Thank you, Madam Speaker. On February 6th I asked a question and I didn’t get a response, then I asked the same question on February 13th. Now I’m going to try a third occasion to ask the same type of question. What question is that? I’ve asked about the protocols to protect people’s privacy under our electronic medical records. Each time I’ve asked about what type of automatic protocol we have in place that informs the administrator of these programs that someone is cybersurfing or sometimes referred to as cyberstalking individuals.
Do we have any automatic protocols that notify the administrator that someone unauthorized to be reviewing these files, albeit they have authorization to work with these files, are peeking and sneaking through individual people’s private information? Thank you. Yes or no?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I do recall that exact same question being asked before, but we will pose it to the Minister responsible again. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I said in the past when asked this question, we do have a number of protocols with respect to who has access to records, but we also do have a quality assurance professional that does review who is accessing files isn’t looking specifically at the files themselves, but is looking at and monitoring access. That person looks to see how many people are accessing, how often an individual might be accessing a particular file, will check to see if somebody has the same surname as the file is accessing it to make sure people are only accessing files they should. If and when individuals have been identified as flagging a file more than is required, that is brought to the attention of the department so they can correct those actions. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
This is not the answer I’ve received on the two other occasions. Finally I’m getting a decent answer, I’ll give it that.
I want to know how this administrator of this particular program is informed, and what type of timely way are they informed to ensure there is some type of quality assurance and certainly some protection for those people whose files may be snooped upon.
What type of automatic process is involved? Will the Minister inform this house what type of process there is? Thank you, Madam Speaker.
With the EMR, it’s pretty much real time. The individual can access on a daily basis the records of how often, who and when individuals are accessing files. There are protocols that are flagged when an individual is accessing files. For example, someone who has the same surname, but also an individual accessing a related file time after time after time, as well as how long a particular file may be open to a particular user who has the authority to be there.
The quality assurance person makes those checks on a daily basis and monitors all files to make sure that people’s privacy is protected. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I would like to now sort of package this under the concept of quality assurance. To understand quality assurance, how often has this happened and how is it particularly evaluated, maybe the Minister can enlighten us. I would like to know how often breaches happen, how often are files investigated, even if it’s not a technical or formal breach. Sometimes they need to be evaluated. So let’s put it on the record about quality assurance. Thank you.
The individual that’s doing that assessment is one of the quality assurance people making sure that EMR is being utilized appropriately.
With respect to individuals accessing or abusing the information, I’m not actually aware of any situations. I will talk to the department to see if we have any evidence or suggestions that someone has breached files confidentiality.
As I’ve said to the Member before, if the Member is aware of a situation, it sure would be nice if he would be willing to share that information so we can get into the system to make sure no breaches are happening. We take all breaches seriously and if the Member or any Member are aware of breaches, please let us know and we’ll fix the system, but right now we’re not aware of any breaches. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Minister said he’s not aware of any breaches. That said, can the Minister confidently say it also means that he may not be aware of any breaches? Thank you.
I’m not aware of any breaches in the system. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. On this last day of replies to the budget address, I wanted to offer my insight into our current budgeting process on the operations budget.
As Members know, this is the third budget we are doing collectively as the 17th Legislative Assembly. There is some work in here, a lot of good work that’s gone over the years into this budget, starting from the very first one we started and focusing on taking different approaches on how we move things with this government.
I want to start today by referring to a line that was in the introduction during last week’s budget address and that is the Minister said that he would like to thank the Members of the Legislative Assembly for their help in putting this budget together. Although we do like the acknowledgement, it begs to differ on how much input the Minister listened to Members on this side of the House when putting this budget together.
There are a lot of good things in this budget and there is a lot of other things that we feel could have been put in here. Obviously, there was a lot of debate around the Heritage Fund. Moving forward, it’s good to see that this government is taking that initiative and that step and listening not only to committees on this side but also people of the Northwest Territories who went ahead and made the recommendations to get this money in for future generations.
There are a lot of good highlights as well as a lot of challenges we are facing. Cabinet and Members are all quite aware of that, but there’s also something that I want to mention. The Minister also said if we are to stem this trend of declining populations and reducing our economic growth and our ability to fund programs and services, that we must do things differently. I think right from the beginning of this Assembly, we’ve done things differently. We’ve looked at investing in our people more than just doing the care and treatment that this government has always done.
