Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. It was even before this incident that we were looking at how we can improve our ambulance, especially between the communities, and with more and more of the communities being linked by ice roads or highways, it was an important issue. Unfortunately, some of these incidents that happen highlight more and more the importance of the issue. I can assure the Member, and all Members, that through our internal working committee we are trying to find ways that we can find something that works for all communities in the Northwest Territories, especially those that are on the highway system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I was raising the issue of some of these ghost Northerners, or sometimes even commonly called paper Northerners, who get these northern jobs, and as soon as they get them, they move south, but the mining industry will put them on their socio-economic agreements and tick them off in the “have you hired or do you have a Northerner working for you” and they tick off yes.
The issue is, simply, this: How do the mines account and, furthermore, validate that these are a true northern workforce, and how do they officially report this to the GNWT to ensure the information they are reporting is valid and honest? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The three mines were before the Member’s committee last fall. I mentioned to the Member earlier this week that I would be more than happy to set up a meeting between him and his committee, myself and the three mines. We can go over any questions the Member or his committee has. Those questions can be raised and answered by the mining companies. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am simply asking the question how does the government monitor, manage and validate the numbers presented as what we define as a northern working force. In the socio-economic agreements, it is a very specific description that says the mines must live up to a certain amount of workforce. That said, is the government taking it on blind faith or do they validate this? If they validate this, how do they report it? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it is monitored. It is reported and tabled in this House. As to how they validate the numbers, I’d have to go back to the department and try to get a better understanding of exactly how they monitor and whether or not they follow each and every employee away from work and find out where they go and whether or not they have a NWT driver’s licence or health care card. That I’m not 100 percent sure of, but I will find out. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate if the Minister would stop saying they go to my committee. It’s the Assembly’s committee, first of all. Second of all, I think this is an issue that the Minister should be concerned about, not just some of the committee members.
What can the Minister do under the context of monitoring in the sense of do we have a definition of what a Northerner is? We don’t know if these people have health care cards, whether they have a post office box or even if they file their taxes here in the Northwest Territories, so we must have some rules to govern this by rather than just wading into this and saying, how do you validate this. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we do have to work together. I mentioned this, again, in response to some earlier questions on the same matter. We have to continue the dialogue with industry. We have to continue the dialogue with Members. I think instead of just complaining about it, offering up solutions on what could happen, and that is going to happen by that dialogue continuing.
There are reasons that I work with the Minister of Health and Social Services, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. It is a much bigger issue than mines not hitting employment targets. There’s a lot of underlying issues here that we have to work on collectively.
Again, I know it’s a committee of this House. The mines were in front of that committee late last year. I’d like to get them back in front of that committee at the earliest opportunity so that we can come forward with recommendations and suggestions on how we can improve things and do things better. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, my job is to… One of the things is to compliment good work, but at the same time, my job is to point out problems in the system and provide solutions, which I keep providing them but they seem to fall on deaf ears.
So here is one more – and I’m not saying just this Minister; I’m saying many Ministers – would this Minister consider the option of taking a third-party monitoring system by appointing someone to review these so-called Northerners, because he may find that some comply perfectly, which should be supported, and some don’t comply at all. We should be celebrating the good work and certainly pointing out the bad work. Would the Minister be willing to consider a third-party monitoring service to ensure we get the facts on the table? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I know that the mines do pay a northern allowance to employees, and certainly they would do the due diligence on their own employees to recognize whether or not they’re entitled to a northern allowance by where they live. So that would happen. As to whether or not we get in a third party, no, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions follow up on my Member’s statement earlier today with questions to the Minister of Finance. Obviously, not every employee travels. The $7,000 per person is an average travel cost across the entire government, but for every employee who never travels, there is another average employee spending double that, or $14,000, and every one of them has a boss who is signing a travel authorization.
