The departments of Justice and Health and Social Services have been reviewing that work and are trying to make things happen through our Building Our Future Strategic Initiative Committee. But again, the next process and business plan cycle will have to go through the 17th Assembly.
Thanks to the Minister. He leads me right into my next question. Thank you for that.
It’s hard to believe, but I’m sure that staff are soon going to be developing the 2013 operations budget, and I mentioned there are 19 recommendations in this report. I’d like to know, specific to three recommendations in the report which ask for core funding from the government, will these be considered by GNWT staff as the budget is developed, these three recommendations which ask for core funding.
As I have stated, the recommendations, 19 of them in all, will be reviewed by the 17th Assembly and they will have to decide what they prioritize and would direct to actually be included in that business plan.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From my perspective as a Member, if I’m not presented with options to fund these three specific recommendations with core funding, then I can’t vote on them. So I would ask the Minister to seriously consider adding core funding for those programs in the business plan.
Part of the report states the coalition has made great strides to shift attitudes and enhance services to reduce family violence and abuse, and I think it’s been an extremely valuable program. I’d like to know if the Minister can advise, at this point -- and I suspect I’ll get an answer that it’s up to the next Assembly -- but I’d like to know whether or not the Minister feels that the government is committed to following up on the good work that’s been done and making sure that there is a phase three to continue this good work after March of 2012. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. As we’re talking about 2012 and beyond in the 17th Assembly after it actually goes through the phase of becoming familiar with what’s on the deck and looking at the initial plans of departments and making recommendations, the work that has been done, we’re going to ensure that the recommendations and the work we’ve done jointly -- because government staff have been involved and part of the team -- will carry forward those recommendations to see what could be adopted. That’s the best I can do at this late stage of our government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Premier. It’s in regard to my Member’s statement and the importance of dealing with poverty in the North, but more importantly, getting the government to move on an Anti-Poverty Strategy and implementing the strategy and not just look at doing another study.
I’d like to ask the Premier, as the transitional process takes fold, where in the list of items being transferred to the new government and part of the transitional document is the poverty situation in the Northwest Territories. I think it has to be on top of the list. So I’d like to ask the Premier where is the government on the Anti-Poverty Strategy.
Thank you, Mr Krutko. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Anti-Poverty Strategy, the work that’s done and reported to standing committee will be included in that transition process. Thank you.
Thank you. I think it’s more important to find a way to implement our strategy than simply doing strategies, and I think it’s important that we do emphasise the importance of this work, and more importantly, implement it, put it into action and find ways to pull people out of poverty and turn the Northwest Territories economy around. So I’d like to ask the Premier are there any types of investments that are also going to be suggested on where we can find resources to either implement or give the new government an idea of things that they can do to implement this strategy.
Thank you. Again, the work that’s been done to date is forwarded to committee for a response and carry on, and carried forward to the 17th Assembly. We’re not in a position to direct the next government to what areas they should be investing in, what areas of priority.
I know many times we, as a government and the many departments that were involved in this work, continue to do this work through existing programs. But for the strategy itself, the work that’s been done and tabled with Members, hopefully early in the life of the 17th Assembly they’ll be able to review those and decide what they can carry forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, I’d like to thank the Premier for that. I know that we can’t sort of impose on the new government, but I think we can strongly suggest or recommend that they seriously consider this as being one of their priorities. So I’d like to ask the Premier, is that something that the government can suggest that they seriously consider this as a top priority of this government to the next government.
Thank you. Part of our transition planning and work will incorporate quite a number of initiatives that we have started and we’ll be handing off. As the Member is very familiar with, we’ve been through this cycle four times prior, that the new Members will look at their initiatives, their priorities, and I’m sure there will be a number of Members returning and will carry forward with the work that’s been done to date and raise that level of importance at that stage. But it will be a part of the package. It will have to be up to the 17th Assembly to decide what their priorities will be. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier today, and I’m just wondering if the Premier was able to get word out to the Dene chiefs and Aboriginal leaders across the Northwest Territories about the Prime Minister’s visit this morning and the opportunity for them to attend. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that the communications team, both from the federal government and from our side, we weren’t aware of a list of invites and so on, but we were able to get the news and the invites out, I believe it was late yesterday. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate that information and I’ll pass that along to my constituents who are interested. I guess, following up on the Prime Minister’s visit, is there anything the Premier can report back to us on the discussions? I realize his visit was very short this morning, but I wonder if the Premier had an opportunity to visit and whether we might hear what we should be hearing about. Thank you.
Thank you. The meeting was short. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to have a one-on-one with the Prime Minister, but the three Premiers from the territories did have a meeting with the Prime Minister and we laid out a number of pan-territorial issues; housing, for example, as well as infrastructure.
