Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Item 7, oral questions. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of ITI. I talked about the special relationship with our people on the land and helping each other get out to the land. I made statements in 2012, on November 2nd, about trappers and life on the land. I want to ask the Minister, given that knows what we contribute, has there been any type of discussion in terms of helping families get on the land with all the programs that we have offered through the government.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently there was a traditional economy workshop held in Deline with the SRRB and, as well, CanNor helped us fund that. I would be happy to provide the Member with a copy of our presentation from that.
But getting to the programs that we do have and the assistance that we do have, of course, we have the Take a Kid Trapping and Take a Kid Harvesting, which are done through the schools in the Northwest Territories. We also have the Community Harvester Assistance Program, which is almost $1.1 million on an annual basis. We also have a number of other programs that we provide assistance to harvesters. The Community Harvester Assistance Program is another one. Through these programs at the local, level people and families could approach the local authorities there to get some of that funding to get out on the land.
We certainly have supported the trappers, people who make their life on the land. It’s the point of view that we look at trapping or harvesting and being a fisherman, to being a trapper, to be a hunter. Some look at it as a business. We sometimes look at it as a way of life.
I want to ask the Minister of ITI, could he look across the different departments and say can we come up with a unique program, because we’re known for our uniqueness in the Northwest Territories through education, health, whatever, and say we can do this program, treatment, healthy living or education or whatever, but come up with a program that says this is a family program that promotes family togetherness out on the land. Can he do that?
Traditional activities out on the land are considered to be productive choices under the Income Assistance program. Certainly that’s something that I can continue to have discussions with my Cabinet colleagues on how we can go about getting some funding to allow people to get out and pursue the traditional economy out on the land.
I look forward to seeing if anything can come forward from working with his colleagues, like productive choices through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, so that people in the small communities can go to either the Department of RWED or to Education, Culture and Employment and say we want to take our family on the land, this is what it’s going to cost us to bring our families out, so that we have support from the government.
Would the Minister come forward within the life of this government, so maybe by next year we can have a program that would be offered to all people in the Northwest Territories?
Yes, we could take a look at that, and I can let the Member know that we will take that into consideration and get him some type of response.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we come with this unique program that Mr. Ramsay is committing to look at and bring forward, it’s life on the land. The economy, that’s the business side, but I think it would be supporting the life on the land that supports our vision and goals of the 17th Assembly. I’ll ask the Minister, coming forward and getting some information back from our communities and seeing that we can pilot some type of unique program for the coming fall time. I’m not too sure if that’s too short of a time, but I will look forward to some type of a movement on this.
Yes, we will try to do that in as short order as we can. In the meantime though, we do have opportunities for community members to take part in community hunts and community harvests under the Community Harvester Assistance Program, so if families wanted to get together and coordinate a trip out on the land to pursue traditional activities, there is currently programs and money available for them to do that.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As follow-up to my Member’s statement earlier today, I’d like to ask the Minister of Human Resources, since the MOU with the Union of Northern Workers on the Safe Disclosure of Information Agreement that we signed into April 1, 2013, I’d just like to ask if there has been any uptake into that program. If so, how many, I guess, allegations or complaints did the GNWT receive?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. As of today, since the memorandum of understanding has been signed between the UNW and the GNWT, there have been no disclosures.
As I mentioned, in the statement that was out on February 21st for the then-Minister of Human Resources, it mentions that a safe disclosure coordinator was going to be put into position as well as a Safe Disclosure Panel.
Would the Minister have the costs of the staffing for this position for this past fiscal year that this government has approved? We aren’t getting any results on this safe disclosure of information pilot project, I guess you can say right now, or this agreement.
I do not have the costs for the creation of the Safe Disclosure Panel. Also, if they do have a safe disclosure coordinator working with the panel or putting the panel together at the time an employee discloses some wrongdoing, harassment or other things that are found underneath this disclosure agreement, I don’t have the costs of those at this time with me. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned that we had no uptakes in this program that we’ve had in place since April 1, 2013. That makes we wonder: why zero? We hear complaints. As MLAs we hear a lot of these complaints in bringing these concerns forward.
