Debates of August 23, 2011 (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on my colleagues Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Menicoche and myself on the issue of health care in our smaller communities. The three of us represent 15 communities in total. So that says something to the Minister when he meets with the chairs of the health boards, but also with the senior officials of the Health department. I want to ask the Minister specifically if there are any types of discussions going on for any type of early detection program on cancer in our communities.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a constant effort to try to improve services in the community. In fact, myself and Premier Roland and Minister Michael McLeod were around in the days when the Sahtu was still part of the Inuvik region and we made the decision to move it into their own separate region. We set up the infrastructure, we had doctors come in there, we’ve added nurses, we put in all the support services that we have money to do, we’re looking at a long-term care facility, we’re looking at an improvement and replacement to the health centre. So, Mr. Speaker, there are very ambitious plans to improve health services in the Sahtu.

The Member has been very persistent in advocating for his constituency and he should be commended for his hard work and perseverance, but that is the general plan going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, and certainly we appreciate the wise decisions of the past government to move the Sahtu into its own authority, just like any other authority in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, finally the government has seen the light. Still, I hope that Colville Lake will get some improved services as it’s still back in the medieval times of health care services.

So I want to ask the Minister, given all that he’s given us in the House, will he talk to the chairs, talk to his deputy officials today and state that there is or could be an early detection cancer assessment program in our communities? People are being misdiagnosed, and people, the nurses, for whatever reason -- lack of resources, no support -- are handing Tylenol to people who should be assessed in Edmonton or Yellowknife for cancer. Can the Minister provide an answer for me?

Thank you. I will extend the commitment that I made to the Member for Nahendeh as well as the Member for Nunakput about discussing this issue with the deputy minister and the board chairs.

I’d like also to point out that we’re spending millions of dollars in electronic health records, medical records, telehealth. We have a very ambitious plan for a fibre optic line down the valley that would provide fibre optic link to all the communities and give them the best cutting-edge communication services so, in fact, their telehealth systems would work at full capacity. Children would be able to go on line and use all the resources and materials that are available on line. There would be cell phone, Internet, TV, all those systems in the community. There’s a lot of work by this government to improve services in communities.

I certainly look forward to the day that the initiatives that the Minister has indicated in the House become a reality. The fact of the matter is that I want to ask the Minister, in light of research projects that tell us there is contaminated fish in the Sahtu and other areas of the Northwest Territories, people are now starting to see new diseases coming up, can the Minister at least put a few million dollars of all the hundreds of millions of dollars that are going into fibre optics, television, TV, whatever, maybe take a little money out of the Deh Cho Bridge and put it into where they can save lives in our community?

I take this issue very personally because it happened to someone I love very much in my family. I saw the service that was being provided. It’s never been resolved. I ask the Minister if he would give a strong message to the nursing health centres to support our nurses. Can they have a program to start beginning to detect diseases like cancer? Something’s got to start now.

I indicated that I would follow up with the deputy minister and the chairs of the various boards and authorities to talk about this issue. The Member raises some issues about resources. Health will continue to be the largest department in government, with over a $300 million budget that grows on an annual rate that is higher overall than the standard and ceiling kept in place for other departments as we try to control our costs. There’s a new accord being negotiated with the federal government for health transfers and social transfers, so money will continue to be put into health and social services. Keeping in mind there will never be enough money, I appreciate the Member’s concern about timely assessments and everybody being given the proper care when they come through the door. I will follow up on that issue.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

I do believe the Minister when he said he will follow up and talk to his officials. I believe the Minister will do that. We have just about completed our Assembly here and shortly we’ll all be going up to reapply for our jobs if we want to come back to this career here.

I want to ask the Minister, in this short time frame and in discussions with the chairs and deputy minister, is there any type of campaign that will be initiated or going out to our communities to encourage and support people that when they do go to the health centres to ask, they have the right to ask for a proper assessment? If they don’t think that the nurse, for whatever reason, is giving them a proper diagnosis, that they demand that they get a better assessment, a second opinion to look at some of the issues. They know their bodies. I ask the Minister if we could start that short type of instructions to the nurses and also let our people know they have the right to a proper assessment.

I will follow up, as I’ve already committed to, and I would point out, as well, that we have very many campaigns about patients’ rights, about the right to know, to take part and know what’s happening with your own care. We’ve got initiatives on healthy living, Get Active. We’ve been pushing people on personal choices to deal with lifestyle, eating, drinking, don’t abuse alcohol, don’t smoke, get some exercise would go a long way to promoting better health in our communities. All those things are ongoing, but I will pass on the urgency of the situation that has been raised here by a number of my colleagues here today.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of energy, Minister Bob McLeod. It follows up on a statement from the other day on the conversion of communities to gas energy systems.

