Debates of February 10, 2006 (day 27)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I find it hard to believe that the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment could stand up in this House and say that we are going to start to charge rent to the other operators that are in charity leases so that the other ones will feel better. I take exception to that, Mr. Speaker. I think the government should be challenged with trying to come up with a way that is fair and equitable to all of the non-profit day cares. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister again. I don’t want him to paint me as the bad guy pointing fingers at other operators, but I want to ask him if the government could look at wage subsidies for the staff and/or maybe rent subsidies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 383-15(4): Non-Profit Day Cares In The NWT

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we are going to provide subsidies to one, we have to provide to subsidies to all if we want to make sure that there is equity. I think that there are only two ways to accomplish the equity, but I would certainly be happy to take a look at what we could do. I would be happy to put more money into child day care. I think that it is an area that we need to invest in. It is an area that I am planning to bring forward some investment plans in. I think we have to be careful. We are not just talking about profit or non-profit things here. All of the centres in the Northwest Territories are non-profit. So there isn’t a competition between somebody who is making a profit and somebody who is not making a profit. All of our centre-based programs are non-profit. We have not just one in Yellowknife that is in a subsidized space; there are a number. So there are a whole bunch of people who will be impacted by this.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Supplementary To Question 383-15(4): Non-Profit Day Cares In The NWT

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, free rent is a subsidy. I don’t care how you add it up. Free rent absolutely is a subsidy. I think the Minister does have a problem on his hands. I don’t know how they propose to address that problem. Again, I know the Minister said that he was going to have a look at this, but what type of solution can the Minister provide us with? There is a problem here. At the day care in my riding, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 40 full-time spaces. We are talking about 20 part-time spaces. We can’t afford to lose any more day care spaces, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 383-15(4): Non-Profit Day Cares In The NWT

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Member is right; we do have a problem. I have had other Members telling me that we should look for space in government facilities and make them available for day cares to operate, because it is such an important service in the North. I am getting competing advice here. Yes, I will take a look at the situation. I will take into account the suggestions of the Members. But for me to say what the response will be, would be, right now, premature. So I can’t answer Mr. Ramsay’s direct question as to what the solution might be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Supplementary To Question 383-15(4): Non-Profit Day Cares In The NWT

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess, as a final supplementary, I would just like to ask the Minister if he will commit to at least trying to put, without jeopardizing the agreements that are in place currently with non-profits, some kind of program that would put non-profit day cares on an equal footing. Will he commit to some type of a sit-down discussion that would allow that to happen? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 383-15(4): Non-Profit Day Cares In The NWT

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have already committed to Mr. Ramsay that I will examine the situation. To put everybody on the same footing means that everybody gets the same subsidy. I only have a certain number of dollars to work with, so that may impact on what we can provide everybody. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Justice, the Honourable Brendan Bell. I have a couple of questions that I asked him in the last session with some community concerns with the Community Justice Program. I know that the funding, or the lack of funding, for community justice workers and justice committees is seriously inadequate in a lot of the communities. With the rollout of the Youth Justice Act, it has put an extra strain on these committees because some of the caseloads have doubled because, in the Act, it clearly states that the youth cases have to be directed to the local justice committees. Has the funding, or the lack of funding, for these workers and the committees been addressed in this latest budget and been customized to meet the needs of communities? Different communities have different needs and different caseloads. Is that the case, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Bell.

Return To Question 384-15(4): Review Of Community Justice Programs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; different communities have different needs and caseloads. On top of it, it can fluctuate quite dramatically from year to year. It is something that is a concern for us. We are currently looking at the funding to justice committees. I have asked the department to undertake a review. One of the things that I think we know, anecdotally though, is that some of the communities that receive funding have very active community justice committees, and others receiving funding, as well, have ones that are not so active. We are trying to better understand why. It doesn’t just seem to be about the money, Mr. Speaker. It seems to be about the involvement of the community in the justice committee. So I think we need to understand and look at best practices, understand why some are working better than others. That is the nature of this review. I am hoping to have some results for committee shortly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Supplementary To Question 384-15(4): Review Of Community Justice Programs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to top up what the Minister was actually alluding, to I realize that there are different caseloads in the communities and should be addressed as such, and funding should go to the communities that are very busy. Just to let the Minister know, different communities have different crime rates. Some communities have low crime rates. Therefore, their justice committees just don’t have the work cut out for them as a lot of my communities do with high crime rates and high unemployment and stuff. What is the rationale in this department’s way of thinking? Why do we want to build fancy new jails and $41 million courthouses and renovate old jails? How is that rationale going to address the problem of crime rates at the community level? Where is the rationale on that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Bell.

