Debates of February 20, 2014 (day 15)

Thank you. Next on my list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

I have a question on the reciprocal billing. Do we also bill for the oil and gas and mining companies who have employees come into the North and use our facilities?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The agreements are not with the oil companies or businesses providing services in the Northwest Territories. They are with the jurisdiction in which the person lives. So if somebody working at a camp happened to be from Nova Scotia and they were injured and they had to use our facilities, we would charge back Nova Scotia, not the oil company. Our agreements are at a provincial and territorial level.

Committee, we are on page 8-9, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Dolynny.

Daryl Dolynny

Range Lake

Just one final clarification on 8-9. You have a reference here on program called special allowances for $1 million. It seems to kind of repeat itself here. Can you describe what that is? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Director Mathison.

Speaker: MS. MATHISON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These special allowances are revenues that we receive, child tax credits for kids in the care of the GNWT.

Committee, page 8-9, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m trying to get a sense, although I see the money is not carried forward into the main estimates. I remember being at the launch of the wait times reduction money, and what type of evaluation or what type of results did we actually see from it? I’m very curious on that. I mean, there must be some type of overall review now that the money has come and gone. I mean, to me, I didn’t see any impact or change in, sort of, the system itself, so did the department do an actual review as to what the deliverable money caused, changed, affected, or improved?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Deputy Minister DeLancey.

Speaker: MS. DELANCEY

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Being from Hay River, you should get DeLancey right. The Wait Times Reduction Trust was a five-year trust. It was a federal government agreement with all the provinces and territories, and the amount that the NWT received was relatively small. Wait times are not as big an issue in our jurisdiction because, of course, many of the wait times occur in Alberta Health Services, so we did not see a significant change at our end. Alberta, there was a national evaluation and the senate committee looked at this as part of their review of the Canada health transfers, and I think the national conclusions were it didn’t have as much of an impact as had been hoped.

I’m curious, maybe they could explain, and perhaps they explained it during business plans, but I may not have been there or certainly not there at all during that day when they had done this review, but I am curious why capital transfers keeps dropping significantly. We go from $9 million a few years ago down to basically $1.5 through main estimates and then revised just barely over $1.1 million, and now down to $300,000. Perhaps I can get some explanation in that area.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Director Mathison.

Speaker: MS. MATHISON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The changes here are a direct result of accounting changes as directed by the public sector accounting body, and it relates to the timing of when we can recognize revenue for assets that have been donated to the GNWT.

I understand what assets are and donated are and timing. I hate to say this, but could you boil this down to an MLA level and a little bit of English, because some of us aren’t accountants here. Maybe you can give us an example. One example would be fine – you don’t have to give me 25 – and make it an MLA level, I’m sorry to say. Thank you.

Speaker: MS. MATHISON

An example would be the funding that we receive from Infoway to support the EMR. We can only recognize that revenue per the public sector accounting guidelines when the asset is actually put into service, so we would bring that revenue in when the piece of equipment is put into service.

Okay. So it’s full cost accounting and just because it showed up in the truck and it’s parked, until it’s plugged in and used and treated as 100 percent asset, ready and available, then it’s then accounted for on the books. Got it. MLA accounting. I think I got that now.

The last question, I think, on this particular page – just because I’m noting the clock, we’re at 6:00 now – professional fees have maintained the same. I guess my question really is around why is that the case. Do our professional fees not increase? Do they change at all? Is it based on a flat number which is it doesn’t matter how we get there, it’s $180,000. Do we, as the GNWT, pay for the professional fees and are we talking about doctor fees or accreditation? I’m just trying to understand why that’s a flat trend and I notice it’s under vital stats fees, but I’m noticing a flat trend when I say vital statistics fee, but I’m more targeting licence fees under professionals. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The professional licence fees are for things like medical licences and things like that. With respect to how it’s figured or calculated, I’ll go to Director Mathison.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Director Mathison.

Speaker: MS. MATHISON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is again one of those situations where it’s just an estimate based on prior actuals. Depending on the profession, there is a different rate for each licence.

Thank you, Director Mathison. Mr. Hawkins.

I’m missing the first part for my first round, which is do we pay it? For example, do we pay doctors’ professional fees? I guess the other thing is, is it affected by vacancies, and if so, what vacancies would this be attributed to? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. By way of example, physicians pay their own licensing fees and whatnot, but through terms and conditions of employment, nurses would pay theirs and maybe social workers would pay theirs, but a lot of them can be reimbursed.

So, in essence, we would be paying our own fees. Would they just apply back to the Government of the Northwest Territories and through their signed contracts and we would just pick up the costs?

It’s different for every profession, as was indicated. The doctors would pay the licensing fee and that’s part of our revenue, but for professions like nurses, they’re paying their licensing fee to a territorial body or through them to a Canadian body. So they’d pay those, but we reimburse some of our nurses in the Northwest Territories that are employees. So the nurses aren’t showing up here, just the ones that are coming to us.

So, in essence, out of this $180,000, what would the territorial government be reimbursing through its processes then? It just seems odd to me. I understand why we have to count it as revenue. That’s fine, that’s not the question, but it’s based on how much would we actually be paying through people putting their application in because we agreed to cover their professional fees, which seems a bit of a weird process, but obviously for accounting. Thank you.

As I indicated, for bodies like nurses, their registration fees are not coming to us and we would never be able to account that as revenue. But for people like physicians and social workers that pay their licensing fees to us, that would be, and the Member is right; through terms and conditions of employment we might be offsetting it a little bit for social workers, but we’ll do a bit of an analysis on this to indicate or show what we’re actually taking out and if we pay anything out of this particular area.

Report of Committee of the Whole

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Can I have the report of Committee of the Whole, Mr. Bouchard.