Has the department done an effective awareness campaign? How is this information been going out to employees to let them understand that this GNWT is supporting them for coming forward to bring any types of allegations in which they feel there are some wrongdoings? Has the department done an effective campaign to our employees throughout the GNWT system? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, every UNW employee in the GNWT was informed of the new provisions by letter in March 2013, a letter that was jointly signed by the Union of Northern Workers president and the deputy minister of Human Resources. A copy of the Safe Disclosure Provisions and Guidelines were posted on both the UNW and Human Resources websites, also articles outlining Safe Disclosure Agreement and the process were published on June 7th and September 20th in the editions of the GNWT employee newsletter, posters were developed and shared at GNWT worksites in December of 2013, and senior managers across the GNWT have been briefed on the safe disclosure process and are able to assist employees once an employee makes a determination that they would like to disclose wrongdoing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Knowing full well that we’re going to take this agreement on April 1, 2013, not everybody always goes to our websites to review some of this information, and hearing that we had posters out explaining this program in December 2013, nine months after this agreement was supposed to take place, I’d like to ask the Minister – it says that the Safe Disclosure Panel and coordinator will report annually – when can we expect to see a report tabled in this House of some of the best practices and probably some of the challenges or some things that we might not have taken into consideration when putting this agreement into place effectively, so that we might have gotten some statistics with this report? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, if HR is going to be tabling a report on the memorandum of understanding on safe disclosure, I don’t know what date that is going to be done. However, we are moving to legislation. We expect to have a legislative proposal in front of the House in the sitting of October 2014, and that will give the Assembly about a year to work on completing that legislation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to follow up on community health nursing. That was a great issue that Mrs. Groenewegen raised and it’s something I’ve been following for many, many years, the question of nursing in small communities. In her statement she asked basically what is the rationale, and I think the rationale is because there are no RCMP officers there. I don’t know if that’s a real policy.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health what is the real policy about getting nurses into our communities, and if he has it, can he quote from it, can he show us? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of factors that we utilize when deciding whether to employ nurses throughout the Northwest Territories. The Integrated Service Delivery Model sets out standards for community health staff across the Northwest Territories. But as I indicated, when asked questions previously, it is under review and we are looking for ways to enhance the services in our small communities. RCMP is but one factor. It is not the deciding factor by any stretch of the imagination. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Once again, we ought to be maximizing community health nursing and develop that capacity.
Just a quick look at Nunavut, every community, with the exception of Grise Fiord, has a nurse, and the nurses form the backbone of those communities and the backbone of the health care delivery system in Nunavut, so that’s exactly where we’re getting. I’ve listed many, many times where the community of Wrigley needed a nurse, where nurses really could have increased assistance to that community. Just for instance, in December 2005, two nine and 10-year-old girls broke their legs and they weren’t treated for four days. In September of 2009, almost just over 60 percent of the community had flu-like systems during the H1N1 scare and there was nobody there to attend to them for about 10 days, so just a couple of instances.
I would like to know what our strategy is moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Just by way of comparison, it’s my understanding that every community in Nunavut actually has an RCMP detachment, which we don’t.
There are a number of things going on here, and I do hear what the Member is saying and I have indicated that we are going to review the ISDM to ensure that we are providing the right and appropriate supports in all of our communities. Right now the current ISDM services in communities doesn’t provide nurses permanent full time in communities with less than 250, but there are services that are clearly delivered in these small communities through nurse visits, physician visits. We have community health workers. We have community support workers. But I do hear the Members. I hear them clearly that we need to do more.
I will say again that we are reviewing the ISDM to see what kind of supports could be provided to the communities so that they get the health care that they are seeking. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I know that’s a struggle to get all the communities community health nurses. But in the instance of Wrigley, it’s about the return of nursing services. We had them there in the early ‘90s, and the community consistently asks me, why aren’t we getting our nurse back, what’s the issue there. Well, in fact, I made great strides in getting two dedicated RCMP for the community of Wrigley and establishment of a patrol cabin, as it were, so why aren’t we doing the same or even more to deliver health in our small communities such as Wrigley? Thank you.