Norman Wells and Inuvik are up against the wall with their natural gas energy systems and, of course, we know the high cost of converting communities, yet we appear to be going down the road of committing new communities to the inevitable end of non-renewable energy supplies. Feasibility studies have been prepared on the conversion of Tulita, Fort Simpson, and Fort Good Hope to natural gas as the principal community energy supply. In this day and age I’m wondering why these contracts were not written to provide a comparative cost-benefit analysis of at least two options: conversion to gas or development of a local renewable energy infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the Energy Coordinating Committee, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the time -- and we have to remember that this process started about 10 years ago -- it was envisioned that it would be a stand-alone community gasification process and it was proceeded on that basis. We’ve gone forward with those communities where it seemed to be feasible. During our interventions, during the Joint Review Panel hearings we made representation that provisions should be made to offload from the pipeline to convert these communities to natural gas if it was deemed fit to proceed. That’s the reason we proceeded on that basis.

I do appreciate the Minister reminding me of the history; he was dead-on there. I guess I would note that the information out of Norman Wells indicates that even if the community can transit to propane, the cost will be high, future costs will remain volatile. Because of costs, the propane conversion can only be considered a stopgap there.

As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, and as demonstrated in thousands of communities across the globe, employment and investment opportunities from renewables can be the basis of strong, local, sustainable economies and drive down living and business costs. Taking into consideration the Minister’s comments and the reminder of the history here, will the Minister work with his MACA and Environment and Natural Resources colleagues to consider this opportunity to take Norman Wells and other communities onto the path of renewable energy as a viable option that needs equivalent feasibility studies?

With the recent developments in new technologies in renewable and alternative forms of energy, I think it would be appropriate for us to do so. Our only consideration is we’ve been working mainly at the behest of the communities and we would want to go back to the communities and indicate that we want to take another look at... I guess to me I think the best course would be to find a way to use all forms of energy. I know we talked to different provinces and they’re using alternative and renewable energy to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. There are certainly new capacities in storage of electricity. I think that it would certainly be incumbent upon us to look at all those alternatives. We do have to come up with a time frame for the National Energy Board for energy conversion, so we would have to take that into consideration. This was something that was decreed through the Joint Review Panel process.

I appreciate the Minister’s willingness to look at this. I think he brought forward some good points. I think a suite of energy sources is probably the way to go. We need to transition to a greater and greater proportion of renewable or at least low-carbon sources. I think the Minister is well aware of that. I’d like to note that in those communities there’s already been feasibility projects going, for example, for a pellet manufacturing plant out of Simpson, geothermal, hydro projects and so on that the Minister himself has been involved in. Given his comments again and this recognition of the need for a suite of energy sources transitioning to renewable, will the Minister pursue these feasibility studies and incorporate in them and re-examine the gas ones to look at what the local benefits are to the local economy and employment opportunities as well as the environmental benefits?

I think we can do this relatively quickly because we know, as the Member has indicated, Inuvik has gone to gasification and they’re having some issues. I know Tuktoyaktuk has been looking at converting to community gasification by doing the same thing as Inuvik. Norman Wells has been looking internally what they can do to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, and we’ve been doing a lot of work both in the private sector and in the government on biomass. I think we can look at all those various suites of energy generators and see what the best way forward is when we can do that fairly quickly.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for those comments. I guess my last point really is to see if the Minister might ensure that these are profiled in any transition documents, the need to transit to the heavier low-carbon sources, especially renewable, and work to make sure that that appears in any implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Strategy as well.

I know that there are some transition requirements due to our energy priorities plan, so we would take that into consideration there. I don’t know if we can incorporate it into the Greenhouse Gas Strategy because I think that’s pretty well close to completion and release. We’ll certainly endeavour to put it through the transition plan.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Finance and it goes back to last week when the Minister provided to the House his fiscal and economic update.

One of the things that I read in there, with great interest, was continuing the current fiscal strategy allows the Government of the Northwest Territories to move away from the debt limit while still allowing for some minimal investment to support priorities identified by the 17th Legislative Assembly. I think the financial situation for the incoming government is going to be quite tight. The first question I’d have for the Minister of Finance is: I know he talked about the borrowing limit in his fiscal update but he didn’t mention where exactly the discussions are with the federal government on that borrowing limit today, and I’d like to get an update from the Minister where exactly those discussions are at.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are currently discussions and work underway with Finance Canada and the three territories, including the Northwest Territories, on the basic first step of defining what is going to be meant by debt and the treatment that’s going to be given to different kinds of debt, which is in itself a very important, somewhat complex subject, but that is where we are. The intent is to try to have everything concluded with the three territories by the end of this fiscal year.

As we all know, we’re very close to that borrowing limit of $575 million. We have a number of capital projects on the horizon. We’ve just had a briefing at lunch time on the Tuk-Inuvik highway and our portion that we’ll have to come up with for that. There’s the Stanton Hospital here in Yellowknife and the upgrades for that. We can’t afford to wait much longer to get a reply or an answer from the federal government.

We’ve been talking about the borrowing limit and these negotiations now for about nine months, maybe even 12 months. I’d like to ask the Minister if they can put the pressure on the federal government to at least give us an answer so that we can have some hope for finding some more dollars to accomplish the things that the next government is going to have to set out to accomplish.

