I just need to correct a statement I made that was incorrect. The RCMP officers were covered by the RCMP insurance for their health care. The families were covered by the NWT health care. So the families haven’t changed, the members have, but most of this was an accounting exercise, if you will.
If an RCMP officer before this change and after this change goes to the doctor or a nurse practitioner or allied health professional, receives services, that hasn’t changed. Nothing has changed as far as the services they get and how they receive those services.
With respect to what they’re covered for, there have been some differences because the RCMP may have covered things in a slightly different way, but all members were informed of the change and provided with the details they needed to know with respect to what their coverage is under the NWT Health Care Act.
Thanks for that information. So my understanding with other jurisdictions, Nunavummiut, for example, they receive the same services that we invoice Nunavut for those services. Have we been invoicing? In other words, for the past year have we been just taking care of these costs or have they been paid by the federal government and we will now have to reimburse the federal government? Thank you.
Thank you. Since April 1, 2013, we have been providing those services and paying for those services. Prior to that we were providing those services and invoices were sent to the RCMP to recoup our costs. That no longer happens.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for clarification, to the Minister, this act, I guess I thought that the medical services provided to the RCMP was straight across the board to all members across Canada, because of the jurisdiction and they are a national police force. Why are we changing ours to bring them into our Medical Care Act? Shouldn’t they automatically be covered under some federal legislation for their medical services?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.
Prior to April 1, 2013, those services were provided by the Northwest Territories for RCMP in the Northwest Territories as those services were provided to RCMP members in all the jurisdictions by the jurisdiction providing those services. The difference was prior to April 1, 2013, they were covered under the Canada Health Act, and the RCMP was billed back for those services in all jurisdictions, including the Northwest Territories. Effective April 1, 2013, the federal government has taken the RCMP out of the Canada Health Act and made it a responsibility of the jurisdictions where the members reside.
The Canada Health Act, as I indicated previously, is paramount, so it overrides or takes precedence over our NWT Health Care Act, but we want to make our NWT Health Care Act consistent with the Canada Health Act, which is one of the reasons we’re before you today amending this act. But bottom line, these changes are the result of the federal government changes to RCMP coverage.
I guess you could spin this however you want to spin it, but the fact of the matter is that we’re taking on additional responsibilities and along with that it becomes an economic cost to us.
Are we going to somehow recoup or receive additional dollars because of these additional responsibilities now that come along with this act here?
The changes to the Canada Health Act affect all the provinces and territories in exactly the same way. The magnitude might be different because of the size of the police force and the RCMP in each of the jurisdictions. The Ministers of Justice across the territories raised these concerns at one of their FTPs and it was pretty clear that the federal government was going to be moving ahead with this regardless, and those costs are now, as Mr. Dolynny indicated, downloaded on to the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Given that statement by the Minister, when the federal government downloads these responsibilities, does it also download some additional dollars, because we are taking on these additional responsibilities, even though when you look at the comparison of RCMP members in the Northwest Territories to the province of British Columbia, certainly, they will feel the impact more in their health care system as to the Northwest Territories.
Is the federal government willing, or it’s take it or leave it? No. It’s you’re going to do this, this is what it’s going to cost you, and find money within the system to cover the additional costs to take on this download in service that they no longer have to budget for.
Is there any campaign, or is that past the point already of no, we have to take it, we have to eat it? What is the additional cost to this government as a result of the federal government’s position on downloading this responsibility to us?
As I indicated previously, the federal, provincial and territorial Ministers of Justice did raise this with the federal Minister. This was an area of concern. They were seeking continued financial support as opposed to having these costs completely downloaded on to the individual jurisdictions like the Northwest Territories. The answer was no.
Mr. Yakeleya’s third description is pretty much it. It’s done. We’re not getting additional funds from the federal government to cover these costs, and for us on average it’s been about $228,000 a year that we’ve been able to invoice back that we will no longer be able to invoice back. Those costs are ours now.
That’s an additional $228,000 that we have to look for somewhere within our small government to take on the devolution, I guess, of some of the responsibilities now that we’ve taken on that the federal government has downloaded to the provinces and the territories.
