I understand the importance of the business concept and maybe somebody potentially doing that, but the importance is Greyhound’s national link. I’m just wondering if the Minister has been able to confirm – he indicated Manitoba – whether Yukon Territory subsidizes any Greyhound services.
Mr. Speaker, we contacted the Yukon departments of Highways, Public Works, Economic Development, Tourism and Culture. All of those departments in the Government of Yukon indicated that they do not in any way provide a subsidy to Greyhound to operate in the Yukon. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if I can get a commitment from the department to actually investigate the costs of the subsidy and the potential of doing the subsidy to get this vital national link back into the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, if the Member would like us to contact Greyhound directly and begin some discussions on what it would cost to get that service, I guess that is something we can certainly find out and bring back to this House and see if there is support for something like that to happen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In keeping with my theme of no new territorial hospital this year, we seem to be following the legacy of a fiscally restrained Finance Minister, Minister Miltenberger, whose new health policy right now is don’t get sick, at least not this year.
We are hoping that the Minister of Finance can maybe clearly articulate, with all of these very expensive financial competing infrastructures that we will have in the near future from Inuvik-Tuk. We talked about a fibre optic line, a large scale. We have only about $180 million Visa to play with here and very limited revenue resources coming in here. How does the Minister expect to stretch this Visa, knowing full well, as he said, that this is going to be a 200 to 300 million dollar piece of infrastructure? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have laid out the fiscal framework going forward to Members. The Stanton Hospital is going to be done over time. We recognize there is planning work to be done. There’s money being budgeted, increasing amounts, over the coming years that will allow us to manage this project.
As we go forward, other projects will fall off and be completed. So we have looked at all the numbers, we looked at all these factors, and we are of the opinion – and we’ve laid it out before this House and before committee – that we can manage these projects with careful investments, some very strategic debt, and do the things we are doing to manage our expenses, and we can spend $1.6 million on programs and next year we can add another $50 million in addition to the Tuk-Inuvik Highway to our capital plan. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, again, I know the Minister has been courteous enough to come to committee and talk about some of this fiscal strategy. We would hope that the Member or the Minister would be able to do so with the public so they can also see what the strategy is all about.
I am still very confused. We are starting with an odometer riding on our budget or Visa baseline of $621 million. We have only $800 million to spend. We talked about all of these competing priorities. How is it, again specifically, are we going to move forward these large-scale infrastructures in the very near future?
Mr. Speaker, we approved the capital plan last fall, in November I believe it was, where we laid out the fiscal arrangements, the capital plan that we can afford on a go-forward basis. That detail was laid out before Members, before this House. We are going to be involved in another capital plan going forward.
Not being able to use props and hold up charts and show them the fiscal strategy, I can tell the Member, and as the Member well knows, we have some very, very competent people in Finance who laid out the plan. We’ve had input in it. We have put in the key critical infrastructure investments we need to make. We’ve laid out a four-year plan for the budget we are on that’s going to allow us to do these things and still control our debt, keep $100 million cushion between us and the borrowing limit so that we have room to respond to emergencies.
I can tell that in this House, if the Member wants something further to provide comfort to the public, I guess we can have that discussion other than the main estimates, the capital plan and all the attached information. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will take the Minister up on his offer to share this information, but I also equally ask him to share this information with the public. They have clearly indicated that they want to know, they want to see the graphs, the charts and everything else, and I think we owe it to them.
We talked about the fact that the hospital is needed. The Minister has indicated in general means that this is going to be a large retrofit, yet we did not see anything, no signs or signals in this budget for this imminent piece of infrastructure, this territorial health piece of our structure and our future. When can we start seeing these types of signals being sent to the House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, let me offer this to the Member and to the public as well. When we did the budget dialogues, people asked us, when you come back next year, give us more comprehensive information. We tried to give them a summary, but they wanted to have the detail. So what I’ll commit to in this House is that when we do our budget dialogues, we will lay out the fiscal strategy in detail, plain English, but enough detail so that folks will be able to see on the capital side, on the O and M side how we budgeted ourselves for the next four years, two years, when we go out to the communities. We can do that. I will give that commitment to the Member that when we do the budget dialogues for 2013, we will do that.
