Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation and it’s my hope I can get answers beyond finalizing devolution as the answer to all of my questions. The hydro supply for Yellowknife and Behchoko was recently knocked out by the Canadian Military’s current exercises for our protection. We face a huge bill for one kilometre of transmission line repairs, elevated fuel costs replacing hydro with diesel power for at least 10 days, and associated expenses. Will the Minister be sending an invoice to the federal Minister of National Defence for a refund of these costs or can we anticipate that NTPC is already beavering a way of revising upward their GRA for higher electricity rates to pay for this?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Devolution clearly is a priority of this government, but clearly in this instance I agree with the Member, it’s not germane to the matter at hand. Yes, NTPC is hard at work on their general rate application. As well, we are hard at work in making sure we get power up and running and we get off diesel. We’ll be sorting through as they do the debrief of what happened, and look at where the costs and all the things that happened that contributed to this unfortunate circumstance to see where obligations lie. We will follow up once that’s done.
I appreciate that answer. We need to know the total bill resulting from this incident. Will the Minister document these new costs, including replacement of materials, generating fuel, staff time, additional equipment charges, travel, charter, and so on – everything, basically – and report this total cost to the Assembly?
Once all those accrued costs are in and we have a clear understanding of what they are, and we’ve done all the final analysis and bookkeeping, I will provide that information to committee since it’s going to be some time before we gather in this Legislature. So I will commit to provide that information to committee.
Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. One has to question the care that was taken in the planning of these exercises to ensure protection of public safety and infrastructure. Has this government contacted the commanders of these exercises and requested assurance and a detailed explanation of measures being taken to prevent further harm to people and vital infrastructure or will we do that contact soon?
Yes, we are fully engaged with DND both in terms of the immediate response, looking at what happened. As well, we have folks looking at what caused this, what needs to be done in the future, the issue of accounting that the Member has talked about. We are engaged and we will be fully engaged with them until this whole matter is put to rest.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for that response. There’s also the tragic side to this, obviously, as the power outage may have been directly related to a serious workplace incident at the airport. I offer my sympathies to the family of the injured man in hopes of his recovery and I know we all do. There have also been road accidents that could have been more serious. This government needs to strenuously state to the Department of National Defence that safety comes first and exercise objectives come second. Should be obvious but maybe it isn’t. Will the Minister take that on?
I know that the Department of National Defence military place the safety of its members above all, even though they often go in harm’s way on our behalf. In this instance I think it’s premature to assume that there was any dereliction of duty or things weren’t done properly or that they sacrificed safety for some other expedient motive. I think we have to be careful, be measured. Let’s find out what happened, and there will be plenty of time to ascribe blame once we have all the facts.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my colleague Mr. Hawkins’ questions about salt on the roads and the potential environmental impact and significance of that. One only has to travel south crossing the NWT border into Alberta and see the difference on the highways to realize that what they are using in the Mackenzie County in northern Alberta does not work on the roads. If you go to the wreckers in High Level and look at how many totalled vehicles there are in that junkyard you will see how many vehicles roll on northern Alberta’s Mackenzie County highways in the winter, because they are using something more environmentally friendly called potash. It’s some derivative of potash. What it actually does is polish the ice on the road. It does not interact with the ice at normal temperatures as salt would or calcium chloride would and it’s killing people. It is affecting the residents of the Northwest Territories who have to find their way south going over that road. I would ask the Minister of Transportation if he would seek to communicate with his Alberta counterpart who would be responsible for highways, to find out what kind of success they have found in using an alternative to our traditional calcium chloride and salt on their roads.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would certainly look forward to that discussion with my counterpart in Alberta and we’ll get back to the Member once that does happen.
So although we have some scientific data that would indicate that what we put on the roads may be finding its way into our waterways, I think we need to weigh that against the risk to the travelling public when conditions on the road are ice and a different alternative product is used. Perhaps the Minister could also request the stats for the number of serious motor vehicle accidents that have occurred compared to when they used to use a product like salt or calcium chloride before. I’d like to know the comparison of the statistics for motor vehicle accidents in the jurisdictions that have turned to this more environmentally friendly alternative.
I will get that level of detail for the Member, but last year in the NWT there wasn’t anyone that perished on our highways here in the Northwest Territories. I agree with the Member that we need to balance public safety with the environmental concerns. I will get the information for both Members.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mrs. Groenewegen.
That’s good, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I sure would like to join the discussion on roads with my colleagues from Hay River South and the Yellowknife MLA here. I’m so hungry for roads I can taste the salt on them.
I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on the really important issue. It goes against the culture of the people in my region, specifically in Colville Lake. We have elders that need help. Their family relatives want to look after them, but once the family relatives live with them, the Minister’s policy says if you are going to live with them you’ll be penalized and we’ll cut off your fuel or any other type of subsidies or income support. Can the Minister tell me if this policy can be changed?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The policies are in place for a reason and they can be amended as well. Based on what the discussions are that we’ve had with income security programming, we’ve made some drastic changes in 2007 to increase our funding. When the Member speaks to the senior fuel subsidy, I believe he’s referring to there are areas that we need to explore. We don’t want to have an impact on a senior’s pension when it comes to subsidies. There are people living in the household. I understand some people are living there helping out, but some people do take advantage of the elderly people in the community. We have to be mindful of that. It is across the board. It’s not only the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We have policy that impacts other areas within other departments, as well, on the household income. We have to be mindful of that.