Is there any type of flexibility when you negotiate the renewal of the RCMP’s agreement with the federal government to bring in some of these costs that now we are seeing within our own territorial health dollars?
There may be, but it’s going to be 17 years away. We’ve just signed a 20-year contract three years ago; two years ago, 18 years away.
That’s a long time. I don’t know if I’m going to be around that long, but at least it’s on the record. I guess it’s a done deal. We will have to bite the bullet on this one here. I’m not too sure what type of impact it’s going to have on some of our requests for health and social services care in the Northwest Territories. It’s one of those things where the federal government has the majority to sort of tell us what to do and it’s not the best of positions we want to be in, so I guess I will just have to leave my questions on that and, hopefully, in 18 years from now a Member will bring this up again and have some discussions. I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. If committee is agreed there are no further general comments, we will proceed to a clause-by-clause review of the bill. Clause 1.
---Clauses 1 through 4 inclusive approved
To the bill as a whole.
Agreed.
Is committee agreed that Bill 6, An Act to Amend the Medical Care Act, is ready for third reading?
Agreed.
Thank you, Minister, and thank you to your witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, please proceed with escorting the witnesses out of the Chamber.
If committee is agreed, we will proceed to Tabled Document 22-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2014-2015. General comments. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted a chance to comment on the budget address generally. Along with my colleague Mr. Blake, I think nursing in our small communities is one of our priorities I would say, and trying to get that in the budget is proving to be difficult. I would sure like to get support in one of these budgets and say, look, having equal services in the small communities compared to the larger communities is just as important, so I will continue to push with that. I’ll proceed with a Member’s statement during this sitting, along with that as well.
Decentralization and devolution, decentralization is a key to MLAs from the regions and communities as well as I’m pleased that the budget address does mention that housing is critical, and I would imagine office buildings, as well, but I think the key thing is a huge opportunity to get more jobs out to the regions and communities and I certainly support that and balance too.
I guess the big thing here is that once we get the jobs devolved to the Northwest Territories that people taking the jobs are advised that they won’t be entrenched in Yellowknife. At least some of the jobs that are potentially going to be moved to the communities at some point in time, it would be nice to have the discussion and start identifying how many would be transferred in the future.
I’ve always told my constituents that once devolution happens, there’s also decentralization, and to do my job, to have a big win, I would see a small mini-department set up in the community of Fort Simpson, which is a regional centre. There are 10 to 15 jobs potentially. That’s what I see in my mind. It would be a huge boost to the community.
I have to mention, of course, my two favorite words, Highway 7. Of course, that’s in the capital that we talk about in the springtime, but just as important is the operating and maintenance. Highway No. 7 still needs attention from the operating and maintenance budget, and I look forward to that. I made a statement in the House already that we try to get out there early, try to get our maintenance done just to avoid the embarrassment of getting vehicles stuck again, stuck on our highway right in the springtime, which is an embarrassment because tourists watch that. In fact, Highway No. 7, talking with Ted Grant, he’s so well known internationally that people actually call him from the tourism companies from Germany, from all the different areas that he’s been involved in, and ask him about Highway No. 7 and what shape it’s in. He has to be honest about it and tell them that people are getting stuck on there, so that hurts potential tourism traffic and that’s one of the things that I’ve always been saying, is that Highway No. 7 would be a good boost to Northwest Territories tourism, if we were able to complete the Dehcho loop right from the BC border and back out by the Alberta border. Along with Highway No. 7, too, residents of Fort Liard continue to stress to me at each of my visits that that’s how they make their living, they are on that highway all the time. So that’s why I continue to push for it and will continue to do so.
I’m pleased that we’re going to have a stable tax system, which means that the federal government announced that they won’t be raising personal taxes and I’m glad about that as well. We are already pressured as a workforce, pressured in the communities, pressured with the higher cost of living, gasoline, power, et cetera. It’s tough out there in the communities.