Further Return To Question 384-15(4): Review Of Community Justice Programs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, different communities have different crime rates. How active community justice committees are really does tend to depend on the willingness of the community, the local RCMP to divert to these community justice committees. I think the community has to be comfortable with that approach. You mentioned the YCJA and the new philosophy. In the transition from the old Young Offenders Act, that has played an important role. But, Mr. Speaker, I am not suggesting that keeping our facilities adequate and up to date reduces the crime rate, but it is part of the overall justice system. We have to recognize the pressure on courts has really exploded over the last five years. We do have a lot of issues that we need to deal with. I am not trying at all to diminish the fact that our community justice committees need to be adequately supported. Those workers need to have adequate training. As a department, we need to work hand in hand with them to make sure that it is an effective piece of our correction system. I am committed to doing that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Supplementary To Question 384-15(4): Review Of Community Justice Programs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When is his department going to review and overhaul the Community Justice Program? I know that it is something that has been brought to his attention over the last couple of years. It is steadily coming to my office by our community justice workers. It seems to be an issue that seems to be talked about quite often, but nothing really seems to come out of it. When is the Minister going to commit to actually getting something going? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Bell.

Further Return To Question 384-15(4): Review Of Community Justice Programs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will certainly commit to coming back to committee with some timelines for this review of justice committees. I know the Member is well aware, but he and his community leadership in Fort Res petitioned the community to talk about the increase of not only crime, but the number of probation cases. We have responded and provided some funding for a probation worker in that community because it hasn’t been adequate to receive a service from Hay River. There is too much of a workload there, so we are working with the leadership. We are working with the Member to respond. We recognized that this was urgent and have moved to fill that void. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have written questions for two Ministers. The first set, Mr. Speaker, is for Minister Bell as the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Investment and they relate to the Diamond Strategy of this government.

Is the newly announced marketing venture with the diamond cutting/polishing/jewellery manufacturers a partnership, and how much money will each party contribute?

What are the objectives and tasks of this strategy, and will the department be reporting results to the Assembly on a regular basis?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under this order of the day last year, I talked about the way this Assembly had been conducting its budgetary business up to that point. Something that was a problem for me, and I wanted to see how we could address it, was the relative secrecy by which this Assembly goes about building its budgetary plans, business plans for the departments. I say relative secrecy compared to the way most other jurisdictions in Canada do this, Mr. Speaker, especially through the committee process.

Our committees here in our Legislature, and this is by our collective consensus, have largely been, and continue to largely be, behind closed doors. But I was very pleased to see that with the particular budget process that we’re engaged in right now, there has been a change in the way we do business; that the Members on the regular side and the standing committees engaged in a very extensive pre-budget consultation not in every community of the NWT, Mr. Speaker, but in quite a number of them, in September and that was a widely accepted, and very much appreciated, and very useful and relevant to the kind of work we want to do.

The way the public, the non-government organizations, the communities regarded our request, we were looking for input, ideas on where our priorities and our spending should be. We got good feedback and I think this is going to be a regular part of the way we do business, at least for the budget, Mr. Speaker.

We’ve also changed in this Assembly -- we just started it this week -- the number of hours that we put into budget process. We’ve changed the orders and the way we manage some of our other processes and procedures, Mr. Speaker. I know in a number of areas these changes to our routine have not come easily. Certainly change is never easy anywhere, but I do hope that we will continue to try these new processes for the balance of this budget session because of one very significant aspect to it and it goes back to why we are doing these pre-budget consultations. Why do we want to open up our committee process? It’s to make the business of this Assembly, the kind of discussion, deliberation and debate that we have more accessible, more open, and more transparent to the voters and to the constituents. By changing at least the hours of the way we do business, more people are able to see what we have, what we do, and how we do it. I think this is going to make for better government, better decision-making and better accountability by us for our constituents and for the Members of Cabinet and the stewards of our budgetary process.

Mr. Speaker, one other point I wanted to make with regard to the budget address itself that Mr. Roland gave us last week, relates to the brevity of the address compared to other years. Mr. Speaker, the address this session was only 10 pages in the book. It took a little under half-an-hour to read. In my time in this Assembly, the budget address has been at least twice as long and contained a lot more detail on various departments, initiatives, priorities and results, the whole context of what we do.

The budget address is a significant communication tool for this Assembly, for this government. While Mr. Roland declared that it was his intent this year to make the budget address more of a political message to the newly elected federal government -- and indeed he did so -- I haven’t counted it up here, but there are numerous references to Mr Harper and the new Tory government -- it fell far short of, as I say, one of the main communication tools that we should be using to help our people understand and know what’s going on.

In that address, there is lots of attention focussed on delivering a political message. The gallery is full here, Mr. Speaker, as you know. A lot tune into the broadcasts to see what is on our agenda. When we miss the opportunity to inform them of that, when we have their ear and we have their attention, I think we have let our people down to some extent.