In regard to the Stanton, the Stanton is going to be appearing more significantly starting in the next capital go round and all the years hence with money being added in significant quantities as the project starts to evolve and be defined. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Again, I do appreciate the Minister for coming up with that information and continuing the dialogue that he’s promised. But a very simple question: Will we see a shovel in the dirt with a new territorial hospital within the life of the 17th Assembly? Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Speaker
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s no surprise to Members that I’m a big supporter and champion of seniors’ issues and certainly their rights. In the 16th Assembly, I brought up the issue of an NWT Seniors’ Charter. In my belief, it would complement the work here that we do in the Assembly. It would serve as a mission statement as to how the government sets out its commitment, well-being and support for quality living with seniors.
My question for the Minister responsible for Seniors is: What does he use for his guiding principle and mandate to build and work within a relationship with NWT seniors to ensure we’re meeting their needs? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Seniors, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sorry; I was distracted and didn’t hear the question.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Hawkins, could you re-ask the question for the Minister, please?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can I include my preamble as before? It’s so exciting.
What is the Minister responsible for Seniors using as his guiding mandate that builds and bridges the relationship between his responsibilities as Minister responsible for Seniors and certainly the relationship and their needs by seniors in the NWT? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as the Members know, the responsibility for the Minister under seniors comes with actually no budgets. However, we do draw from interdepartmental pool where Health and Social Services provides some funding, some coordinator, some support to the seniors and the Seniors’ Society, and then the funding comes from the various departments to the NWT Seniors’ Society as an example. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in a coordinating fashion, how do we know we’re meeting the needs of seniors? How do we measure this? How do we understand this and what type of relationship fashion is set up to ensure that the messages, their needs, are being communicated to the government? Is it the responsibility of this Minister? Thank you.
Thank you. We have a seniors coordinator within the Department of Health and Social Services reporting through the system at Health and Social Services. That coordinator works closely with the NWT Seniors’ Society. The Seniors’ Society supports the various seniors’ organizations in the communities across the Territories. That is how we coordinate our activities or any support that we may have from the government through the one individual that works through the Department of Health and she will get some administrative support within the Department of Health and Social Services. Thank you.
Thank you. Would the Minister responsible for Seniors agree that if we had a seniors’ charter, it be useful, in his view, to ensure that we’re meeting the needs of seniors, and if he does believe that being the case, what would he be prepared to do to work on a seniors’ charter for the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you. I can discuss that with the regular committees, committees of MLAs, to see if a charter would be something that would enhance support for seniors. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you. A seniors’ charter would be a mission statement of this government on its principles and support for its seniors. Does the Minister believe in that type of concept and ideals? Would he lead this initiative? Thank you.
Thank you. We have set up a structure where we have, within the Cabinet, a subcommittee of Cabinet that is a social envelope committee, which is led by the Minister of Justice. Within that committee we have the various Ministers working on that committee. We also work with the Regular Members in developing some work through the small communities, the real remote communities, to be able to have the work that’s needed to be able to assist seniors in the various communities across the small communities where they may not have the same type of support systems that are available such as the NGOs in some of the larger communities. So, yes, I will continue to work within that group and involve the seniors groups as much as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Human Resources.
Please provide a geo-traffic breakdown by town, constituency and region, of GNWT jobs-to-population ratio at December 31, 2012.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I table the Sahtu Exploration Readiness Session Report.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table two documents. They are both from the Northern Journal. Ironically, both of them are from the same page and the same date, but I will table them separately. The date is Tuesday, January 29, 2013. The first article is a clipping on Pressures Affecting Slave River. The second one is the NWT River Metals Far Below Guidelines Study Finds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 16, notices of motion. Item 17, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 18, motions. Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, second reading of bills. Item 21, consideration in Committee of the Whole and other matters: Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014, and Bill 1, Tlicho Statutes Amendment Act.