As well, the Minister spoke about increasing the workforce by 2,000 individuals to help with the revenue side of the budget, and earlier today, in my Member’s statement, I think that we begin by filling our existing vacancies that there is, not to make those entry level jobs seem like you need a professional degree, you need five years’ experience, you need an accounting degree to become an accounting clerk. That is entry level stuff. I think one of my colleagues raised that in the House, saying who writes these job descriptions? We have to be more mindful of that. Sometimes the criticism in the community is that managers are actually writing those jobs for their friends. That is the criticism they get. Everybody knows it’s just an entry level position, so we have to be mindful of that and strive for that.
As well, I am concerned about our Affirmative Action Program, our representative workforce strategy. I think we have to continue to work hard about it, work hard on it and try to continue to hire our people from the communities in those community jobs, because that’s another criticism. They’re saying, I’ve been here, I have similar skills and somebody else comes in and gets that job and I have the same skills. That continues to be a criticism. We talk about employing our residents and our Northerners and they should be first.
Those are just my comments on the budget right now. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his comments. The issue of managing within our resources, trying to meet the demands, the issues that the Member has talked about, as has some of his colleagues, nursing in the small communities is a challenge that, as the Member said, is still yet to be met.
I agree with him on the opportunity that decentralization and devolution are presenting us, that there are opportunities we have committed as a government to a decentralization plan. We’re moving into phase 3. There are going to be benefits in regional centres like Simpson, Smith, Inuvik, Hay River where the Lands department, for example, is going to be established, and we are looking across government to see what other discreet functions make sense to move outside of Yellowknife, so there is a strong commitment by the government to move forward with that phase 3.
We are committed to the Housing Initiative that’s in the budget, where we’re putting houses in small communities. As well, we’re going to be doing in the larger centres where there are jobs coming, to look to make sure office space issues are dealt with. There is some opportunity with devolution in terms of accessing one-time funding for that type of investment, so we’re looking very carefully at that.
Highway No. 7, the good news is today the federal budget, and we are expecting, I don’t have the number, but Minister Flaherty we are hoping will be speaking specifically with a number about what is going to be in Build Canada and how that would affect us in Corridors III. The other good news is with the steps we’re taking to manage our money, we will be in a position to make sure we can take advantage of every cost-shared dollar that there is.
As well, as the Member has pointed out, there is money on an ongoing basis for the next number of years for his beloved Highway No. 7. We are very sensitized to the Member’s concern whenever he stands up in this House, because we know somewhere in his statement he’s going to mention Highway No. 7. The good news is we think there’s going to be some opportunity there for that.
I appreciate his comments about the stable tax system, an issue which implies a support for growing our economic base as opposed to adding more taxes.
The 2,000 person increase, we’re going to have to look at every opportunity, but definitely it’s filling vacancies. Our first choice and our first port of call will be Northerners, resident Northerners, students that are now in school that will be graduating, doing a better job to encourage them to come home to work and live in the North and making sure that we make that opportunity as painless as possible. We agree with him there.
The issue of job requirements is an ongoing struggle. I agree with the Member that sometimes we suffer from what has been referred to as creeping credentialism, where we add more and more credentials to job requirements. At the same time, we sometimes minimize the value of equivalencies, local knowledge, being bilingual and on-the-job training skills. Those are all part and parcel of the work that HR is doing along with the affirmative action initiatives with regional hiring experts and the work we’re doing with students, SFA, hiring, all those types of things. We’re very set on maximizing northern employment. So, I appreciate the Member’s comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few brief comments to the main estimates. I, too, like Mr. Menicoche, have a lot of concerns from the communities. For example, Tsiigehtchic is still in need of nursing and also policing. I was hoping to see something here with some promises from the Minister, but I have yet to see that.
On a positive note, there are a lot of great initiatives there that we can expect to see in the communities.
Also, there are a lot of concerns in the region for Highway No. 8, the Dempster Highway. This fall we had terrible conditions, really moist, a lot of rain. We had some places where there was over a foot of mud on the road. A lot of people with small vehicles had a lot of problems, transmissions freezing up, couldn’t get into gear. The warranties wouldn’t cover that so people were stuck with a lot of costs this fall. Some were $600 to $1,000, but they had to pay it to get their trucks fixed. We have to do a lot more for the maintenance on our highways.
