There are three negotiating parties at the table, and we have to have some consistency across the Northwest Territories, but we do have a regional administrative system already in the Northwest Territories, so I expect that that’s something that could be negotiated, I would think.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I raised the issue yesterday about direct appointments, and my view is it’s very important to create them in a transparent manner. At no time, of course, did I say I was against direct appointments, but it’s simply based on the transparency of them. In my Member’s statement I certainly spoke about two dozen shared services employees that have been shown the door by this government in its reorg. Now is an opportunity for the Premier to start using his direct appointment authority in an open, transparent, and maybe even a reasonable way.
I would ask the Premier, would he be willing to take all the names of the two dozen shared services employees who’ve been shown the door by this government, and use his authority at the Cabinet table to appoint these folks through direct appointments so their jobs aren’t lost after they’ve dedicated themselves in some cases 10, 20 and 30 years to this public service and are feeling as if they got the cold shoulder.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have various processes in this government, some of which we’ve negotiated through a collective bargaining process, and whenever there’s a change in organization or a change in approach, there’s a process that we have to follow in terms of filling positions. We also have an Affected Employee Policy whereby affected employees have priority on existing positions. I’d be very surprised if there was as much of a problem as the Member is suggesting, so I’d be willing to hear where he sees the problem is happening.
Many of these employees have 10, 20 and 25 years of experience. They don’t meet their numbers, so in other words, they’re too young to retire, they don’t have enough years in the public service to qualify, so even if they wanted to take early retirement, they don’t qualify. Some are being offered these eight-month training programs and told good luck after that. There have been a few who have been able to hit their numbers and said the only option for them is to retire, obviously.
I’m asking the Premier, would he be willing to use his authority at the Cabinet table to direct appoint these employees that aren’t just Yellowknife employees, there are Fort Simpson employees, they are territorial employees and they’re certainly family people who pay taxes. Here’s an opportunity when we have 571 jobs that the government is actively looking at – 24 people only really represent 4 percent of that workforce – here’s an opportunity for the Premier.
The Member is correct; 24 people were affected by shared services, 20 of them have jobs. There are four that have still not been placed, one in the Deh Cho and three in Yellowknife. I fully expect that they will all find suitable, reasonable employment consistent with what they are doing now.
Would the Premier be willing to ensure that these people are guaranteed a job somewhere in the government if, after their training experience, there is no job opening up for them?
I can tell you some of these folks have been doing jobs like they’ve been doing today for 20 or 25 years, and their jobs have been reclassified and they have been told to go reapply for them. By the way, they don’t qualify for interviews anymore. That’s part of the problem here, so I’m asking what guarantees will this Premier provide this sector and what message is he sending by just letting the process roll out by itself with no protection. It sends the wrong message to our territory and certainly the public service. Thank you.
As a government, we look after all our employees. Our employees are our most valuable asset, so I think it’s very misleading to suggest that we are throwing these employees under the bus. As a matter of fact, we do have an Affected Employee Policy. We will be placing these employees. We have told all of them that they will find jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Premier saying in this House – and I’d like him to be crystal clear about this – after the affected employees are sent off for re-programming, retraining or reclassification, whatever you want to call it, will he guarantee them positions after this? They are told they are out on their own after they have been retrained and good luck. That’s the message they are being told. The Premier is trying to tell me something different in this House. I want him to be very clear. Will these employees be offered employment after their training program has been done? Thank you very much.
Our government is not recognized as one of the 100 best employees in Canada because we aren’t looking after employees. If the Member has a list of employees affected that aren’t being offered jobs and are being shown the door, give it to us and we’ll fix the problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions of the Minister of Finance today. I’d like to try to make some sense of the budget numbers that we’ve been given. I’d like to try to make some sense of the answers the Minister gave me and Mr. Dolynny yesterday. I’m hearing mixed messages. I’m trying desperately to understand what the Minister is telling me.
I would like to refer the Minister again to page 5-9 of the budget, the revenue summary under the Department of Finance specifically to the personal income and the corporate income tax numbers. It’s about $158 million estimated for the 2014-15 budget year. The 2013-14 budget estimates slightly more in revenues; it’s about $165 million.
The Minister, yesterday, stated personal income tax and corporate income tax revenues will be about $30 million short, and he said that in the budget address. So my first question to the Minister is to ask the Minister to please tell me in dollars, how much personal income tax and corporate income tax revenues are expected for the 2014-15 budget, and please include the anticipated loss of $30 million. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That sounds like a written question to me, so I’ll take it as notice. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today following questions I had earlier this week for the Minister of… Actually, I’ll ask questions of the Minister of Health and Social Services.