At the risk of being accused of being old fashioned, Mr. Speaker, I would say please, next time around, I would very much like to welcome the return by the Finance Minister of a full and detailed budget address, because that is when we do have people’s attention and what they are anticipating. Let’s make it less a political messenger than a communicator of information to our people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to do a brief reply to the budget address, as well. Let me just make one general comment about the budget, Mr. Speaker, first.

I do share Mr. Braden’s point that there has been quite a bit of feedback from the people out there on not only on what is in the budget, but what is not in the budget. I think for future references, the Minister of Finance should be mindful of the fact that the budget document is not just a communication tool for him to speak to the Minister of Finance in Ottawa. It is a document for everyone in the North. Everyone in the North needs to feel like they are included and reflected in the budget.

I know for a fact that there are lots of new initiatives and spending in social and health and many different areas that we are going through line by line, but on that important budget day, when the Minister of Finance gets up and reads the statement, that was not there. I think the Minister of Finance has taken that to heart and I am sure that he will not do that brief thing again next year.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to take this opportunity to highlight the important issues surrounding the pipeline workforce conversion mentioned on page 5 of the budget, also known as the concept of ATCO Novel housing, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it is very important for the people out there to know that we are not dealing with the situation here as reported in the media where Imperial Oil has decided that it will leave behind 1,400 used mobile homes at the end of the pipeline construction and the government is being asked to pick them up at the bargain basement price and sell them to interested buyers or to those in need of social housing and make headway into our social housing issues. That is not as simple as that. If it were, I wouldn’t have as much trouble as I do with this concept, Mr. Speaker.

What we are dealing with here is a situation where if this 15th Assembly does not do its job well of making sure that this housing Minister, this Finance Minister and the Cabinet does its due diligence, instead of leaving 1,400 nice homes all over the North, we could very well leave the 17th and 18th assemblies of this government with a $300 million plus housing boondoggle, Mr. Speaker. Already, the cost of this project has gone up from $220 million the last time we talked about it in November to $297 million in this session.

A large part of that cost increase is estimated to be for the interest to be charged to the federal government -- and get this -- because the federal government is not yet willing to come into this project at the front end. The positive response the Minister is talking about amounts to the former Housing Minister Fontana’s verbal commitment, and a reasonable mind has to wonder why the federal government is not willing to come to the front end and make the kind of investment that this government is looking for in order for this project to happen.

Mr. Speaker, for the $500 million to come under the socio-economic impact fund to 22 affected communities, there have already been community workshops and discussions in communities about how the money will be spent. Yet, when we are talking about something as big as almost $300 million for this housing project, there is no such discussion taking place, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that I am personally offended when the Ministers and MLAs suggest that asking questions and having a critical view on this project amounts to not supporting or caring about bringing more social housing to small communities. This reminds me of a time when I opposed the hotel tax for every hotel room in the North because I thought that would do more harm for our hotel and tourism industry than good. I was then accused of not supporting the hotel industry because I wouldn’t tax them. Well, we don’t have that tax now and thank goodness for that.

Hear! Hear!

Mr. Speaker, I am even more personally offended when my repeated questions about this multi-million project results in a letter from the Minister of Housing with an invitation for an all-expense paid trip to the ATCO Novel plant in Calgary, and to have him tell me how so many leaders have travelled there and how impressed they have been with them. Mr. Speaker, I am offended with this because this tells me more clearly than anything else that the Minister is totally missing the point about getting the information out about a project as big as what he’s talking about. He could do this, but he needs to get the information out.

Mr. Speaker, he should stop being the tour guide to the ATCO plant and really concentrate on a cost-benefit analysis of this project…

Hear! Hear!

…because my questions, Mr. Speaker, of this project have nothing to do with the capacity of ATCO to build these Novel trailers or any other trailers they build. ATCO is a well-established company in the North. They employ a lot of people and I have no problem accepting that that company can do the job. The question here we have to ask is, if we have a $300 million project with social housing, how do we best spend that? We need to do the due diligence test that takes us at the end of that analysis that, in fact, ATCO Novel is the best way to go. We are not there yet. To say, whenever we are asking questions, don’t you care about 1,400 new homes in the North, that is not a good argument. That is not a responsible debate and that is not doing the Minister’s job, Mr. Speaker.

Hear! Hear!

Mr. Speaker, as I stated, this may be that this is the project to go with. Let me state this again. It may be that the Novel idea is the best way to go.

---Applause

May be!

But, Mr .Speaker, this government has already stated that the viability of ATCO project depends on the pipeline going ahead and Imperial Oil using the ATCO project. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not up to the government to decide. It’s up to Imperial Oil. If they decide to go with the pipeline, who are they going to buy their housing from?

