I’m glad to hear that the government’s continuing to do reviews of the costs, but my question to the Minister of Finance today is: Since 2000 the operating budget of the GNWT doubled from $600 million to $1.2 billion; how can that be if we’re always continuing to look at efficiencies in the government?
If we go back to 1967 when the planes first came north with the Commissioner, this town, this city – it was a town then I think with barely 4,000 people – most communities had the most rudimentary of services. Minimal roads, minimal services from health, education, social services, economic development; they were almost non-existent. We have invested over the years in trying to build up the North. We made a decision as a territory that we were going to support the kind of community structure that we do have that recognizes the value of communities in place where they are as they have been for hundreds and, in many cases, thousands of years and over the years we’ve negotiated with the government. The federal government, as well, sees enormous value in having a territory that is full and functioning and vibrant, because it’s part of their strategic planning, it’s part of their sovereignty.
We have negotiated with the federal government over the years our agreements that have allowed us to slowly improve the level of services in the communities. We employ thousands of people. We do services now that were not even thought of even in 2000. We’ve added doctors, nurses, rehab people, teachers. We’ve improved infrastructure. We’ve poured billions into infrastructure. We’ve been investing in the North and we’ve been investing in Northerners, which is a darn good way to spend money. I think that’s why our budget is where it is today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad the Minister took me all the way back to before I was born in 1967. I appreciate that, but as I indicated in my Member’s statement, the population of the Northwest Territories has only increased 7.5 percent since 2000, but our budget has doubled. Can he indicate to me why those costs are so great when we’ve only increased by 7.5 percent?
Clearly, over the time from 2000 to the present, there have been significant cost increases. The price of oil, for example, is now, as of this morning, slightly over $100 a barrel. We’ve made huge investments in the communities in terms of infrastructure, housing, roads, schools, sewer, water, you name it. We’ve invested in our territorial highways. We’ve negotiated collective agreements with the staff. Our staff have increased, as the Member himself noted in his statement, over 26 percent, and we are still running behind the curve. We have hospitals to build. For example, we have almost a $100 million hospital to be built in Hay River that’s on the capital plan that will be part of that investment in the North. Those are the types of investments that have driven our budget, and the quality of life in the North has gone up, as well, over those years. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The communities of Aklavik and Fort McPherson have been struggling for the last two years with providing housing for their teachers. My questions are for the Minister of Education. Are there plans to increase the amount of funding of $25,000 available to the communities to provide staff housing for teachers? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular program is under review within the NWT Housing Corporation and that information will be shared with the Members once it’s available. But it is under the Housing Corporation, the $25,000 earmarked for those particular programs. Mahsi.
My next question is: Will the Department of Education be willing to sign a long-term lease with the communities to provide staff housing for teachers?
I like those direct questions. I’ll try to give him a direct answer. The direct answer is that we’ve gotten out of long-term lease agreements on the housing for staff. Now we’re talking about the Shelter Policy that’s before us. It’s under review and there will be discussion that will take place with respect to housing for staff, housing for community members, and there will be more discussion with the standing committee. Mahsi.
The 17th Assembly has prioritized education. I just wanted to note that. Is the Minister willing to work with the communities and myself to resolve the issue of housing for teachers? Thank you.
I would say yes. We need to work with all communities to deal with the housing for staff, especially the teachers. That’s under my portfolio. Education is one of the goals and objectives of this Assembly, and I’ll definitely work closely with the NWT Housing Corporation to identify the needs of the communities when it comes to housing for staff. Mahsi.
Thank you to the Minister for that. I look forward to that response. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question following up from a question that I had in previous sessions to the Minister of Health and Social Services, and that’s regarding the backlog and the delay, or the on-hold situation that we have for our joint replacement surgeries. I just want to get an update from the Minister of Health on the progress of those surgeries. Just an update to see where the department is on those. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hospital operating rooms for elective hip surgery or joint surgeries are now running at full capacity. That was effective August 13, 2011. Thank you.
Does that include the joint replacement surgeries as well? Because it’s been a long time since August. We’ve been about six months. That means we should be getting some of our people in the Northwest Territories through those surgery rooms and getting those replacements, especially the hip replacement surgeries. Thank you.