I raised with Minister Aglukkaq the issue that was raised in the House here the other day around the Green Fund initiatives and our support for the city’s application.
Also, I had a chance to discuss where the pipeline initiative may be sitting and I expected the answer I got, that it’s in the proponent’s hands to make a decision on that, and talked about, for example, fibre optics is one of those avenues we could be looking at here in the Northwest Territories through support.
The Prime Minister asked me about this government’s move on the Inuvik-Tuk road, if we’ve met our side of the equation, and at that point raised that as our departments are getting together, they need to work out the actual arrangements and figure out this 75/25 percent share arrangement and what that would all incorporate. So there were those things that we were able to touch on.
Of course, with other Premiers there, they were bringing up their issues from their constituencies as well.
So I had a quick opportunity to raise some of those areas going forward. One of those things that we discussed was this continuation of the THSSI program and the fact that now we’re on the same page as all the other jurisdictions across Canada when it comes to the accord, Canada Health Accord. The Prime Minister at that point said we will need to get together as a country and really look at our ability to deliver a sustainable program, and I know that will be the challenge for the next governments as they prepare to deal with that accord. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I very much appreciate all that information. It’s very good to get that out. It sounds like a lot of subjects were covered in a very short period of time, and I’m sure there was strong commonality amongst our Premiers.
I’m wondering, just following up on the discussions we had yesterday and the day before, I know the water monitoring stations are being shut down across the North, both transboundary and 21 out of 23 in the Northwest Territories, completely devastating our Water Quality Monitoring Program. Did the Premier have a chance to raise that with the Prime Minister? Mahsi.
Thank you. I did have an opportunity to talk about devolution and the impacts of some of the decisions being made would have on a final package that we would look specifically on the water station, the monitoring issue. I did raise that with Minister Duncan as he was a part of the meeting on that scenario. Although it’s not in his shop specifically, it does affect the overall deal we’re talking about when it comes to the environment and the agreement-in-principle and just how that work needs to be done in honouring the commitment we had on paper, at least, I see through the agreement-in-principle. He’s taken that information. I was hoping to have another side discussion with the Prime Minister but, unfortunately, the time ran out and I wasn’t able to connect directly on that subject.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of MACA. As indicated in my Member’s statement, Sport North is in an incredibly difficult situation due to the confusion and apparent inconsistencies in the application process. Specifically, some organizations are getting multi-year funding while others aren’t, and programs like Sport for Life and coaching and the CSOP were declined with no or limited resources or alternatives being provided by the SRC. Sport North had no choice but to appeal this SRC decision. They have been waiting for months and have gone through their cash reserves. In 30 days they’ll be out of money and unable to meet payroll.
Could the Minister please tell us, by signing their contribution agreement which would allow the approved $1.683 million minus the $149,000, which they’ve already received, to flow to them, which will allow them to meet their payroll and provide continued support to the territorial sports organizations, would Sport North in fact be forfeiting or undermining their appeal which is currently underway? Specifically, will it stop the appeal process?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sport North is actually encouraged to sign the contribution agreement for the $1.6 million. This is more money than they received last year. By signing this particular agreement, they’re not going to be giving up their right to obtain any additional funding related to other projects that might be available. It also would not affect the appeal process that they have submitted.
That is good news. Six areas in the Sport North application were denied funding. Three of these areas are critical programs; specifically, the coaching programs, the Canadian Sport for Life, and the Community Support Opportunity Program. Sport North are concerned that these programs were never completely assessed through the application process and don’t feel that they were provided comprehensive information on why they were rejected or what changes were needed to help the applications meet the SRC’s application criteria. Could the Minister please direct the SRC to provide detailed explanations to Sport North on why these different programs failed to receive funding, and what items or changes would be required so that these programs could in fact receive funding in the future?
The Sport and Recreation Council’s general manager met with all the partner executive directors between June 16th and 24th to provide verbal and written feedback on each of their applications. Then the general manager also met with the Sport North executive director and finance manager on June 16th. We can ask the SRC to review the unfunded applications one more time.
I’m sure that Sport North would appreciate that opportunity. I believe that there is still some money in the SRC budget, approximately $400, from what I understand. I also understand that the SRC puts some money aside for areas such as the Canadian Sport for Life, recognizing the importance of this program. Can Sport North resubmit applications for these programs to the SRC for funding, or is there no further opportunity for submissions during the 2011-2012 fiscal year?
The SRC did withhold some funding for applications that were not approved, and they’ve also had the opportunity to clarify most of these applications and will be providing information to all the partners on the funding process for them by the end of this week.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for that response. I mentioned the appeal process in my Member’s statement. Appeals, regardless of the organization or structure, are usually heard by independent bodies, not by a group or body that the appeal is actually being filed against. This is not consistent with the appeal process utilized by the SRC. In this appeal process the appeal is heard and ruled on by the SRC itself. Further, the SRC has indicated that appeals can only be based on errors in process, not whether the process was fair or equitable to all parties.