Another thing, there’s no work to be done on the Dempster widening project this coming summer. The people in my riding and also the Beaufort-Delta are really disappointed. We were doing a great job the last two years widening from the border to Inuvik. I know during the discussions on the Inuvik-Tuk highway, we had a talk with the Minister and the plan was to prepare to widen the Dempster Highway and prepare for increased traffic of tourists to the Beaufort Sea. Hopefully we will see what the federal budget is later today, but it is in reference to exactly what our portion will be. I’m very confident in the Conservative government. They have helped our territory a lot in the last couple of years that I’ve been part of this government. I’m really thankful for that. Moving forward, I hope we can increase the services. Our committee has made a lot of recommendations – hopefully we can implement those – just to increase the services we are providing now. We are doing a great job compared to other territories and provinces, especially in the southern part of Canada. When it comes to taking care of our elders and people of our territory, I think our people are very fortunate.
With that, those are my comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the Member for his comments. Just to point out what we know now, there are two calls with deputy ministers from across the country both for infrastructure and transportation with their respective Ministers. In a lot of cases, the appropriate federal or territorial Ministers will be involved in the calls to talk about follow-up from the budget today. We will be looking at, probably in the very near future, some detail about what that means for us as we look at our planning and the cost-shared dollars and the degree of cost-shared portions – is it 50/50, 60/40 – and the amount of money.
We recognize the two highways. I know Mr. Menicoche talks about Highway No. 7, but Highway No. 8 is also up near the top that needs work, highway infrastructure. So we’re looking for an opportunity here and some resources to follow through on that.
I appreciate the Member’s comments about his general sense of the bill. We are going to work hard to implement all the initiatives in there. We’re going to continue to work with regions and communities on services, especially to seniors. Of course, comments I made about small community concerns apply equally to the Member’s constituency. The challenge we have on a go-forward basis is trying to address the long-outstanding issues. As the Member and I have discussed over supper a number of times the nurse at Tsiigehtchic, for example, is an issue. We are very cognizant of that concern and I appreciate the Member’s comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, hope one day we will have some discussions on Highway No. 9.
---Laughter
Hearing the Minister and just listening to my two colleagues, up in the region where the Mackenzie Valley winter road is still active and we still have our ice winter paving program there, we’d like to look at the infrastructure, but also to do with the O and M on the Mackenzie Valley winter road is the bridging. One of the major bottlenecks to continue our work is the Bear River Bridge. Just hearing some of the good news, I’m hopefully crossing my fingers on the federal infrastructure budget. Hopefully we can look to the government to see if they can look at Corridors III work and upgrade and move the project of the Bear River Bridge up so it can be an enhancement to the economic potential in the Sahtu region. I would greatly appreciate that.
On the other hand, I was hoping that through this O and M budget we would start seeing some indication from the government that the Sahtu would start moving into a stand-alone region on its own. There is some indication that we are moving in that direction with the decentralization. For example, the Department of Transportation started making a discussion paper on moving some of the responsibilities into the Sahtu, especially during our winter road seasonal operation. Even the airports are operated from outside the Sahtu. The government needs to start looking at the Sahtu becoming its own stand-alone region with the region making decisions on the work that needs to happen.
Mr. Chair, the budget does speak to the junior kindergarten initiatives that are going to come into our communities. As I stated earlier, the reports on how well we are doing in our small communities doesn’t look very good. Any type of help we can give would be greatly appreciated. We would certainly welcome that. For some time now, the education standards and qualities have somehow been in a position of always catching up to the other schools, especially the smaller communities. We don’t quite have all the resources that we would like to see. We always compare ourselves to the larger centres and it’s disheartening to see that some of the other schools have some pretty good facilities and programs and services while some of the smaller communities, the teachers, the parents have to do some fundraising to get additional resources in their communities.
More importantly, now we’re starting to see that the government is focusing on the junior kindergarten for the younger kids so we can bring up the standards and the quality of education in giving our students a good foundation to kick-start their educational career.
