Mr. Speaker, yes, I can commit to do that. We just have to report on their meeting. As the Member stated, they would like to see some stability in the funding. As the Member knows, we have increased the funding under the enhanced community services over the last number of years. This year we are funding $482,000 instead of $460,000 last year. We are going forward for a request for a little bit more for next year. We have also increased funding under stabilized existing shelters by $11,000 this year; actually, $119,000 this year. We have funded $450,000 this year compared to $340,000 last year and also, since 2009-10, this year we have funded $92,000 for a program for men who abuse and that is an increase of almost $70,000 from last year. Mr. Speaker, I believe we are making progress and doing things that the coalition would like us to do. I am going to review in detail what the coalition is suggesting and, as always, work with the coalition in moving forward. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the Minister. I look forward to further and detailed report on that meeting. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has outlined a bunch of figures about a bunch of dollars thrown out there. What has been achieved in the area of family violence reduction through the action plan during the life of this Assembly? Mahsi.
Thank you. I can tell you that increasing money under the stabilizing existing shelters has really helped the shelters in Hay River, Inuvik and Yellowknife. I say that because they have told me that they were very glad to get that money. They were able to renovate some of the facilities to make them more safe and more comfortable for those who are staying there, and in fact that’s probably why the coalition is asking us to make that funding permanent.
We have introduced programming money for communities without shelters because that was identified as one that we had to move on, and in the last three years we have approved $460,000 in ‘08-09, $460,000 in ‘09 and ’10, and this year we budgeted $482,000 and for next year we’re going for more money, I mean, subject to all of the other pressures. There are lots of groups that identified on working on prevention and working with men who abuse, because when you’re talking about shelters and victims that’s not getting at the front-end, which is the reason why we have established and we are funding the program to deal with women who abuse. There has been an enormous amount of training for the shelter workers. We’ve done surveys, we’ve done evaluations. There’s all kinds of stuff going on under the Family Violence Action Plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I appreciate the comments from the Minister. It sounds like there’s some good work happening out there and I’m happy to see the work going on with those that abuse. Strictly speaking, of course, that’s not prevention. That’s dealing with the symptoms again. We need to get out in front of this and I hope that the Minister and colleagues will be innovative in doing some real preventative work.
My last question, Mr. Speaker, is on policing. Again, in this efficient cross-departmental government, will this Minister work with her colleagues in Finance and Justice to present a plan to committee and this Assembly to bring policing to all communities within the next few years? Thank you.
I’d be happy to speak to my colleague, the Minister of Justice, on that issue, understanding, of course, funding of extra RCMP is a project between the GNWT and the federal government for the funding of the officers. I just wanted to mention on prevention, for example -- and this is definitely in the area of prevention that the Member appreciates -- we have enhanced the community-based outreach advocacy and prevention in three regions with our shelters in the Tlicho, Deh Cho and Sahtu to raise the awareness in the community. We have also supported protocol development to assess risks and as a common risk assessment tool based on Ontario domestic assault risk assessment across the NWT. So we do do prevention work, to answer the question. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wasn’t going to ask any more questions, but I can’t resist. I’m going to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services a few more questions, getting back to the questions I had earlier. I’ll try to keep the questions pretty straightforward. What planning has gone into a retrofit, a complete retrofit of Stanton Territorial Hospital to date? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to repeat the officials that work with us in this area, and the Member was there with me this morning, the management of our health care delivery system is saying that before we decide and work on details about what to do with Stanton Territorial Hospital, we need to decide what we’re going to do there. What’s it going to be? What is Stanton going to deliver? What do we want it to do? As you know, capital planning is not just about building a building, because, as the official said, if we just go the way we’ve done before, we’re just going to build based on the old school and as the Member might know, when Stanton Hospital was built 30 years ago, even before they opened the door the building was outdated. From the day it was opened, the building was not designed to deliver the programs that it was required to deliver. We don’t want to make that mistake.