Speaking with some of my constituents and people that do work on behalf of government, there were some really good discussions I had in terms of saying just because things have been done like five, 10, 15 or 20 years doesn’t mean we are doing it right. This government is actually making a change by actually investing in our people and our communities. I’d like to see that continue moving forward and we have to do things differently. For instance, the e-learning up in the Beaufort-Delta, where kids in smaller communities are getting a better education now because of the initiatives that were put forth by the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority and getting the funding using their own funding to put this program in place so that all students have that opportunity for advancement in their education.
One other thing that caught my attention here was how we are going to increase our economic growth by increasing our population by 2,000 people. That’s quite the goal and I’m really interested to see how that works out.
There was actually a good news article, as well, on how we are building houses in our small communities. The Minister referred to having these houses in communities for people that we’re trying to recruit from outside of the jurisdiction. I support that, but at the same time, we do have housing issues in our communities that need to be addressed, as well, and upgrades there. So we’re definitely focusing on one type of clientele and totally forgetting about our residents in the small communities who live there.
I know we’ve talked about these job recruitment strategies, as well, and the 80/20 program, I like to call it, where individuals can apply on jobs and get paid 80 percent of the salary where 20 percent is actually given to them. We had questions for the Department of Human Resources the other day that when these job descriptions are brought forward, there is a part in there that says years of experience are needed. We aren’t allowing our people to get these jobs because they don’t have the experience to get those jobs. They are being overlooked.
I made reference to this on a couple of occasions and in meetings with the Minister, I don’t feel comfortable rubberstamping this budget going forward. Obviously, Members have made a lot of recommendations in this budget. We’ve been pretty successful in the past. I know that some Ministers say it’s not rubberstamping and that committee does have input into this. We had input into last year’s budgets and, actually, we have two great Ministers’ statements here on the Community Wellness Plan and one was on NWT tourism and parks. All the great stats that came out of the Ministers’ statements, would they have been there if committee hadn’t made those recommendations to get funding into NWT Tourism last year? There are a lot of good groups out there doing great work on behalf of government. They just need a little bit of support, a little bit more, sometimes, financial resources. We have the opportunity to give it to them.
We are doing investments now into early childhood development. We’re moving on with the Anti-Poverty Strategy, education renewal, and we have a hardworking group of individuals on this side, and I know Cabinet works just as hard, but there are other people out there that do great work.
When we look at the budget, it’s not about the numbers. When we look at the numbers in the budget, we are looking at GNWT employees, we’re looking at organizations and not only looking at that but its families. We talk about economic growth, we’ve got to support these individuals, get them healthier and get them into the workforce as well.
In terms of this budget, the Minister went out and did a public dialogue, recommendations that came out of that. We don’t always see them in the budget here, but something I haven’t seen in here, in any of these budgets, is something from the Beaufort-Delta leadership. I know all Members of Cabinet come and listen to the Beaufort-Delta leadership when they have their conference on a yearly basis. Whether those get addressed or not is not always the case.
We go through this main estimates process that has a lot of hours that go into this that keep our researchers and staff working. We listen to the departments, we listen to organizations and we make those recommendations based on what the departments are telling us or that need, and we on this side try to accommodate them by bringing these forward into the budget session. We’re not perfect and there are a lot of challenges we have both with our economic growth but also within the people of the Northwest Territories.
I wouldn’t say that I’m disappointed in this budget because over the last two years previous we have gotten that input in there, we’ve started moving on some of these action plans and at the end of the day, when this government is finished, the 17th Legislative Assembly is going to be the government that says, you know, it was this government and this group of Members that invested in our people with our Early Childhood Development program, that invested in the mental health and addictions, that decided we’re going to start changing things so that our people in the future have a better, healthier life but also healthier communities, and we don’t see all these stats and they’re not just becoming statistics but being part of society.
We’ve put a lot of money into income assistance, income programs and yet we have all these job vacancies. There’s got to be an action plan there to get these people back into the workforce, back to becoming taxpayers in our communities rather than always relying on government to take care of them.
I don’t have much more to say. I really wanted to wait to hear what the federal budget address was going to be before I made any comments on this. I guess one last thing I can leave the government with is that I know over the next three years the federal government has made a commitment to bringing $70 million across the three territories in health initiatives. We’ve got some great opportunities here to address some of these health initiatives in our communities and as we move forward that we look at access to those dollars for some of committees’ priorities, but it’s not just committees’ priorities, it’s committees that speak on behalf of departments but also on behalf of organizations across the Northwest Territories that do need that little extra top-up and support for the work that they do.
