Part of the recommendations brought to our attention was that matter from my departmental briefing. I will be going through the recommendations and possibly making those changes as we move forward. They are recommendations brought to our attention and we are currently reviewing it. This matter will be before the 17th Assembly as well as the new government, so we’ll do what we can as the department of the day.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I’m really glad to hear that the department is actively looking at this report and is actively considering making some changes. I think that there are some necessary. The report presumably was received late last year. It’s dated October 2010. I’d like to ask the Minister, if this is going to the 17th Assembly, when we might expect to see some recommendations for change from this report.
As I stated, the recommendations are before me now and it will be part of as we move into the 17th Assembly government. We’re at the tail end of our 16th Assembly. There are only a few more days here. I will be reviewing it, and if we need to make those changes, we’ll definitely work on that.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment getting back to my Member’s statement where I talked about a 31-year-old mother of four children, aged six to 14, who is having her living allowance for SFA cut back from $1,550 a month to $1,040 a month. She also has been informed by the SFA caseworker that she is only eligible for another year. She is going to hit the $60,000 cap. The reason she’s going to hit this $60,000 cap is because she has four kids and she’s getting a living allowance which is just over twice what a single student would get. It amounts to a discriminatory practice by the department and SFA when it works against somebody for having children. I’d like to ask the Minister if this, in fact, is a reality and how we’re going to fix that.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We are aware of the situation and the only way we can review and make some possible changes is through the review of SFA that will currently be underway in September of this year, and completion we’re hoping for next year.
This individual is into her second year, and the following year will be third year. We’re aware of the situation and we want to do what we can to support all students in the Northwest Territories.
The cap is there -- $60,000 -- and the policy states that, and it’s fair to all the students across the board as well. We are aware, again, and SFA is currently under review, so the changes will definitely be coming. It will be the voices of the students, because we are reaching out to the students, and that particular student will have a voice in the system as well.
During the review period, which the Minister says might take up until next fall, I’m just wondering if the government is going to have any provision that would see students in the situation that I outlined earlier that would protect students from undue hardship. Especially those with, you know, I said four children, so that they aren’t faced with hardships and they’re not getting their living allowance reduced while the department and the government is out there reviewing SFA. I think we should put some provisions in place that can maintain living allowances until the review is done so that students aren’t faced with those types of hardships.
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment works with all students. I know some students are struggling with their daily living allowance. That’s the very reason we are reviewing the SFA program. The current policy exists today that we have to follow. We cannot break the policy as it stands. We can amend that policy.
As we conduct the overall review and see the results of the recommendations in due time, we can make those changes. In the current time we’ll continue to work with the student and other students, as well, where they can access other potential funding that may be available to them.
I thank the Minister for that. I know the Minister; his intentions are good and I know his office is trying to work out a solution for this student that I’m talking about, this mother of four who is encountering problems. The Minister talked about the review and I just want to get some assurance from the Minister and the government that the SFA review that’s going to be started this fall is going to be finished in time for next calendar school year so that we’re not going to affect the next two school years. If it doesn’t come in until October next year, the students that are in the situations like this are going to be impacted not only this year but next year. Can we get some assurances from the Minister that the review of SFA will be done in time for next school year, which would be next fall?
The only assurance I can give is that’s our goal as a department, to complete the overall review by early next year; for next school year, if that’s possible. That is our goal. I cannot guarantee that it will be done before next school year, but our department will do what it can to reach out to the students, the parents, the public, to hear their perspective. In order to make those changes, we want to reflect on all the needs that will be addressed. Definitely that’s our goal.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hear what the Minister is saying. Again, there aren’t any guarantees here. I appreciate the fact that they want to talk to students. They want to talk to anybody that’s interested in SFA, including Regular Members of this House I think should be heavily consulted on that. In the dealings we have with our constituents, I think we can’t leave any students out of this equation. While we’re studying this, we can’t afford to let it drag on. I think we need to get some assurances from the government that we are going to take a set amount of time and get the review done so that it’s not going to have a negative impact on students that are out there awaiting this review to be conducted. I think the Minister said there was a bit of a commitment there, but he wouldn’t quite commit. I think we need a firm commitment that the work will get done by early next year so that it won’t impact the following school year.
All I can say at this point is the work will get done next year. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Transportation. They are in follow up to my Member’s statement from earlier today where I talked about the rerouting of the Ingraham Trail through the Giant Mine site.
I understand that there is a public consultation process going on right now that is expected to be done in August, where they’re hopefully going to decide on some routing, and hopefully going to decide on a timeline for the completion of this project. I was wondering if the Minister could give me a bit of an update on the results of that public consultation. Do we know a route, has a route been finalized, and what kind of timeline are we working on for the completion of this project? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. About three questions there. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you. I appreciate the recognition of all the questions he threw in that quick question.