So we want to make sure that we only deliver at Stanton the only acute care services that it can deliver in Yellowknife. As much as possible, we want to optimize the use of the Hay River hospital that’s being retrofitted, the wellness centre and new health facility that we’re going to build in Norman Wells, which is in the books. We believe the Inuvik Hospital is overbuilt and we’re not using it to the max and we want to use that. To do that we need to do the staffing model, the program model, program review, use of technology. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. We are finishing the retrofit in Smith. So, Mr. Speaker, in the interest of doing the right thing and using the money right, we are doing an enormous amount of planning, because when Stanton Hospital is retrofitted we want it to be the modern health facility that does exactly what it’s meant to do and not one thing more. That is that it is efficiently built and effectively used. Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t think the hospital was ever designed to be an office building and that’s probably the first problem. I’d like to ask the Minister, and I know and I appreciate that all this lead-up work has to be done, that has to be done, Mr. Speaker. My point is the capital plan -- and the Minister knows this, she’s been around here for almost 12 years -- that takes time. Getting money in that plan takes time. You’ve already had the Foundation for Change in place for two years. You’ve had two years. You say you’re working through all these things. When is the process to get all those things addressed going to match up with us getting the capital dollars required to build or retrofit that Stanton Territorial Hospital? Thank you.
Thank you. The breaking news is it has begun. So I don’t know why he keeps asking when is this going to start. That was the entire discussion this morning. He has a nasty habit of not changing his view in the face of good and current information. So the breaking news: planning has begun. There is money in the budget for planning for Stanton. I believe it’s about $900,000. The PA and the CEO and an entire health care team are working on how to make that facility work. So we will do that work, and when it’s ready it would go to peer review and follow the regular planning process. We believe it will take at least two or three years and it’s on its way. Work is being done. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Of the millions of dollars in expense referred to in the Minister’s February 14, 2011, reply to Oral Question 441-16(5), what have been the costs incurred for revision of the Wildlife Act during its 54 revisions over the last 17 years for consultations, travel, legal services and legislative drafting with each of the two interest communities:
aboriginal groups and/or governments and treaty holders;
those without Aboriginal and treaty rights.
Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 14, tabling of documents. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 4-16(5), Executive Summary of the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project; Tabled Document 30-16(5), 2010 Review of Members’ Compensation and Benefits; Tabled Document 38-16(5), Supplementary Health Benefits – What We Heard; Tabled Document 62-16(5), Northwest Territories Water Stewardship Strategy; Tabled Document 75-16(5), Response to the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project on the Federal and Territorial Governments’ Interim Response to “Foundation for a Sustainable Northern Future”; Tabled Document 103-16(5), GNWT Contracts Over $5,000 Report, Year Ending March 31, 2010; Tabled Document 133-16(5), NWT Main Estimates 2011-2012; Tabled Document 135-16(5), Response to the Standing Committee on Social Programs Report on the Review of the Child and Family Services Act; Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Social Assistance Act; Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Conflict of Interest Act; Bill 15, An Act to Amend the Fire Prevention Act; Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act; Bill 18, An Act to Repeal the Settlements Act; Bill 19, Municipal Statutes Amendment Act; Bill 20, An Act to Amend the Evidence Act; Minister’s Statement 65-16(5), Devolution Agreement-in-Principle, Impact on Land Claims and Protection of Aboriginal Rights; Minister’s Statement 88-16(5), Sessional Statement, with Mr. Bromley in the chair.
By the authority given me as Speaker by Motion 31-16(5), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily hour of adjournment to consider the business before the House.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We have before us the consideration of tabled documents 4, 30, 38, 62, 75, 103, 133, 135; Bills 4, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20; and Ministers’ statements 65 and 88. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to continue with the Department of Transportation followed by Industry, Tourism and Investment, and also Human Resources today.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. We will continue, then, with Tabled Document 133-16(5), NWT Main Estimates, 2011-2012, and continue with Environment and Natural Resources. Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
So let’s see. We were on page… Thank you, committee. Actually, I guess we did complete ENR and we’re on the Department of Transportation. That’s right. We had the general comments yesterday. It must have been late last night. At any rate, what we’ll do is take a quick break and come back to it.
---SHORT RECESS
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We are on the Department of Transportation. I would like to ask the Minister if he will be bringing witnesses into the House. Mr. Minister.
Yes, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. I would ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses into the House.
I’d like to ask the Minister to please introduce his witnesses.
With me on my right I have Mr. Russell Neudorf, the deputy minister of Transportation. On my left I have Mr. Daniel Auger, the assistant deputy minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Committee, we were on general comments. I’m sure that we totally finished them. Are there any more general comments before I ask the Minister to respond? Seeing none, I’d like to ask the Minister to please respond to general comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank the Members for the comments they’ve made and the concerns they’ve raised. The comments around the Deh Cho Bridge, of course, have been consistent. The project is a very massive undertaking from a government standpoint and probably one of the biggest projects in the Northwest Territories at this point. The project initially was put together with concerns to address a number of concerns that were being raised, concerns of safety, concerns of potential environment contamination, concerns over greenhouse gas, and of course to remove the bottleneck that has been challenging the traffic on the north side of the river for many years now. The P3 project that was initially undertaken to address it was faced with a number of challenges. Of course today we are in a position where we have this project as part of our projects that are being developed and delivered by the Government of the Northwest Territories. I just wanted to speak to some of the issues that were raised by the MLAs regarding the bridge first, and then some general comments on others.