Not much further to say and I just wanted to give my reflections on this year’s budget. Hopefully, as we get started moving to the departments, we can start seeing some better partnerships and some better and open discussion moving forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just have a few comments to our budget. Overall I think the budget is living up to the priorities that we set as the 17th Legislative Assembly. We’re addressing our housing needs in our territory. Housing is one of the major hurdles, I believe, in living in this territory, whether it’s in Yellowknife or our smaller communities. The price people pay for housing is really outrageous. Just from what I’ve seen in the capital here and also in the smaller communities, there are a lot of challenges that our residents face. I think that’s one of the reasons that we’ve seen a big decline in our population. You know, 2,000 people, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but with the size of this government I think we need to address that.
The cost of living in this territory, that’s one of our priorities and I think that we need to seriously look at the cost of living to live in this territory compared to the provinces. It’s really outrageous. I know our salaries do take that into consideration, but it’s a major hurdle. Also, living in many of the smaller communities that are isolated, the cost of living there is even greater.
Some of the projects, I know we’ve looked at our economic position in this territory and we really need to increase our economic base and infrastructure. We’re doing a lot of investments in our infrastructure, be we need to do more. We need to ensure that we’re in a position, whether it’s by the end of this Legislative Assembly or in the 18th, that the Mackenzie Highway is built. Create major projects like this for our residents. That also brings the cost of living down in those communities.
We’re also looking to start on the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic link. Those are the infrastructure projects that we need in this territory. It’s also a great opportunity for the Aboriginal groups to invest with this government. Partnerships like that, long-term investments that are going to see a lot of positive changes in the future. In this day and age everything is built around the technology and we’re in a great position here in this 17th Assembly to ensure that we build on that.
We’re also moving forward on the Inuvik-Tuk highway and I’m hopeful that in the next couple of years we see a big increase. I know there’s going to be more jobs, but to also include a lot of the companies in the area I believe is very important because everybody needs to prosper after these major projects.
I’m very happy to see that we’re also looking at a new diamond mine in this territory. There’s a big demand out there for diamonds. There’s such a big demand out there that any diamond mine that’s put in place, there’s no limit to what the demand is out there.
There’s a number of great investments that this territory is investing in. I mentioned already the declining population, but that’s something that we can encourage people to come here. As you know, there’s going to be a lot more jobs in devolution and I’m glad to see that we are actually implementing devolution. We have in place I believe it’s $15 million for the Aboriginal groups. That’s very encouraging, I believe, and we need to build on that moving forward.
We’re putting ourselves in a position to also update the Stanton Territorial Hospital, which is in much need. A number of us took a tour of that facility and it’s time to upgrade that facility. Many of our residents in the territory do travel here for medical situations and I believe it’s time to move forward.
Also, as mentioned, that Building Canada Plan, we haven’t really seen what the territory is going to get yet, but from what I’ve seen over the last couple of years, it’s very encouraging. We have partnerships with the federal government on the Inuvik-Tuk highway. That’s a great boost to our economy, I believe and moving forward I’m hopeful that we can have the same sort of partnership for the Mackenzie Valley Highway. As the Prime Minister stated that we must focus on one highway at a time and by the time the next one is done, we’re hopeful that we can begin on the Mackenzie Valley Highway.
It was also mentioned by the Finance Minister for making an investment of $27 million in new investments in healthy and educated people. That’s great. I was hoping that we could have implemented some of the initiatives that the committees requested be addressed and moving forward I’m hopeful that we can come to those terms.
Just to point out a few things that I wanted to address. I think that we have a great future. I’d really like to stress to people that the priorities that this government has set, there’s only one or two left that we haven’t already completed and I think that we’re on track. I really look forward to the next couple of years.
We do have to put a lot more focus on the poverty and addictions in the territory. With the closing of Nats'ejee K'eh, we should have had those programs in place for on-the-land healing. I know we are just in the stage now of developing those programs, but the people out there need assistance. A lot of traditional people know that, especially the older people. They know the benefits of having these programs on the land, and I’m very hopeful that we’re near the partnership with the Gwich’in to facilitate one up in the Beaufort-Delta. I know there are plans to put one in place near Fort Good Hope, and I’m sure that they’re developing something here in the North Slave also.