Does the process for putting forward an approval request for travel include the requirement to demonstrate that alternatives to travel have been considered and found impractical? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That review is implicit in the work the managers do. It is not built into the form, but as part of managing their respective budgets – the Ministers, department managers – they have to make that determination. They have to look at the budgets. They have to look at the need for travel. We place a very, very heavy emphasis in the North on community travel, on consultation, on working across the Territories with the Aboriginal governments, with NGOs. It’s a very time-consuming, expensive process, but that’s implicit in jobs that managers do. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. I have no problem with that. The Duty Travel Policy of the FAA manual says that all travel is to be completed by the most economical and practical means available, but that only refers to ensuring best value once the decision to travel has been made. We have policy guidelines requiring senior management approval for travel to southern Canada with the advances in virtual travel through technology.
Will the Minister ask his officials to examine what controls could be put in place in the travel authorization process to ensure alternative communication means are shown to be impractical before personal travel can be requested? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the Member that that would make a topic of discussion at the Refocusing Government committee, that I am chair of, could take a look at it. The answer would be we will look at how we do this. As we move into another budget cycle, we are keeping the financial discipline on government through this coming year, a 2 percent cap on growth. We are being frugal already, but we can never be too careful. We will have that matter reviewed at our next Refocusing Government meeting. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks again to the Minister’s commitment. I appreciate that. I do note that this year’s travel budget projections are slightly down from last year’s, in line with what the Minister was saying. The Minister will acknowledge that $17 million in annual travel costs is a big bill for half of our civil service. Even an efficiency of 10 percent would free up major dollars for other needs. Some departments seem to have extraordinarily high travel costs, in comparison to others, with no obvious explanation. We need a challenge and verification method for ensuring travel is being prudently purchased.
Thank you. This is a big territory, 1.3 million square miles. A lot of it is not connected by road. We have enormous costs to do the jobs necessary. We’ve also made a commitment in this House to support all the communities. We’ve made a commitment in this House and this government to support consultation, community visits, getting the government out of Yellowknife to the people.
We appreciate the need for using technology like telehealth and those types of things. The Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line, we believe, will improve the efficiencies of the health system, it will improve and enable us to do the things that the Member is talking about, things like videoconferencing without any concern about bandwidth, that type of thing.
We are starting a budget process again. We’re going to take this to refocusing of that commitment, and if there’s a concern by the Member’s office or through the respective committees to review travel, of course, we are fully committed to working with committees, as well, to identify areas of concern. If travel is one of them, then we will work with committee and try to sort those out. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister has made a solid commitment there and I’ll look forward to working with him. We don’t have an internal auditor general, obviously, but a functional audit of a category of expenditures across government might be a wise move, especially given the potential savings involved. But the Minister has committed to come to committee to discuss the possibility of improving travel policy safeguards. So will the Minister hear from committee and include their perspectives on what should be included in that review? I appreciate the Minister’s commitments again. Thank you.
Thank you. The commitment was, of course, that if the committee identifies an issue and they want myself, as Finance Minister, or other Ministers to appear before them and discuss a particular issue, of course we are there to work with committees as with all or any issues. If travel is one of them, we’ll do that, keeping in mind a lot of the conditions, but we can have that full and frank discussion with committee about the type of travel, the amount of travel, the cost of travel, the reason for travel and all those types of things. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the news today I read, in the most recent study, that obesity rates are at historic levels in Canada. So that kind of got me going, especially after discussions yesterday with the Department of Health and Social Services. Then, upon further research, I saw in the Stats Canada 2004 report, there were red flags that were showing that over the past 25 years, since 2004, there was a dramatic increase in obesity rates. Now, nine years later, the Northwest Territories and the Maritimes are recognized in this report as having the highest rates of obesity and they’re at historic levels. Now, if those red flags weren’t addressed in 2004, they’ve surely got to be addressed now. So my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, based on this new report that came out and the new findings of the new studies, what is this Minister doing to address the historic rates of obesity here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services leads a Healthy Choices Framework, since 2003-04 approximately, when those stats came out. It’s a partnership between ourselves, Education, MACA, Department of Justice and Department of Transportation, and it is to coordinate several of the GNWT’s programs and services related to health, safety and active living. Thank you.