We share the urgency of the Member in terms of resolving this issue. The capital plan for next year is $75 million for the whole Government of the Northwest Territories. The majority of that money is already subscribed to with multi-year programs. I agree we need to have this issue resolved. We’re working with the Department of Finance, the federal Department of Finance, and the Premier will be taking the opportunity when he meets with the Prime Minister here on Thursday to raise the issue, as well, to impress upon him the urgency of this and that the North stands ready to invest in a lot of the infrastructure projects in our future, including the Tuk-Inuvik highway, but we need the flexibility to be able to do that, to make other appropriate investments, which at the current time, with the current structure and definitions and limits, we don’t have that flexibility. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s response. I know he understands the urgency in this. Obviously, there’s a great deal of urgency.

The next question I’d have for the Minister of Finance -- obviously, we are going to be headed into an election -- I’m just wondering what type of information is available on, like, a government-wide variance report or an exact fiscal picture, not only for Members of this House but potential candidates in the upcoming election, to see exactly where the territory’s finances sit on the eve of this election and into the election campaign. I think it’s important that that information gets out in as thorough a breakdown as possible, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

There are a number of documents that are out there. If the Member is talking about some type of, sort of, fiscal update that would be new and separate, I would be glad to have that discussion with him to see what’s possible. We have some information available on line. We also have whatever information and fiscal updates are provided here in this House in terms of the detail, some of the borrowing limit issues, the other pressures in terms of revenues and expenditures, and the broader economic landscape that we’re all operating in, which could have a significant effect on our revenues, for example. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I thank the Minister for that. What I’d be looking for is the more detail the better, a complete breakdown of the territory’s finances. I know we’re about not even halfway through this fiscal year but, like I said, a variance report, where we’re at at dissolution. I think that’s important not only for Members here but potential candidates that are out there so that everybody gets an idea of what they’re getting themselves into. Thank you.

I’ll commit to have a discussion with the members of the Financial Management Board to look at what might be possible in terms of trying to meet the request from the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to reply to the opening address with comments regarding progress towards creation of an Anti-Poverty Strategy.

Inside the Government of the NWT, progress had been very disappointing. Members are well aware of the call for an Anti-Poverty Strategy from 29 organizations including the City of Yellowknife and a who’s who of the NWT’s social justice advocacy groups. It’s perhaps unprecedented to see so many major groups come together with one voice on one issue calling so loudly for action by the territorial government. This is grassroots action at its finest.

Regular Members of this Assembly took up this call in a February 2010 motion calling upon the government to create a strategy in partnership with communities and business. The more than 80 participants at the October 2010 No Place for Poverty Workshop reinforced this appeal with detailed recommendations for how the government should proceed. That advice was largely ignored in the government’s response, with promise of the development of a discussion paper for NWT-wide consultations. That process has laboured along and I’m told the government’s next product will not be public until September or later, although insiders like us may get a look sooner than that.

The alliance of Anti-Poverty Strategy supporters is not letting this issue falter, despite government inaction. This morning representatives of the alliance unveiled plans to make this a major issue in the upcoming territorial election. They announced that they will be calling on all candidates to pledge their support to making an Anti-Poverty Strategy a top priority of the next Assembly. They will publicize the candidates’ responses, and when the next Assembly gathers, remind successful candidates of their commitments.

Promoting and supporting creation of an Anti-Poverty Strategy has been one of the major priorities of my work in this Assembly. Through my committee work, statements and questions, support of our Anti-Poverty Strategy motion, and participation in the public events promoting this initiative, I have stressed my support for urgent government action. We must attack poverty as the root of the many social ills crippling our society. Our GNWT response must be integrated across government and developed in full partnership with our communities, non-government organizations, and business partners.

I congratulate the grassroots commitment of this alliance and will be calling for the creation of an Anti-Poverty Strategy to be included in the transition recommendations we make to the next Assembly.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to briefly comment on the current disturbing situation regarding the Sport North Federation. I will be speaking more on this later in the Assembly but there is some urgency to comment today. Because of the complex, unclear, and even undefined processes of the sports recreational council, the Sport North Federation’s current funding application has been held up and we are now almost six months into their fiscal year. The Sport North cannot survive without immediate resolution of this impasse. In speaking to the president of Sport North, he believes simply meeting with the Minister and his officials for one hour would allow the negotiation required to resolve the situation and allow them to continue their key service operations. Without that, their capacity to continue ends next month. I seek support from the Minister of MACA to meet with the Sport North Federation as soon as possible to deal with this pending situation.

I would also appreciate the opportunity to meet with the Minister of MACA to seek ways to resolve outstanding issues that create such situations, and thereby maximize our support to our youth and community residents.

That is all I have, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents entitled Status Report to June 2011: Environment and Natural Resources Framework for Action 2008-2012; and 2011-2015, A Greenhouse Gas Strategy for the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Agriculture Products Marketing Council 2010-2011 Annual Report.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled GNWT Response to Committee Report 3-16(6), Report on the Review of 2009-2010 Annual Report of the Human Rights Commission.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a series of documents in a package called No Place for Poverty: Everyone has a Right to Housing, Food and Dignity, Anti-Poverty Election 2011 Tool Kit, sponsored by Alternatives North and the YWCA. Thank you.