Other than that, I just wanted to have a few comments on the budget. Moving forward, I think that we are on track and I look forward to the next time that we have this budget. With that, thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Minister of Finance does indeed present a rosy picture in his budget address, but unfortunately, it does not reflect the realities we are dealing with in this House. I would like to review some of his budget address comments here.
He noted that we are taking on considerable new responsibilities in about six weeks now, a little less, but I have strong concerns that we are not prepared to take these on in the manner intended and needed, and I will be speaking to this over the course of this session to make clear some of the shortcomings and liabilities that we and our public will have to deal with.
The Minister claims we are restoring fiscal balance, but I would say this is hardly the case. I am hard put to find any improvements in our fiscal situation. We are continuing to take on large, extensive projects with aggressive schedules of completion and little demonstrated evidence of return on investment while allowing our current infrastructure to deteriorate. Both of these factors obviously have significant costs, some overt and clear, others lurking unseen but building to the point that they will become obvious and problematic.
The Minister’s commitment of 5 percent of the net fiscal budget benefit to the Heritage Fund in this budget has now been dropped for this year to $250,000, or one-quarter of a percent, slightly less of our net fiscal benefit, an indication of how tight the Minister is obviously feeling. Even his misconstrued comments on the future contributions of 25 percent of net fiscal benefit to the Heritage Fund we now know is actually less than 20 percent and, again, reflect the hard fiscal reality that this Minister is facing, at least behind the scenes, and that our public is about to find out about.
The Minister continues to obstinately push expenditures that meet Cabinet agenda that undermines our fiscal health while ignoring, as my colleagues have said, too many of the priorities and concerns raised in the House. He is indeed correct that economic recovery from the recession has been slow, and yet we continue to spend like drunken sailors. What are the underlying assumptions that he is using and where is the evidence to provide confidence in that? Again, I think a theme we’ve already heard here today, and I do want to acknowledge in cases where we are throwing out those old assumptions and proceeding in new ways, we are in fact making improvements and building benefits for our people.
The Minister acknowledges that our population is declining though he doesn’t acknowledge that this is in spite of significant effort and expenditures to reverse the trend. He says having a target of 2,000 more people in five years will make it happen. We know that our cost of living is increasing, painfully so in many areas. We know that our collection of personal and corporate income tax is declining and that we are not contemplating any new revenues. The Minister is proposing to achieve his goals by controlling our expenditure growth. How will the Minister achieve all this magic?
The solution he proposes is promoting economic development by spending almost a billion dollars on electrical transmission grids, by providing new jobs, conveniently ignoring that the greater proportion of new jobs accrue to non-residents who cannot afford to live here or who choose to move south, once they get a job, and commute. In essence, as we’ve heard, by doing the same old thing, harder, subsidized, act like a large, populated jurisdiction even if we are a vast, dispersed, low-density population with very high cost of living and energy, and with people tied to the land more than the underground, and a population with a different set of skills than required for the Minister’s approach. I submit that this approach is outdated and the substantial evidence has accrued to indicate it no longer serves the needs of our people or our land. We do indeed need some non-renewable resource development, and we have it, and we are assured it will continue. But to invest in continually growing this segment when we know that benefits to our residents decline with these investments is highly questionable.
We want our residents to be happy here and we want to attract residents who will be happy here. One of the most fundamental relationships we now understand, but that this government seems to ignore, is that associated with income disparity. Wilkinson and colleagues have proven that the happiest people are those living in societies with the most equitability, regardless of whether it’s a rich society or not. We are the most disparate jurisdiction in Canada. We have the 20 percent richest and the 20 percent poorest people in this nation. This provides an evidentiary basis rather than a hopeful basis for addressing the real issues of population, development and governments that also indicates the directions on how to go about it. How would we go about it?
We would strengthen and streamline supports, educate with this relationship in mind that we now know and understand and has been proven, strive to improve within our means while meeting the priorities of an equitable, diverse and inclusive society rather than a futile pursuit of mega-projects that do not benefit our people or our land, developed at a localized and regional scale with distributed benefits in mind. Again, benefits such as locally appropriate skill development, financial benefits, locally sourced and job intensive renewable energy that contributes to the local economies and helps restore the land are clearly answering these needs. Energy efficiency work alone could provide both the jobs we’re looking for and address the cost of living issue in many of our communities.