Mr. Speaker, we have been working on the realignment of the Giant Mine road. We’ve been working with the Giant Mine Remediation Team over the last while. We want to ensure that whatever option is selected meets their requirements for remediation. We’ve also been talking to various stakeholders, such as the City of Yellowknife, the YK Dene, and we’ve also requested public input on the three options that we put out for consideration. We intend, as the Member indicated, to take one more round of consultations -- that’s going on, I think, right now -- and have some results before the end of August, after which a final decision will be made on which route will be taken.
Not to answer the second question but just to give some information, right now the information that we have indicates that there is a preference to relocate the road completely away from the mine site, so one of the options that does that will be considered. Thank you.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that response, and thanks for a little bit of clarification as to where the routing might be. The route that’s the right-of-way from the mine is route one. Does that mean that route one is the route that will likely be selected?
For the record, I like route one. I think route one is great because it opens up some more land for city development and public usage, so that’s good. I’ll stop with that one question instead of throwing three at him, Mr. Speaker.
First of all, we haven’t decided on a final route but I think that most people agree that route one is probably the option that meets most of the needs. It reallocates the road away from the mine site, it opens up new land, and it would provide, of course, for a completely realigned highway. That is, right now, probably a favourite. Thank you.
Regardless of which route is selected, do we have a bit of a timeline? The Minister did indicate that he hopes the public consultation will be done by August, but when do we expect, regardless of the route, that the construction will start, and when do we expect to see some completion so that we’re not having our heavy loads going up to the diamond mines over the arsenic chambers themselves? Thank you.
Right now the plan is to have all information gathered by the end of August, the final decision on realignment by the month of September, and start the engineering in the same month of September and into October. We want to have our tenders out for construction sometime in October/November and we’d like to have the construction start this year, the site preparation, and the stockpiling of gravel and crushing and work on the embankment next year. We’d like to have the road opened to the travelling public by the summer of 2012 and final servicing of the road by 2013. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for that update. We look forward to driving on the road in 2012 and 2013.
I guess my last question is about financing. This is part of the Giant Mine reclamation, so who is ultimately responsible for the cost of this road? Will it be the GNWT or can we expect the feds to kick in the bulk of the cost of realigning this road to avoid the arsenic chambers? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Of course, the final costs will be dependent on the option that we choose, and the price could be fairly expensive. However, we expect that the funding will be obtained from the GNWT’s Giant Mine Environmental Liability Fund that was previously established, and that’s probably where we’re going to draw the money from. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask questions directed to the Minister of Transportation. In my Member’s statement today, Mr. Speaker, I talked about better customer service approach on the issuing of things like licence plate stickers, driver’s abstracts, and that’s really what I’m after here, is maybe moving government business forward with an eye to servicing the public a little better.
I want to put on the record, of course, that this is in no way a criticism of the public service of who’s providing this service. It’s just the way it seems to work in this type of area.
Mr. Speaker, Ontario uses kiosks to serve their clients and customers better, to provide driver abstracts, licence plate stickers, and other types of ID. Would the Minister of Transportation be willing to look into that type of aspect to help the flow of the waiting clientele to get these services? Would he be willing to look into this issue and see if it can be addressed and considered going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad to hear that the Member is not criticizing me for a change.
---Laughter
The Yellowknife driver and vehicle licensing office handles about 60 percent of all transactions that are required in the Northwest Territories. Over the last while we’ve done a lot of work in redesigning the office adding additional hardware. We’ve reviewed and improved the process. We’ve tried to get a setting that’s more comfortable for our clients and more privacy.
I think that has gone a long way in the last two years to reduce the waiting times to around 21 minutes with a processing time on average of about seven minutes. Most people can go in and out of the office and obtain their documents in less than a half an hour. With the Member suggesting we should have a kiosk like we have here at the airport in Yellowknife, we will certainly consider installing something of that nature in the road licensing office. Thank you.
I’m kind of glad we’re not hurting the Minister’s feelings there as he made a special note here. It’s good to see that he’s sensitive and actually cares about particular issues, for a change at least.
Mr. Speaker, Ontario is leading the way on a number of initiatives of improving services and always with a keen eye to ensure that the services are marked in a way that provides the best quality response times and actions for the constituents, which would be the Ontario people. Mr. Speaker, I would hope the Northwest Territories government has the same type of attitude. The Ontario government has added on-line services, as well as I mentioned self-serve through a kiosk. They’ve even switched their vehicle registrations and give people the option of having a two-year registration so they don’t have to go every year. This is all built around the flow of customer service.