First of all I wanted to state that the concern over wording is something that we should be clear about. Words that were used initially on how we reported revenues and expenses that were acceptable under the concession agreement are, now that our reporting is different because this is a government project we are using different terms. When we speak -- and Mr. Ramsay raised the concern of my use of “cost savings” on the project -- we should be clear that what I was referring to was cost savings that would be incurred from no longer having to operate the ferry or construct the ice bridge on an annual basis. Of course, under the whole process with the concession agreement, the savings would have been used to pay off the interest and principal of the bridge debt. Now these revenues of course are part of our expenses.
The use of a special purpose fund that was required under the concession agreement was of course not going to be required. We can’t confuse revenues with profits. We will be using different terminology. We are now required to include the expenses and our revenues as part of our budgeting process and will be reporting through the mains as we present our budgets.
There has also been indication that a report undertaken by the Auditor General will be tabled in this House on March 1st and we look forward to that. We have worked very closely with the Auditor General. I have to say that given that we have now undertaken to build the Deh Cho Bridge as a government project, having also to do a forensic audit or an audit of this nature has really stretched our resources and has caused a lot of work on our already very busy staff.
We still continue to work on issues that were raised by a number of our colleagues here in the House on the opening date. We still have that as a target. Of course, it’s something that we have to work very hard with the contractors to continue to work and try to deal with all the challenges that are put before us. The cost is also an issue that we’re very much mindful of as we move forward. There are a lot of things that are happening on the bridge project. Construction is moving forward. We’re happy with the progress over the last little while. We would expect that’s going to continue.
We also heard from Mr. Abernethy the concerns he brought forward and some of his desires to see the Mackenzie Valley Highway continue to move forward. We’re quite happy that we were able to sign agreements with all the different Aboriginal governments and groups along the highway route. Many of the project description reports are to a stage where they should be signed off in the next little while. There are others that have been just undertaken and they will take a little bit longer. We had given ourselves a two-year time frame, however things are progressing well. We’re quite happy with the work that has been done on that front.
To the comment about having further chipsealing done or paving, we certainly agree that we need to do more. I think I indicated last year that it’s our desire to do a lot more chipsealing. We think it’s a good way to preserve the highway service except it’s very costly at this point to deal with some of the roads that are further north. We’re looking at ways that we can improve that. At this point we have roughly 35 percent of our highways in the NWT that are chipsealed.
We also agree very much that we need to continue to improve our highway infrastructure. This is something that the tourism traffic has made comments about. A number of Members have raised it. We are working to try to accommodate that. There is concern on Highway No. 7 regarding the condition. We’ve had some serious challenges on that front with some of the spring conditions where the road has collapsed and some of the road has eroded. We have over the last three years now tried to budget accordingly to deal with the reconstruction, but given that there’s been some challenges in erosion and sinkholes, we’ve had to divert some of our dollars. So it doesn’t allow us to move forward as fast as we’d like.
We heard also from Mr. Jacobson regarding the road concerns regarding progress of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. In his riding the road has moved fairly... The project description for that stretch of road has moved forward very quickly. Things have progressed very well and we’re hoping that things in the other parts of the Northwest Territories will go forward as well.
He’s also raised concerns over dust suppression. We agree that it’s a safety issue and that we need to deal with dust suppression. We will continue to put investment to try to alleviate those conditions. Right now, chipseal on the Dempster is something that we need to look at and there are other parts of the Territories that have made the same request.
Mr. Krutko has raised issues about bridges in this House for a number of years now and he’s made it very clear that he’s a firm believer that bridges would not only provide year-round access to the communities but would lower the cost of the pipeline. At this point, the pipeline project does not include a road. We have had discussions with the proponent and voiced our desire to see further roads be constructed parallel to this process. At this point, it’s not as part of the project and I can’t see an indication that that would happen.
We have had good progress also on the road and the PDR work that’s been done on the alignment and engineering assessments on the Mackenzie Valley Highway project. The contract there is going very well. It’s almost done and we hope to conclude that in a positive light.