Mr. Speaker, I believe that I need to ask questions like has the government looked to see what housing building options are available other than this idea? They need to do that test. With $300 million, can we do a stick-built house? Those are questions that need to be asked. All I get from them is, there is no way we could do that, no way, no way, no way. I have no evidence that suggests that they have asked these questions.

Mr. Speaker, if we decide that we should go with the mobile home way -- and I understand there are great opportunities in mobile homes -- what options are out there? Ask them. He’s in the driver’s seat. He’s got to get his blinders off and stop focussing on Novel. He’s got to look beyond one company and say what are other ideas? What companies are out there who could do this job?

Mr. Speaker, another thing that I have a real problem with, and there is no information we have that suggests that the Minister has talked to any of the regional governments, or even aboriginal governments, or even the construction industry. I would like to see a letter from them that says we have been asked to see what we can do in terms of building housing and this is my information. ,Mr. Speaker, when the Minister was asked questions about what sort of training opportunities we have available on this social housing initiative, Mr. Speaker, he says people can go and get trained at ATCO in Calgary. What are they studying? Are they going to get a degree out of the University of ATCO? The housing units are going to be done in three years. Why, when we are spending $30 million at Aurora College at the Fort Smith campus, $30 million in Yellowknife…That could be the total budget, sorry. When we have Aurora College and we have an Apprenticeship Program, we have a skilled program, we are trying to train our local labour, why can’t we expect…Why should we not expect that the Minister of Housing work with the Minister of Education and Minister of ITI and say this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the government to do something good.

There is a possibility of money coming and how do we maximize our potential in this area? Is putting all the money and all the eggs in one company the best way, the best thing we can do, Mr. Speaker? That is the kind of due diligence test that must be asked, that has not been asked, and I insist that this Cabinet ask it.

Mr. Speaker, I could tell you that I have…Let's talk about tenancy issue. The Minister states that before this session, in the last session, the Minister said the project was about $220 million and most of it was going to come from the federal government and territorial government, and very little of that from the industry. Now the scenario has changed, Mr. Speaker. The cost of it has gone up to $300 million and now he's expecting a lot more will come from private industry. Well, it could be that once the mobile homes go into Inuvik or wherever that there will be private sector who wants to do that. Well, why shouldn't the private sector do that? Why is this government interfering on private sector development, Mr. Speaker?

I tell you, we have an example already in the last example where the Housing Corporation went into a market initiative, wanted to bring 24 mobile homes and none of them have to be converted or anything. They were bought and they found out that people said they didn't want them. I am saying there is a need for that, but I could not trust that this government has done enough due diligence test to get us into a $300 million deal.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to keep this issue alive. I think there's a question to be asked about how this government, you know, if ATCO is the best company to do this job, the contract deal is between the ATCO and the Imperial Oil. It's up to Imperial Oil how they're going to spend their money buying housing. So I don't know why this government is spending all this money lobbying for one idea by one company who should be lining up with everybody else to do their work, Mr. Speaker.

So I think I've stated enough about some of the concerns I have. I believe the Minister is going to provide this…

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The Chair does not find that the Member has a point of privilege; possibly more in line of a point of order, but the Chair will rule against a point of privilege. Go ahead, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do believe that...Well, let me just finish this statement. If the Minister wants, I could…At least he has already stated many times in this House that he has gone to Calgary, and I could make that information available about how many trips he's taken to the ATCO plant in Calgary.

Mr. Speaker, let me just finish by saying that it is incumbent on all 19 of us here on a project this big that we provide enough analysis and enough information about what it is that this government is undertaking. These are legitimate questions, and I think the Minister has to remember that he's a Cabinet Member of this government. We're talking about committing 300 million public dollars, and that warrants a very thorough analysis and answers. I'm simply asking for those questions and I wish that he would operate from a more neutral point of view and a more objective point of view, and if he can't do that, we will have no choice but to ask a third party to come into this project and see whether, indeed, this is the best way to go. I'm totally prepared to accept the view that people who know better how to crunch numbers, how to do market analysis, who understand the requirements of workforce conversion, to do that analysis and tell us. Surely, a $300 million project requires, at minimum, that sort of scrutiny. So, you know, Mr. Speaker, I will be continuing to ask questions in this area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Social Programs has reviewed Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Territorial Court Act; Bill 15, Court Security Act; Bill 16, Tobacco Control Act; and Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Public Colleges Act, and wishes to report that bills 12 and 15 are ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole, and that bills 16 and 17 are ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole, as amended and reprinted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I'll call Committee of the Whole to order. We are Bill 18. We're on the Department of Health and Social Services, general comments. There was a number of people who still wanted to speak to general comments from yesterday, so will continue with that after we have a break. Thank you.

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I'll call Committee of the Whole back to order. We’re on Health and Social Services. Would the Minister like to bring witnesses into the chamber?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Detail.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Does committee agree?