I want to say to this government that it looks like some of these initiatives that we talked about as small communities are going to happen within this budget. I also wanted to say that the initiative to put into the small communities housing programs, and I know that we desperately need them, not only for the people that we want to attract to our region but even for our own people in our communities who are looking for homes to build their life in that community and have an opportunity to get a good job. As I’ve stated many times, there are only so many jobs that a small community can handle and there’s a cap on those jobs and a lot of people are looking for employment either with industry, government or the private sector. To attract our people back to our communities, we need to have some good support mechanisms in our communities.
More importantly, once our students leave our high schools and our communities, we’ve got to have some sort of tracking system to see how they’re doing. I hope the government is going to be doing that. Now education is so critical for an individual to have success in the bush or have success in the working economy, we need to have programs that are flexible in our community that can meet their needs.
So, these are my comments for the Minister for the budget.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We, as well, have hopes for Highway No. 9. As I pointed out to the Member, not over supper but we did have a chat, I don’t think there’s been a budget that I can recollect where the Norman Wells to Wrigley portion of the Mackenzie Highway has received as much attention, because it is a critical chunk, or the next segment of the Mackenzie Highway. So we are, once again, looking at that.
The Bear River Bridge, as well, is on our shortlist of bridges. As I indicated, there are calls in the next few days with Ministers and deputies to look at what the federal government has put on the table and what it means and how it’s going to flow.
The issue of a stand-alone region has been a journey for the Sahtu. I recollect when I was Health Minister where we moved health responsibility into the Sahtu. So it’s coming incrementally, and as the activity in the Sahtu picks up, the areas that the Member has talked about with transportation and such are going to follow as a natural evolution of authorities and responsibilities as we pick them up at the territorial level. Regions that are struggling on that same path of development will pick those up in a timely, measured way. So that is going to come.
I appreciate the comments about junior kindergarten and the Housing Program. We agree that when it comes to our own students, we have to do a much better job of tracking them as they graduate from high school, as they go off to school. We can’t wait until the fourth year to talk to them again.
We know clearly that other jurisdictions go into universities and recruit students in engineering, teaching classes, wherever there is a need. They are much more aggressive than we are. By the time we get around to it, decisions have been made, minds have been made up or, worse yet, we don’t contact them at all. Then they come back and we face some of the challenges that the Members have raised here where they get caught in that catch-22 situation where they have education but no experience so they can’t get a job, and because they can’t get a job, they can’t get experience. So there’s a whole number of things we have to look at in a more critical way and we definitely have to step up our game in that area. That’s part of our broader strategy as we look at raising our population from 2,000 in five years. So, I thank the Member for his comments.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.
---Carried
Can I have the report from Committee of the Whole, Mr. Bouchard.
Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Bill 6, An Act to Amend the Medical Care Act; and Tabled Document 22-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2014-2015, and would like to report progress and that Bill 6 is ready for third reading. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Do I have a seconder? Mr. Beaulieu.
---Carried
Mr. Speaker, orders of the day for Wednesday, February 12, 2014, at 1:30 p.m.:
Prayer
Ministers’ Statements
Members’ Statements
Returns to Oral Questions
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Acknowledgements
Oral Questions
Written Questions
Returns to Written Questions
Replies to Opening Address
Replies to Budget Address
Petitions
Reports of Standing and Special Committees
Reports of Committees on the Review of Bills
Tabling of Documents
Notices of Motion
Notices of Motion for First Reading of Bills
Motions
Motion 8-17(5), Allocation of Resource Revenues to NWT Heritage Fund
First Reading of Bills
Second Reading of Bills
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tabled Document 4-17(5), Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission 2013 Final Report
Tabled Document 22-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2014-2015
Report of Committee of the Whole
Third Reading of Bills
Bill 6, An Act to Amend the Medical Care Act
Orders of the Day
Thank you, Madam Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Wednesday, February 12th, at 1:30 p.m.
---ADJOURNMENT
The House adjourned at 4:46 p.m.