Such an approach returns government investment through our tax structures, small business development, lowered social and environmental costs and strengthened social structures, much better job infusions per million dollars of investment, and improved resilience of our people, and these are demonstrated around the world.
Again, while claiming with one breath that we are on a fiscally sustainable path, the Minister calls for a 150 percent increase in our debt limit to $1.8 billion. The Minister here is hoping. There is little to no evidence on which to base these hopes that many of these investments beyond our means will provide great economic return and people will swarm to live in the NWT, and in fact, our residents will stop leaving the NWT. In any other forum this would be called gambling, and we know that governments like ours have a notorious reputation at gambling success. Do you want your investment dollars spent this way?
The Minister once again dreamily refers to the Aa1 credit rating the GNWT maintains. Well, this is great, and we should aim for nothing less and celebrate it. My colleague Mr. Dolynny has highlighted the fact that many banks had the same rating the day before the crash of the housing market in the U.S. when many of them became immediately bankrupt.
Despite the Minister’s painting of such a rosy fiscal picture, things ain’t what they seem. As imminent adjustments to both this budget and next year’s budget projections will reveal, we are actually on a search for places where we can cut, and I suspect we will be considering the need to cut back our infrastructure budgets, too, as we strive to meet the realities we know exist because of the spending practices to date.
There is one hope that the Minister clings to, to bail him out, and that’s the extra $1 billion he hopes to add to our debt limit. With that, we could dive deeply into debt to correct our situation and continue to spend like drunken sailors and, oh, wouldn’t the Harper government like that.
Because Cabinet will interpret this debt that we need to commit ourselves more and more to develop our resources at any cost, an easy transition from the current trend and huge subsidies this government lavishes on industry with desperate hopes for some wee return.
No new revenues, declining rates of increase from federal transfers, added responsibilities and liabilities from devolution with lagging development of the structures needed for management of these concerns, declining population and small community residents leaving their homes for regional centres or the Big Apple, all add up to serious concerns.
Finally, while the Premier was in a rush for devolution, the cost of expediting this by a year ahead of the federal schedule is steep and climbing. We are in for interesting times, Madam Speaker. The world is changing and, yes, we do indeed need to do things differently. We have such an opportunity. To miss it would be shameful and a poor treatment of our people, our land and their future. Let’s get real. Let’s do better. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Item 12, petitions. Item 13, reports of standing and special committees.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure has reviewed Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicle Act, and wishes to report that Bill 5 is ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Item 14, reports of committees on the review of bills. Mr. Hawkins.
Madam Speaker, do you want me to do it over again?
Let’s do it correctly for the record, please. Thank you.
Sorry, Madam Speaker, I stood up on the wrong orders of the day item number. Once again, and even more importantly, for the record, Madam Speaker, I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure has reviewed Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicle Act, and wishes to report that Bill 5 is ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to table the following document, titled “Northwest Territories Marketing Plan 2014-2015.” Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Mr. Hawkins.
Thanks for noticing, Madam Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement, and as I referred to in my oral questions, I will be tabling a letter sent to me by the board of governors, signed by Sydney O’Sullivan, who happens to be the chair of the board of governors of Aurora College. It was sent to me February 6, 2014, and the subject line item of the letter is Letter of Concern Received on January 30, 2014. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday, February 19, 2014, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that the Speaker be authorized to set such sitting days and hours as the Speaker, after consultation, deems fit to assist with the business before the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Item 17, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Minister Miltenberger.
Madam Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, February 19, 2014, I will move that Bill 8, Write-off of Debts Act, 2013-2014, be read for the first time.
I also give notice that on Wednesday, February 19, 2014, I will move that Bill 9, Forgiveness of Debts Act, 2013-2014, be read for the first time.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 18, motions. Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, second reading of bills. Item 21, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, with Mr. Dolynny in the chair.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We’ve got two documents here, Tabled Document 4-17(5) and Tabled Document 22-17(5). What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Committee would like to deal with Tabled Document 22-17(5). We’d like to continue with the Department of Human Resources and, time permitting, Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations and the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Great. We’ll commence after a short break.
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I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. We have the Department of HR. I will go to the Minister of HR and see if he has any witnesses he’d like to bring into the House. Minister Beaulieu.
Yes, I would, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
For the record, if you could please introduce your guests to the House again today. Thank you.