In the case of this appeal, the SRC will be reviewing the Sport North appeal and will be making binding ruling but will not be considering whether parties were treated equitably. Some got multi-year funding while others didn’t. This is an odd process and doesn’t really sound like an open, transparent, or fair process. Sport North wants the right to be heard in a fair process. They would like an oral hearing with an independent person hearing their concerns. Would the Minister commit to working with the SRC to have them appoint a fair and independent person to hear and make recommendations on this current appeal?
Sport North will be advised by the SRC on the results of their appeal by the end of the week. The appeal won’t be heard by an outside person or panel. The appeal process is stated in the SRC investment guidelines that were available to all applicants during the application process and, granted, through this exercise that we’ve gone through, we realize that the appeal process can be approved and we’re looking at doing a review of the appeal process for the 2012-2013 funding cycle.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of ENR. We heard through the grapevine and have been notified that the federal government, through Environment Canada, has suspended 21 of the 23 water quality monitoring stations in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister what his assessment is of how long Environment Canada would be suspending these operations, and does the federal government acknowledge their signed commitments under the Water Strategy agreements with our government.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government is aware of its responsibilities under the Water Strategy. We’ve had recent correspondence from Minister Duncan to that effect. This move by Environment Canada to put all these monitoring stations on hold while they do a review is, I believe, a part of the Deficit Reduction Program that the federal government is undergoing right now. The assumption is that once they’re closed, that they won’t reopen, however, there’s still the faint hope that once the assessment’s over, that some of them will be implemented or started up again. The fact of the matter is, we don’t have enough monitoring right now with everything going flat out. This will be a detriment to the overall work that we’re trying to do through the Water Strategy.
I guess the question here is how serious is our federal government in Ottawa closing down these 21 monitoring stations at this time saying that they’re committed to environment and water. What is it costing them through this reduction of the funding? Hundreds? Millions? Tens of millions of dollars? They’re only keeping two, one in the South Slave and one in Hay River. I want to ask the Minister here what other things we can do to convince this government that they need to pay attention to the water and put more balance to the funding, and not to allow industry to spoil our land here.
We know that the federal government’s taking somewhere in the neighbourhood of $4.3 billion a year additional money out of the federal civil service programs across the land. What those specific budget targets are, or deficit reduction targets are, I don’t know. We do know that we are engaged in transboundary water negotiations. We do know we’re involved in negotiations on devolution through the AIP, which includes water. We also know that we’re engaged with the Alberta and federal governments in setting up a monitoring system that was supposed to be world class, according to Mr. Baird who was Environment Minister at the time, to deal with some of the significant concerns about the downstream effects of the oil sands. We have those areas, plus we’ve been in correspondence with the government raising our strong concerns about what these cuts are doing to our ability and their ability to do their jobs where the federal government still has fiduciary and legal responsibility.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is actively engaged in negotiations with the Devolution Agreement-in-Principle. In there it states 23 monitoring stations. Right now we’re reduced to two. What is it going to cost us? Even in the list here, there are parks in the Northwest Territories that are not going to have any type of monitoring station there. What is it going to cost our government if we want to continue with all these 23 that the federal government is only going to fund two stations? The federal government totally disrespects the people of the North and the land claims agreements, because certainly it’s not abiding by what they signed. Can the Minister tell me how we hold the government’s feet to their commitments, to the fire, that they signed in these agreements with the Northwest Territories and the Aboriginal governments?
Of course, the best security we have is to negotiate the agreement-in-principle so that we get the resources and we control the decision-making and the processes, and from here on in if there are any changes, it will be done by people in the Northwest Territories.
At this point in time we’re still subject to the broader planning of the federal government where they issue out broad targets to departments, $4.3 billion to the government, and they’re going to find the money from everywhere. We’re caught in that process. There are layoffs across the land from the federal government side; layoffs in other jurisdictions as they all fight deficit reduction. The best way is for us to conclude, as fast as we can, a good solid deal that will ensure that we have that security and protection.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister, does the Water Stewardship Strategy or any transboundary agreement include the provision that can be done if a responsible authority like the federal government does not uphold their commitments to protect water for the people of the Northwest Territories.
Currently the federal government does have that responsibility. What we are negotiating now is an arrangement with Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, mainly to, in fact, have a legally binding agreement that will address the quality and quantity issues as they pertain to water flowing to us as a downstream jurisdiction. We are, in fact, negotiating with the federal government to take over that responsibility within the Northwest Territories. But in the meantime they do still have the legal and fiduciary responsibility when it comes to water, when it comes to honouring, and they will continue to have, with relation to land claims and treaties, that responsibility to Aboriginal people.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