I actually don’t know if that includes hip surgery. What I do know is that the operating room seems to have resolved all of the sterilization issues and continues to work on the sterilization issues. As I indicated, the hospital is old and they are doing their best to maintain the pH levels at the operating table. But specific to actual hip replacement surgeries, I am not 100 percent sure on that, but I can get back to the Member on that. Thank you.
I appreciate the answer that the Minister has given me. I’d just like to ask when can I receive that information, at a prompt time, as I do have a lot of constituents who are still waiting on that hip replacement surgery. Thank you.
I can provide that information to the Member later on today or tomorrow. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. That concludes our time for oral questions. Mr. Dolynny.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 7, oral questions.
---Unanimous consent granted
Mr. Dolynny.
My question today will be for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Miltenberger brought to the House here a Minister’s statement the other day regarding a joint Canada-Alberta implementation plan for oil sands monitoring. In his discourse he mentioned, and I quote, “This new oil sands monitoring plan is based on sound science and incorporates world-class tools to monitor and assess air quality, water quality…” And it continues. It talked about transparency and accountability in the monitoring.
Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard today from two of our Members here on this side of the House the issues of their fish up the Mackenzie River. This was not the first time this was brought into the House and this is not the first time this was brought into this Assembly. This has been brought in other Assemblies. There is grave concern. As a chemist by trade, I’m also concerned with the fact: do we have a proper baseline as we move forward with this type of monitoring plan for the oil sands monitoring. In my Member’s statement earlier last week I talked about the drinking water quality and I have to make a comment that the City of Yellowknife did bring forward their quality of chemical testing and I thank them for that. However, we have not heard anything to refute our own test samples here in the Territories. We have no chemical testing for our own data for Hay River, Nahanni Butte since 2009. There have been no chemical tests according to our data in Trout Lake in 2011 and many of the missing test results were in the Deh Cho community administrative region.
Mr. Speaker, how can we move forward with such an important initiative and yet we have no baseline to create this assessment? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a case where we have a situation of a critical service, a critical part of the environment where there is overlapping jurisdictions. We have the political and moral authority. The federal government has the legal authority as it pertains to the water. We take all the steps necessary to make sure that the municipalities and communities have safe drinking water, but in terms of protecting the ecosystems, the aquatic ecosystems, the groundwater and the watersheds in the Mackenzie River Basin, we have a role to play but the legal responsibility lies with the federal government. We are in the process of negotiating those transboundary agreements with the federal government so that we can, in fact, take that over. There have been some announcements south of the border that give us some pause and some comfort that they are on the right track, but we also know that in the Territories, the Member from the Sahtu and I were discussing in this House about the need for additional community-based water monitoring that allows to build on the work that has been done in terms of source water protection and broaden it out to the aquatic ecosystems. Thank you.
Again I do appreciate what the Minister is trying to portray here. The bottom line is that we still are dealing with missing test results. I did get some reassurances from the Minister of MACA regarding this information coming forward in the House. We are waiting for that information to come forward, but in the interim, I guess, where are we getting our baseline information as we prepare for this plan?
We are talking about a very futuristic plan about testing the water up and down the river, but as of today we have missing test results. I am asking the Minister of ENR when can we see or get reasonable access to these missing test results for the Members here so that the people of the Northwest Territories feel safe drinking their water.
Mr. Speaker, listening to the Member’s questions today and over the last few days, it would seem to be that the issue the Member is talking about, he would like some specific confirmation and assurance that what water testing is taking place in the communities at the community level where the water is being put into people’s houses and they are using for daily use, that is one issue that would be an area that MACA has responsibility for. The issue of the broader aquatic ecosystems, the water basin, working with Alberta and the federal government and regional governments up and down the valley to look at the type of water monitoring system we are going to have for the general flow and what is coming down river from the south, monitoring the impacts of resource development, all those types of things, those are the areas that we are building on when we talk about community-based water monitoring. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in follow-up to my colleague from Hay River North when he was asking about if there were ways of consulting with the public with respect to ways of affecting our budget here as a government.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister made reference to his roundtables he has held on revenue options and different things. I would like to suggest that one other idea for input that is not so much public input but it comes from a very reliable source, is asking our own employees of the Government of the Northwest Territories where there are ways to do things more cost-effectively and more efficiently.