I have a question with regard to next week and the report we will be getting from the Auditor General. I just want to get an update from the Minister of Health and Social Services where we are with that update. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I haven’t seen that audit and I won’t see that audit until pretty much the same time Members do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. Sorry, I was a little confused there with my first question. With the government response that was tabled in this House in 2011, there were some immediate actions that could have been taken. Has the report itself been updated since 2011? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I was one of the Members who actually participated in the review of the child and family services delivered by the Government of the Northwest Territories in the last Assembly and I am aware of all those recommendations. Since I’ve become the Minister, I have had an opportunity to follow up with the department to see where we are on a number of those recommendations. There has been a lot of work in the background being done, but there is a lot of work that still needs to be done and, obviously, we still need to continue to make improvements. Thank you.
I would like to ask the Minister, moving forward and looking at what’s going to come out of the Auditor General’s report, I assume it will be a lot of the same things as the recommendations the committee brought forth and some of the actions needed.
Has the Minister, in preparation for this audit report that’s coming out next month, put aside any fiscal dollars to address some of those issues specifically in our small communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I think we actually need to see the audit to report first and see what it says and what the recommendations are. I will certainly work with committee to find out or put in place regional responses to those so we can actually improve and continue to provide high quality services to our residents in the area of child and family services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I would like to start by noting yesterday we saw the GNWT sign the MOU on industry development with representatives from Fort Resolution. This appears to be a very positive development.
Could the Minister outline what he sees as the next steps in creating sustainable forestry in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s question. I do appreciate him sending me a note and giving me a chance to open up my binder to double check my briefing notes.
I agree with him that the signing yesterday is a good news story. That signing yesterday was a political agreement. By the end of this month, we will work out with Fort Resolution the time to sign the actual formal detailed forest management agreement that lays out the 25-year agreement, the details pertaining to the areas and the harvesting and all the species to be harvested and such.
With that document and hopefully one to come from Fort Providence in the very near future, then we will have the basis for both the business interests as represented by Aurora Wood Pellets and then the three or four Aboriginal governments, the Metis, the Deninu K’ue Band in Fort Resolution and the First Nations Dehcho and Metis in Fort Providence to be able to start putting their business plans together, their harvest plans. With assistance from ourselves, the federal government and other supports, we are going to work with the communities to help them set up their business.
Aurora Wood Pellets anticipates trying to break down by June. The intent is to hopefully be harvesting trees by next winter. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. That sounds like a very interesting project. I’d love to hear another announcement before the end of this session as we had yesterday with the Fort Providence people.
Some people are wondering how a pellet mill will compete with pellet mills in BC and Alberta that seem to have cheaper power, cheaper labour and practically free access to sawdust from onsite lumber mills. So, basically if we’re going to export wood pellets – and that’s basically what I’ve been hearing – what is our competitive advantage here? Mahsi.
In fact, down south, from my understanding, at one point the use of wood waste was considered to be a benefit to the wood pellet producers. It was seen to help the lumber mills manage all their excess and waste, but now the recognition has come that this biomass has value and so the issue of free sawdust and free slabs and waste for pellet mills is now a thing of the past. In fact, there is a fairly high rate of attrition.
We will look at stumpage fees. Aurora Wood Pellets will negotiate their arrangement with their respective Aboriginal governments or business interests representing Aboriginal governments in terms of the wood product. The owner of Aurora Wood Pellets is convinced – and he’s doing his own business case – that he is going to be investing many, many millions of his own dollars that he can provide a product in the Northwest Territories with Northwest Territories trees at a 20 to 30 percent lower rate than we’re currently paying for products being shipped in from the South. Thank you.
Thank you for the details, Mr. Minister, that sounds really positive. Stumpage fees might have been the key there. I appreciate that competitive advantage is working out on paper and hopefully it does in practice.
A wood pellet plant on the South Slave grid would take advantage of our local green hydro power and presumably use local biomass energy for drying the wood before it is pelletized to the extent that it needs to be done.
Has the Minister considered that this would make NWT produced pellets even greener than the pellets we currently import from Alberta and BC?
Yes, I’ve had numerous discussions with the owner of the wood pellet project as well as the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee, ENR and NTPC looking at, as the Member has indicated, using some of their own product and the waste heat to both possibly generate power as well as capture the heat so they can dry all the pellets and put that heat to use.