As I have indicated, there are a number of challenges, and as I have indicated, we are going to be looking at the ISDM. I will certainly be having discussions with the Members that are affected or who are responsible for the small communities. But there’s no such thing as a one-nurse station. In order to provide adequate coverage for on-call, for overtime and all those types of things as well as to make sure that there’s balance between the different professionals, we would need two. So, there are a lot of other factors that we have to consider, but we are going to review the ISDM with respect to coverage in small communities and we will work with Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I certainly look forward to the department’s plan and I would like to continue to push for it. In 2010 I thought I had resolution over getting nursing delivered in Wrigley, and I believe it was Tsiigehtchic through the same Integrated Service Delivery Model he’s talking about, so I would like to continue pressing that forward.
Once again, can he show me the policy, the regulation, something in writing where it says we cannot have less than two nurses in a small community? Thank you.
I look forward to working with the Member as we move forward trying to solve this issue. Right now, as I indicated, the current ISDM doesn’t provide nursing services on a permanent full-time basis in communities of under 250 people.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the cold weather today, it’s really hard to start talking about summer and our beaches, especially about safety. Recently, the coroner tabled a report on the findings of a young boy’s accidental drowning on June 27, 2013, at Fred Henne Territorial Park. Within the coroner’s report, there are strong recommendations and comments about the assistance of the Royal Life Saving Society of Canada, methods that this government should be following to make our beaches safer.
Sadly, it is also mentioned that all levels of protection must be a priority and implemented before lifeguards are to be considered. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for our parks, to seek some clarity.
Within the coroner’s report, it indicates: “Life Saving Society rates the level of protection at supervised beaches from level two to eight. In the aquatic safety audit, Fred Henne beach was rated level two, meaning there is signage to communicate safety messages to beach users. Increasing the beach level to seven would involve additional training for staff and the presence of additional rescue equipment; level eight beaches, lifeguard supervision.” Can the Minister indicate to us what level is our beach for this summer? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of ITI, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our goal is to implement the recommendations from the Life Saving Society of Alberta that would get the beach at Fred Henne and the beach in Hay River up to a level seven. We are waiting again for the review of lifeguard services, the provisional lifeguard services at Fred Henne beach that is being undertaken by the Life Saving Society as well. We should have that report back within the next few weeks, I would say. Thank you.
I do want to commend the Minister and his office for dedicating a lot of time and resources to making our beaches safer, especially in the wake of that tragedy last summer. Minister Ramsay even went on to say in this House in an oral exchange with myself on October 24, 2013, “If it’s going to make Fred Henne beach safer, there will be lifeguards at the beach next summer.” Is the Minister still committed to this statement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We need to have that dialogue with the community. We had a meeting, and I thank the Member for attending that meeting that we had at the ski club a few weeks back. We want to have some more dialogue with the community. We have had input from a number of community members on our website. The answer is still yes, if having lifeguards at Fred Henne beach is going to make that beach safer, we’ll try our best to have lifeguards there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Again, I appreciate the Minister’s ongoing commitment and steadfast resolve in being true to his word.
Minister Ramsay also went on to say on October 24, 2013, “It’s not an issue about funding and it shouldn’t be an issue of funding.” With the main estimates and ITI before the House later today, is there a budget for lifeguards for this year’s budget? Thank you.
We want to make sure we get it right. That’s first and foremost. We want to ensure we get all the information to make an informed decision. To the Member’s question about whether there is funding in this year’s budget, no, there isn’t. Our early estimates indicate that to have that service at Fred Henne Park, it would run in the neighbourhood of $120,000 to $150,000. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister bringing that number to the floor of the House. Can the Minister commit that if, indeed, we are going to move forward with lifeguards, that that number just quoted today in the House will come back as a supplementary appropriation? Thank you.
The issue of lifeguards at Fred Henne beach has never been an issue about money. I think service is going to be required there and the department will find the money. We’ll go through a supplementary appropriation if we have to. It is about having the service there, but there are a lot of other moving parts to the issue such as where do you find the trained lifeguards, where do you train them, how do you get them ready for this summer. There will be a number of challenges other than having that service at Fred Henne Park. It’s something, like I said earlier, that if they are going to make that beach safer, we’ll do our best to ensure that they’re there.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