You can sort of take the negative spin on that and a lot of talk has gone on in the past about the idea of whistle-blower legislation. That is kind of allowing protection for people who might want to report things going on in the workplace that are costing this government money, but I would rather take a positive and proactive approach to that and find out if there are ways of rewarding GNWT employees who know the system so well, much better than we can ever know it, and could come forward to us with ways of doing things better and rewarding them for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member raises an issue and a source of possible assistance numbering in the thousands. In fact, there have been attempts in the past to come up with ways to engage employees to look at incentives for doing that. That is again being looked at. As well, HR is also looking at whistle-blower legislation.
I agree with the Member that the intent here would be to encourage and reward people for showing initiative and coming forward with good ideas and rewarding people that do that. That is something that is being reconsidered as it has been in the past, but as well there is some reconsideration on the other side of the coin of whistle-blower legislation for those folks that come forward in other areas with information that is helpful to government that may not comply or meet the test on the side of meeting the test for advice that should be rewarded but may have different impacts. Thank you.
I can’t say categorically that I have come across this a lot, but in my time as MLA, I have been approached by people in the public service who do have ideas of different ways of doing things and didn’t really feel that their input would be welcomed, that they would be rocking the boat, if they would be potentially... I guess when we work in a group of people, sometimes people don’t want to stand out or take that kind of a step. From an inter-jurisdictional point of view, what do other provinces or territories do with their public service that allows them to participate in looking for ways to do things more efficiently? Is the Minister aware of that regime anywhere else? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t have that information with me today, but I would indicate to the Member that this government is interested, as we have all struggled with the fiscal reality we are in and the need to be efficient and effective, manage our resources at a time when there are enormous cost pressures and pressures to keep our costs down, that we are looking and interested in every opportunity and avenue that will allow us to achieve our goals, protect programs, protect services and move forward in a way that allows us to do that. We are interested in that, so we want to be able to work with employees that have those types of ideas that could be considered in a meaningful way. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How long would it take to formalize something like this? It is fine to say we are considering it, but time is of the essence here. He is always reminding us of how many days we have left in this government in days. How long would it take to formalize some mechanism for employees to become more actively involved in helping us do things better? Thank you.
It is in fact about 1,300 days that we have left in the life of this Assembly. We should be able to have some document that lays out some potential options within the next couple of months. As we go forward, either I or Minister of Human Resources will be able to probably speak about what has happened in the past and what are some of the possibilities, if we want to consider this going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Colleagues, before we go on, there are a couple of things I want to bring up. Members, we support or were given unanimous consent to go back to oral questions, not Member’s statements, with your answering and your asking of questions. I want your questions and answers straight to the point. Also, people using your cell phones in here, no more, please and thank you. Respect the House. Respect your colleagues. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my colleague’s questions and the reference to whistle-blower legislation. Certainly last term we did repeatedly bring up the need to give our civil servants a chance to highlight their opportunities for saving funds and so on, but consistently we have heard complaints about where to take complaints from our employees. So we either need whistle-blower legislation or an ombudsman. Could I ask the Minister of Human Resources where is he at, where is the department at, will we see this coming forward in the near future, whistle-blower legislation or an ombudsman? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There has been a lot of conversation about whistle-blower legislation. There was certainly conversation about whistle-blower legislation in the last election. I’ve asked the department to compile the information they’ve pulled together in previous years on whistle-blower legislation and bring that to me and I was planning to share that with committee. From there I was hoping to get some direction as to whether or not this Assembly wished to actually pursue whistle-blower legislation. I hope to have the information compiled shortly, but there are a number of things happening in the department that are taking a little bit more time, such as the four collective agreements that we’re working on as well as some other things.
So I’m hoping to have some information to committee hopefully before business planning, but from there we’ll have to decide as an Assembly which direction we wish to take. Thank you.
Thank you. I’ll keep it short here. My last question. I appreciate that information. I guess I would ask the Minister is he committed, once we make that decision, to act on it and act on it expeditiously. We’ve heard how time is passing. Last term we brought these issues up, nothing happened. Can we expect real action once we decide? Thank you.