The seniors that I’ve talked to are poor, they need help. The home care is not there enough. These are seniors that need help with medication or groceries or wood or hauling of the water. They’re poor. Quit picking on our seniors. They’ve done enough for us. We’re asking the government to look at a policy to be amended to allow family members to help the seniors in those areas. Seniors are afraid of the government policies and the community is saying that this policy is going against the culture of the people. Would the Minister be willing to look at seeing how we can change this?
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular policy on the Seniors Home Heating Subsidy Program is intended to assist, as the Member stated, low-income seniors. If there are also other individuals living in the household, as well, that are earning an income, they should be contributing towards the actual cost of fuel or food in the household as well.
We’ve heard in the past, our ancestors, our grandfathers, that we have to share within our household, share within the community, and that’s what should be happening with individuals that are living in that particular household. They need to share their costs, as well, and that’s not happening. We also get calls from seniors, as well, that we need to assess them, and that’s what we’re doing in those areas. Mahsi.
There are also seniors who are getting help from their own relatives and support from family members. Has the Minister gone to Colville Lake and seen what the cost of living is there? It’s outrageous. There are people there that don’t work that are helping the seniors. As soon as the seniors get help, they’re being penalized so much that our seniors are afraid, and some of them are scared of living in these small communities.
Can the Minister, if he has heart, look at this policy with his colleagues to see if they can get help? There are some good seniors that are not getting the help in the Northwest Territories because the policies are not fitting with the communities’ needs. Can the Minister look at that?
We have explored those areas regarding some of the seniors having individuals living with them. It could be providing more home care to them. Another area that we also explored is the seniors and individuals living under their roof, could they be invoiced as opposed to the senior. We have been exploring those areas. We have a representative at the regional level, as well, and we continuously have those discussions at the community level and at the regional level, and we will continue to do that if we need to make those changes. We need to consult with the communities as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, I ask this government to quit picking on our seniors. They’ve done enough. They’ve helped us. I ask this government what does it need from this side of the Regular Members to get the job done fairly and quickly. Will he show us where the target is so I think we can hit the bull’s eye on this issue here?
For the record, we’re not picking on the elders, the seniors in the community. We have subsidized the elders in the communities. The Seniors Fuel Subsidy is particularly for those individuals that are low-income households. So we do provide subsidies. At the same time, we have increased the threshold of $10,000 as well. We are making changes to our policy and we will continue to do that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to ask the Minister to give us a bit of an update on minimum wage. It was a year ago on April 1st, and it wasn’t a joke, but we had our second planned increase to minimum wage. It took effect on that day. A year prior to that, at the time of the first increase in February of 2010, the Minister told us that he was considering ways to implement future minimum wage increases. At the time of the second increase, the Minister advised that there was work that needed to be done. He was going to be doing consultations and evaluations.
I’d like to first off ask the Minister whether or not any of that work, the consultations and the evaluation of the increases to minimum wage, has been done at this point. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There have been a couple of increases to minimum wage as requested by the Members of the Legislative Assembly. There has been some work done. I don’t have that specific detailed information, but I can provide that to the Members once I get my hands on it.
Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I guess I would like to know from the Minister, the work that’s been done, the information that he’s about to provide to us, has that been looking at a method to provide for ongoing, considered and regular increases to minimum wage? Thank you.
Those are part of the discussions that my department has been exploring with other jurisdictions as well. Part of the best practices, we analyze other provincial and territorial jurisdictions and how they increase their, I guess, annual wage increase. It has been part of that discussion, yes.
I guess I need to ask the Minister my usual question as to timing. I did ask that question a year ago and I was advised that the Minister would check his findings and get back to me. I haven’t heard anything in the ensuing 12 months, so I would like to again ask the Minister when I might expect to get some information from the Minister and the department as to how we will have steady, and planned, and regular increases to minimum wages in the future.
As I stated, there has been some research in other parts of the jurisdictions and my department has been discussing that with various counterparts, various parties involved. I can assure the Member that there is work in process. Not only that, I can assure the Member that I will get to the Member before the 12-month period. But this is a particular area that has been of interest to us, as well, since the Member has been asking. I will definitely get back to all the Members on the timing of the next steps. Mahsi.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 7, oral questions, on the agenda today. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent granted
Mr. Hawkins.
I just want to follow up with some of the issues Member Groenewegen raised, and I don’t disagree with some of the concerns she highlighted. My question, of course, evidently will be directed to the Minister of Transportation.
Is it not part of the law to drive with due care and attention to the conditions of the road? I wonder if the Minister could answer that particular question. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the very clear and succinct answer from the Minister over there. Of course, in that particular case, just for clarity for the public following the issue, if the posted limit is 90 kilometres an hour and the snow causes you to drive slower due to safety, would it not seem reasonable to be driving to the conditions of the road at that time? Thank you.