The Peel River schedule is something else that was raised. We certainly are willing to sit down and discuss schedules. As long as it doesn’t warrant further investment, we feel we can change the time from in the morning to the mid-morning if that’s the desire of the community; however, we have not engaged in those discussions and would like to do so. We have some time to be able to have that discussion with the community and we’ll have our staff do that.
Mr. Hawkins was very clear in his points about getting the bridge project done and we share the same sentiment. We need to keep moving forward. This project is there for the long term and we have, of course, tried to do that. We want to see this project get completed. However, we have to do it in a way that we don’t compromise on the quality of construction or any areas of safety.
He’s also raised concern about the condition of Highway No. 3 and some of the issues that are coming forward as a result of climate change and of our ice melting and causing some driving conditions. I drive that road every weekend. Of course, it’s a safe road. I can vouch for that. We certainly would like to see some of the issues that are causing some of the slumping on the road dealt with, but it’s certainly still a safe road if you’re driving it at the driving speeds set.
Mr. Yakeleya raised several issues that were of concern in his riding and we certainly agree that we’ve, in the last two governments, made significant investment in the Mackenzie Valley winter road that has resulted in a lot of improvements. We’ve done a number of bridges in his riding on the winter road and the communities have been very clear to us that it’s something that they’re happy with; however, they still want us to work towards continuing the season when they have the ability to travel south. The quality of the roads is getting better and has been this year. We’ve received a number of comments stating to that; however, we should point out that there is no oil and gas activity in the Sahtu this year and I think we all would agree that this has resulted in roads that are of better quality. It really points to the fact that when we do have resource development or companies in the area, that they work with us and pay their share to keep the road in good condition.
We have been very busy across the Northwest Territories working with most of the local companies in the area, with the Aboriginal companies or the Aboriginal groups, and the Sahtu has been pretty clear in getting their message to us that they have a short season as to when they can do construction work and for the rest of the season their equipment has to sit while still requiring payment. We recognize that and I think we’ve done a good job across the board. We’ve set a goal to work with communities and work with companies, northern companies, and we’re starting to see some success and we’re starting to see a lot of good work happening from these companies.
We also have been trying to deal with a number of issues that have come forward or have been issues of safety on the winter road. I think with all the grade work and the bridging that we have done, it has alleviated some of those concerns. We have also installed in the last couple of years, I should say, we planned to install quite a few signs. We did 700 last year. We plan to do another 700 on this road. This is still a fairly long winter road and we may need to do more. We also have brought to the attention the issue of the Bear River Bridge that the Member has raised on a number of occasions. It’s a project that’s ready to go, we just need to have some buy-in from the federal government. We certainly have tried to do our share to open up the winter crossings on the Bear and the bypass at Tulita by putting a little more dollars to get those done.
Mr. Yakeleya also raised a question on what would be in the federal budget for the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I had indicated earlier in this House that that’s something we’ll have to wait and see. I had some discussions with Minister Strahl. He was very clear that he couldn’t give us an answer and we would have to wait.
Mr. Chairman, there are a number of issues that were raised here, there are probably a number of further issues that will be brought up regarding our budget that’s in front of us today, and we look forward to any questions as we move along on this year’s budget.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Does committee agree that this concludes general comments?
Agreed.
Does committee agree that we go to detail?
Agreed.
On page 11-7 are the operations expenditure summary for Transportation. We’ll defer that until after consideration of the details. Please turn to page 8 and we’ll start there with Transportation, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 11-9, Transportation, information item, revenue summary. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 11-10. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually, I did have one question and I just about missed it. This is the revenue summary. Theoretically, the bridge will be operational in November, which means that there are four months that we might expect revenue. Am I just missing it or is it on this page somewhere?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Does committee agree we go back to page 11-9?
Agreed.
Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chair, yes, the Member’s correct. The process that has been put forward for the bridge project, as requirements from Finance, is to incorporate the expenses into the mains for this year and as we move forward with actual on revenue, we will come forward in the form of a supp. In the following years, it will be recorded on this page.
Thank you for that clarification, Minister. Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Once again, committee, Transportation, information item, revenue summary. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. We are moving forward to page 11-10, Transportation, information item, active position summary. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. We are moving on to page 11-13, Transportation, activity summary, corporate services, operations expenditure summary, $10.063 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 11-14. Transportation, information item, corporate services, active positions. Agreed?