By the authority given to me as Speaker, by Motion 1-17(4), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the hour of adjournment to consider business before the House, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What’s the wish of the committee? Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The committee wishes to continue with Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014, with Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Agreed. We will proceed after a brief recess. Thank you.
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I’ll call the committee back to order. We are continuing on with our review of the main estimates and the department we have up next is Department of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he’d like to provide opening comments to his department.
Yes, I would, Madam Chair.
I am pleased to speak to the 2013-2014 main estimates for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The plan proposes total operational expenses of $71.5 million for the upcoming year. This represents an 8.9 percent, or $5.8 million, increase from last year’s budget.
The bulk of this increase is attributed to forced growth adjustments of $5.3 million to cover increased costs for forest fire operations and suppression, preparing for increased oil and gas exploration and development in the Sahtu and completing negotiations on a transboundary water agreement with Alberta and $1.6 million in energy initiatives. This increase was offset by a $1 million reduction due to funding sunsets and other adjustments.
As Members are aware, the mandate of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is to promote and support the sustainable use and development of our natural resources and to protect, conserve and enhance the environment for the social and economic benefit of all residents.
The department also supports and promotes the priorities of the 17th Legislative Assembly as outlined in Believing in People and Building on the Strength of Northerners.
A range of activities are proposed to uphold this mandate and this Assembly’s priorities. I would like to highlight a few key investments planned for the next fiscal year.
We are investing an additional $2.5 million to the fire suppression base funding to allow the department to adequately plan and respond to forest fire activity without the recurring risk of exceeding its appropriated amount. An increase to the suppression budget was requested by the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure.
The fire suppression budget has remained static for the past five years and has proven to be insufficient to meet demands in four out of five of those years. The department is also receiving additional funds to cover cost increases for 11 contract forest fire management crews, to provide training for firefighters and to cover increases in the volume and price of aviation fuel for aircraft including helicopters and CL-215 and L-188 Electra aircraft.
As Members requested, we have identified an additional $1.6 million for our energy initiatives. This will result in increased funding for alternative energy technology, commercial energy conservation and efficiency, and energy efficiency incentive programs. Other key activities include ongoing delivery of the Greenhouse Gas Strategy, funding of regional energy advisors in Inuvik, Norman Wells, Behchoko and Fort Simpson, a community scale wind demonstration project in an Arctic Coast community, and installation of remote smart grids to help improve the efficiency, reliability and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity.
The department will also continue implementing the NWT Biomass and Solar Energy strategies.
Increased oil and gas activity in the Sahtu region may result in significant environmental impacts. A coordinated approach to collecting baseline information will allow us to monitor these impacts and ensure we have the appropriate information to make informed decisions related to development in the Sahtu. Additional resources have been allocated for a new environmental protection officer position in the Sahtu region and for gathering environmental baseline data.
We continue to make good progress in our negotiations on a bilateral transboundary water resources management agreement with Alberta. Additional funding has been identified to continue this important work which includes Section 35 consultation with Aboriginal governments and regional workshops on the development of Northwest Territories positions for the bilateral agreement negotiations.
The department continues its work on a range of activities which address the priorities of building a strong and sustainable future for our territory, and strengthening and diversifying our economy.
Key activities for the 2013-2014 fiscal year include protecting territorial waters, mitigating and adapting to climate change impacts, improving environmental stewardship and working collaboratively with Aboriginal governments, communities, industry and the public, to conserve our environment and ensure the wise and sustainable use of our resources.
This will be accomplished through the introduction of a new Wildlife Act during this session, the expansion of community-based water monitoring programs, the implementation of a number of wildlife management strategies and action plans including those for barren-ground caribou, boreal caribou and wood bison, the development of sustainable forest economies in our communities, the coordination of the government’s participation in the environmental assessment process, and the development and implementation of an electronic waste program.
ENR staff also continue to work with the devolution office to review, assess and analyze waste management sites identified for transfer to our government and plan for an orderly transfer of organizational records from the federal government.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide an overview of the department’s 2013-2014 main estimates. I look forward to discussing them in more detail. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. I’d like to ask the Minister if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.
