it will take time. There is also a loss of not having the affiliation of Greyhound to take advantage of those passes. There is a Discovery Pass that you can buy that will allow you to go anywhere in Canada within a certain amount of days for about $199, which is great because Hay River was the end of the Greyhound. One little thing that we had that Yellowknife didn’t have. You could go to Hay River, you could cross over the NWT border and come into Hay River on a Greyhound bus pass.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation what role did this government play in the discussions about the removal of the discontinuance of the Greyhound service into the Northwest Territories. The passenger service will now end in Edmonton. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT is one of four jurisdictions that do not regulate passenger or bus industry. We certainly control and insist on safety and insurance requirements to provide service. However, in the last while since we were made aware of the bus service that came into Hay River, as the Member referred to, we are not going to provide passenger service anymore. We’ve taken the occasion to try to get as much information as we can to see what that meant in terms of are they also going to discontinue hauling freight. Are there other people out there that would step up to the plate to take over the service?
We had deputy ministers get together from all the jurisdictions, as this does not only impact the Northwest Territories, there are other jurisdictions, to see if there was any interest, to see if we could get any support from the federal government for a national program to try and subsidize the operations. That was not successful. So we are right now talking to some of the operators in the NWT to see if there is an interest. If we find there is an interest, we just need to know if it’s going to include the hauling of freight. That’s an area that we need some clarity on.
The comments reported in the news media attributed to Greyhound indicated that they will continue to be involved in hauling freight but they are dropping the passenger service. I think by doing that, what they are doing is keeping what they think makes money and dropping the part that they think does not make money, which makes it difficult for someone else in the private sector to go into that and still go head to head and compete with Greyhound on the freight side of things. So I would like to know what this government will plan to do. I think it’s going to be difficult for the private sector to compete, but like I said, I have great confidence in the business sector in Hay River to consider and perhaps step into this gap.
I’d like to ask what role this government could play in assisting, cooperating... Sometimes it takes a while to get these things off the ground before they become financially viable. Does this government have an interest in assisting? There is already courier and freight service. Greyhound is only one of those services that comes into Hay River right now, or will as of October, but I’m mostly concerned about the passenger service. Is this something that through Tourism or Transportation this government sees itself having a role in?
The reason the bus service is not going to haul passengers anymore is because the Alberta government deregulated their system. It is now allowing what was a monopoly up until now, to cancel some of the trips that are coming to the rural areas that have very low market volumes.
We have certainly an interest to communicate what the plans are from Greyhound. Our information coming from the local operators is they don’t have a very good understanding as to what the Greyhound plans to do, whether they would step aside if an operator came forward from the Northwest Territories and operated up to Valleyview where the Greyhound services are going to be ending for passengers.
I think our role right now is to try to bridge that communication gap, to talk to Greyhound, to talk to the local operators and make sure we have a good understanding. We’ve already had some requests from operators to see if there was any way that we could subsidize. We’re not at that point yet but we have to consider all options. We are very interested in having a service resume. We think it’s also a good opportunity for our operators in the Northwest Territories to expand their routes and have passenger service continue.
As the Member has mentioned, it is a good service. It is targeted to people that are of low income. A lot of them are seniors, students, and others that are wanting to see the people…That’s it.
As my colleague Mr. Bromley pointed out to me, too, it’s also a mode of transportation that is more environmentally friendly than flying, and a lot of people are considering that these days. It’s a way of a group of people getting together and travelling together and reducing the environmental footprint from that kind of travel. I’d like to ask the Minister, does he know anything about the negotiations that were taking place between Greyhound and B.C.? Whitehorse? It seems Greyhound wanted to cut out the northern B.C. and into the Yukon into Whitehorse, as well, but somehow they managed to avert closure of that route. How did that happen? Did he talk to his colleagues from the other jurisdictions?
Yes, I’ve talked to all my colleagues at the national level. It’s a concern right across the board. The decision by Greyhound to continue their service into B.C. all the way to Whitehorse is a business decision. They have the market volumes there to warrant carrying of passengers. We had the jurisdiction of Manitoba look at doing one year of subsidies. They have since discontinued that and I’m not sure where they’re going to go as next steps. We have looked and talked with all our colleagues at different jurisdictions and are looking at all the options.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So just to summarize then, we have the commitment of this government to work together with other northern private businesspeople who may be able to come up with a solution for the passenger service into the North that will look at the potential revenue from freight, but also take into account the tourism aspect of this travel plus the costly travel mode available to Northerners as an option for getting in and out of the North as well. Is that what I’m to understand from the Minister’s comments?
Overall, we think it’s an excellent opportunity to the qualified businesses in the Northwest Territories to expand their service, to generate a revenue source. It may mean a different type of vehicle. It may mean a different schedule. It may mean convincing Greyhound to release some of their commitments to provide freight. All those discussions have to take place, and we certainly have to get a better understanding as to what is going to be coming in terms of what the Greyhound plans are. We don’t have that all in our hands right now.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I mentioned earlier today that we’ve had a string of bad news, mostly from the media, on the series of new crises at the Giant Mine site. The public has been the last to know, or perhaps the second last as I haven’t been seeing any information updating Members on the status and problems of this project. As both a fellow proponent and regulator, can the Minister say if the federal Northern Affairs department has been keeping his office updated on these developments?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, as far as I know.
I acknowledge the answer. It’s not one that obviously builds a lot of confidence, if the Minister doesn’t even know if he’s being updated on this important project. To my knowledge this government has taken no public position on such crucial Giant Mine issues as independent oversight, ongoing research, or public reporting. Because of the way that DIAND is running this project, both as regulator and proponent, other governments find themselves in a curious position when it comes to the environmental assessment.
Given the dismal recent record of DIAND on public accountability and refusal to support investigation of independent oversight, it’s obvious that pressure needs to be applied to get this department to mend its ways and perhaps participate. What is the position of this government on the need for creation of an arm’s length and independent oversight body to monitor and review project planning and implementation?
I indicated to the Member that as far as I was aware, our department is part of the operation that oversees the Giant Mine. We have $27 million booked as our share and we have people at the right tables. We are, once again as far as I’m aware, from what I’m seeing, we’re engaged in those processes. If the Member is wanting to advocate for an alternative structure, I’d be happy to look at that.
Given that this government is also in a position of conflict as both regulator and proponent, as the Minister has mentioned, and the fact that we’ve got $27 million buried into this project, we need to take the high road.
Will the Minister commit to taking that high road and bringing independent oversight, as we would require for any other project that we are not both regulator and proponent on? An obvious conflict of interest.
As a matter of course, the Government of the Northwest Territories traditionally travels on the high road. This case is no different. I will discuss the issue with the deputy and officials and make sure, I’ll confirm for my own satisfaction whether or not we’re in conflict.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s commitment there. I want to note that even though time is running out for this mandate, our mandate, under current plans, the Giant Mine issue is never going to go away. The federal government needs to be put on notice now, that they must make fuller information more proactively available, starting with the supply of information to these Members.
Will the Minister make a formal request to the federal Minister for a full briefing and an opportunity for the Members of our next Assembly to direct questions at the proponent/regulators of this project?
I’m sure that will be part of the transition document and planning. I can indicate that the opportunity will be there. I can’t at this point commit the next Minister, whoever that may be, to that, but the Member knows that if a request for briefing is made, the government will comply.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