The last thing I want to add is the fact that the hours of operation are a constant concern of many of the constituents. As I pointed out, DMV hours are now better than banker hours, quite clearly, because they open at 9:00 and close at 4:00. Mr. Speaker, some of these concerns are all packed into one issue, which is better customer service. Does the Minister show an interest in some sensitivity to this particular problem, and would he be willing to see if they could investigate and evaluate some of the suggestions I’ve provided here today in a light to provide better service to our people?
As usual, we are ahead of the Member.
---Laughter
We’ve already investigated what other jurisdictions are doing. The issues and suggestions he raises are very good ones, of course. It’s something we are considering. We need to do a number of things prior to accepting anything new. We need to overhaul our motor vehicle information system that is currently being used for issuing services. It doesn’t allow us to reconcile and line up with anything like the nature of a kiosk or even hooking up on line. So we anticipate that’s going to be done in the next while. We’d like to have a new system or an expanded system on stream and in place in the next couple of years. Of course, that’s going to be dependent on the amount of capital investment we will be able to obtain, but that is our intent.
I have to admit that the Department of Transportation or even this Minister is ahead in some of his ideas. I won’t take that as a criticism. I will say that’s very unusual and welcome to hear that.
---Laughter
Mr. Speaker, one of the big comments -- and I’ll give the credit to the Department of Transportation -- was to put a TV in there to keep people occupied while they are waiting for service. One of the observations being made is it takes too long to go through, because the average everyday person doesn’t have 15 minutes to run in, because it’s not 15 minutes. It turns into almost an hour. I think the Minister himself has had a lengthy and prolonged experience renewing either his own vehicle registration or licence. So he will be able to understand this problem, I hope, from the eye of trying to get in and out for service.
Mr. Speaker, what is the mandate of the department to set a reasonable target time for an in-and-out service delivered by a public service for clients who need to get these updates? What is the mandate of that and what are we targeting?
As indicated, we reduced the waiting times by approximately 50 percent, so the average now is 21 minutes of waiting. It takes about seven minutes to process the documents. So it’s less than half an hour. We are happy with that. We think if we have electronic support through a kiosk or other means on line, that will improve. That’s where we’re working towards.
The Member is right; I’ve personally gone through the system. I think it took me 15 minutes to go through the system. I also checked with a couple of our staff that indicated -- they went through yesterday -- they waited five minutes. So it depends. I think there are peak periods such as Fridays and times in the year that there’s a high purchase of vehicles or renewals where there may be some congestion, but overall the service is pretty good. However, we’d like to improve the service here and across the Territories. In the Territories, we continue to move mobile systems, and that’s proven very successful also. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the attitude the Minister is carrying here today to ensure that customer service is kept at a high standard, and his approach is to move the issues forward so we can provide better quality service.
Mr. Speaker, the last question is built around timing, which is when can the public see any type of movement forward on this particular issue, as well as where can the everyday citizen provide some input on new suggestions and on these concepts? The Minister says a 21-minute waiting time in the room and I think he said a nine-minute waiting time with the actual customers/clients. That’s still half an hour. Where can citizens provide some input on what they feel is a reasonable amount of time -- because they have coffee breaks and they’ve got to be in and out -- and that type of information? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we have issuing offices in a number of our communities. We have a mobile issuing office. We have an office here in Yellowknife. They can contact any of those. They can contact our staff. They can go on the website or they can contact my office. We’d be happy to hear any concerns that members of the public at large may have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the Education, Culture and Employment programs for small communities, the Employment Support Program. I have questions for the Minister of ECE on that Member’s statement.
Can the Minister tell me if the Small Community Employment Support Program -- I think there are three programs tied together -- has been rolled out to the communities yet? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There was funding allocated for up to $925,000 for 2011-2012 under the Small Community Employment Support Program, which is specifically for small communities that can access this funding. It is out there for the communities to access. The program has been very successful in the past year. We’ve had in 2010, $350,000 which has been increased by the recommendations of the committee.
Mr. Speaker, this is an excellent program that community organizations can access as well.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell me if there are actual increases and individuals hired in the small communities as a result of this program? Thank you.
I don’t have the actual stats per community, but I can certainly look up the Member’s riding to see if there’s been any increase from last year to this year due to the funding increase. I can provide that information to the Member and also other Members if they are interested in the information. Mahsi.
Can the Minister tell me if this government is ensuring that the Employment Support Program is being delivered at the community level? Not regional level or YK, but actually delivered at the community level. Thank you.
That is the overall plan, to have the funding allocated to the communities. That’s been specified. As of July 2011 there’s been a commitment of just over $521,818 transferred to five regions and on to the communities. So it is a commitment of this government to allocate the funding to the communities so the community organizations can access the funding. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