As well, with our net metering policy that is now being put into place, we would now have the capacity to potentially put back power into the line. If it’s located in Enterprise, then it will become a hub close to the railhead right on the main highway. We also see a very significant future potential with biodiesels and biofuels where wood is converted not just to wood pellets but to different fuels. That would be a whole additional market for this plant. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. It sounds more and more positive. We know that our forestry officials are highly qualified, so I assume we will be applying best practices as we develop our forest management plans.
The logical next question is Forest Stewardship Council certification is now the best known standard for sustainable forest products.
Will our wood pellets be able to take advantage of the FSC certification as we market them both here in the NWT and abroad? Mahsi.
The proponent is a very astute businessman. He has, throughout, immersed himself in this industry. He’s had his contacts with export markets as well as in the North. As well, we will be looking to support him and encouraging him as a government, as we have, in terms of building his product and making sure that all the required classifications are there that would make this an absolutely premium product. Thank you.
Thank you. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I want to ask Mr. Ramsay about the goal of attracting workers to at least 2,000 over the next five years, according to the budget address by the Minister of Finance. As Minister of ITI, what plans does he have in place, with regard to working with other department officials, to attract workers into the Northwest Territories?
Yesterday we watched a short video of the people up in Yellowknife, Norman Wells. Shotagotine people and life on the land. We also saw a clip in 1957 where there was oil being worked on in Norman Wells. Any kind of economic development attracted workers to come to the Northwest Territories. Do they come for the economic reasons, the cultural reasons or the social reasons? What types of plans are in place to attract workers to stay in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Similar to my response to Mrs. Groenewegen earlier, the government has the Come Make Your Mark Campaign. We work with over 60 organizations and businesses around the Northwest Territories in an effort to attract people to live and work in the Northwest Territories.
I mentioned this previously, and I’ll mention it again, we are only going to get somewhere if we continue to partner with industry, to partner with communities, to see to it that we put our best effort to attract folks to live and work in the Northwest Territories. We believe we are on the verge of some very exciting economic prospects here in the Northwest Territories. We certainly want to put in our best effort in trying to attract people to live and work in the NWT. Thank you.
Is there some type of think-tank that his department is considering to attract or bring in people and keep people in the North here? I want to ask, is there any type of think-tank that will look at all kind of options, how we keep people and attract people back who have left?
We have the Employment and Economic Development Subcommittee of Cabinet. Certainly, the discussion has started here. We have reached out to the mining companies who do work here in the Northwest Territories, to engage them preliminarily. We will have a working group as we go forward. We also want to hear from Regular Members. You will hear us talk, as a government, much more as an initiative to get these 2,000 people here over the next five years. We will reach out to Regular Members over the coming months to try to engage them and get their feedback on how they think we can deliver on that effort to get 2,000 people to come to the Northwest Territories over the next five years. Thank you.
In my hands here, I have the stats from the students who are going to Aurora College from the Sahtu. The numbers shown here are 81 people who have taken some sort of post-secondary education. How do we track these 81 people? Some of them have left the North and there are reasons why they left the North. I have a young man in Vancouver who is a classical cartoonist who has a hard time finding work in the Northwest Territories. The only places he will find work is California, Montreal. There is no way that our government will attract that career, so he has to be in Vancouver. That’s where the hot market is.
I want to ask Mr. Ramsay, is he and his department, subcommittee, going into Aurora College and asking them what do we need to do to keep you here rather than going down south to finish your education and work down there and not come back? What type of attractions do we need to have to keep you here in the North?
We have to get folks back here to the Northwest Territories. Certainly in travels even to a place like Vancouver where we launched Aurora Capital of the World campaign months ago, I ran into a couple of young people who had left the Northwest Territories and were working in Vancouver. We need to try to get these young folks back to the Northwest Territories. I think all Members can help in that effort. If you know of young people in the South and try to connect them to opportunities here in the Northwest Territories, that’s something all of us should be doing.
Also, work continues on getting these statistics together through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We understand the Member is concerned. We share his concern and certainly we have to help connect the opportunities for our students we have at post-secondary in the South to opportunities here in the North. We fully intend to do that, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has his department or any of his colleagues done a survey as to why people are leaving the Northwest Territories? Is it the high cost of living? Is it the infrastructure? Is it programs and services? Once you get that survey looked at, then you can see the problems and solutions. If it is the high cost of living, then you know we have to do some work. Is it child care? Is it training? Whatever it is, then we can unravel the issue.
Has the department done some type of survey on why people are exiting out of the Northwest Territories?