Thank you. That report that gave us the red flag came out about 2004. We do have the Healthy Choices Framework to try to address it, but where are we at right now in the Northwest Territories? We’re at historic rates and I’d like to ask the Minister, what is this Minister doing to work with his federal counterparts to address these historic rates so that we can start taking care of our residents as obesity leads to a lot of chronic disease. As I mentioned yesterday, 70 percent of all deaths are related to chronic disease. What is the Minister of Health and Social Services doing to work with his federal counterparts to address these issues? Thank you.
Thank you. It is a national issue, no question about it. As a territorial government and as a territory we do participate with the other provincial and also the federal Department of Health in the healthy weight work throughout the territory. Right now the next Healthy Weights Conference is in Newfoundland. We had requested that the Healthy Weights Conference be brought to Yellowknife. I had recently discussed that possibility with the Minister and there’s an indication that we would get in line like everyone else and that we might be next after Newfoundland, but Newfoundland was decided a couple of years ago. So we will be going to the conference to discuss healthy weights of Canadians across the country with other jurisdictions. Thank you.
Thank you. I look forward to getting feedback and comments on that meeting because, as you know, health, fitness, and active living are all part of my campaign. I just want to know if the Minister will be looking at developing a specific program, much like the Department of Justice has with the Not Us! campaign, to create awareness, education and to help defer some of our criminal practices in the communities. Would the Minister look at creating some type of similar program to address obesity, specifically promoting active living, getting people active in the communities and put some funding dollars towards that that would decrease some of those findings? Would he look at the possibility of developing some type of program? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Colleagues, before we go on today, the preamble on the questioning is a little bit too long. I know you are trying to make your point and that, but shorten it up. Members’ statements, that’s what your Member’s statement is for. So questioning on your oral questions to Ministers. Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the coordination of that framework activity does look at physical activity, mental wellness, exercise and healthy eating, all of the various areas. We work with the Department of Education in trying to promote healthy foods in the schools, we have Drop the Pop and so on. So those are some of the activities that I can run through quickly. In general, what we’re asking people, as we discuss, is to eat healthy, exercise, drink responsibly and don’t smoke. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. He did mention working with Education. Our Minister of Education has mentioned trying to bring elders into the schools. Would the Minister of Health and Social Services look at the options of possibly bringing fitness instructors into the schools to create some type of fitness programs that can be done during lunch times, before school or after school? Thank you.
Thank you. I think that is something that we can certainly discuss with the Department of Education, but in this framework, MACA has afterschool physical activity programs. They work with the NWT Recreation and Parks Association for making people active. They have the youth sports events, programs, and they have the High Performance Athlete Grant. So all of those, trying to introduce activity into the schools and working within this Healthy Choices Framework. A lot of the activity responsibilities have been given to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
My questions are to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I did a Member’s statement, as other Members talked about, on the Anti-Bullying Campaign. I want to ask the Minister of Education, what percentage of Aboriginal cultural content is in our education system.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When we talk about the Education system in the Northwest Territories, it covers everyone in the Northwest Territories. The Aboriginal content the Member is referring to, I need to get the detailed stats on that. I don’t have it in front of me but I can provide it to Members.
Certainly, the Minister is right that it covers everybody; however, in our small Aboriginal communities, about 90, close to 100 percent of the education is geared to Aboriginal students. I want to ask the Minister, when he does his research, can he look at how many, what type of Aboriginal contexts are in there that would be related to the people in that specific area or school.
Part of the education renewal I talked about in particular in this House, there are six different pillars. One of the pillars is the small schools, how we can provide further enhancing the programing into the schools and the funding formula attached to that. Obviously, there will be numerous discussions pertaining to that Aboriginal content. The smallest communities, when we talk about capital and programming and so forth, it’s all based on enrolment. I have instructed my department to look thoroughly about how we can improve that programming. We will be focusing on the small community schools. That is one of our pillars as we move forward.
I, again, look forward to some of the information that the Minister is going to bring forward to us. I want to talk about the Aboriginal culture and building the bridge for the new type of academic western type of learning. I want to know how that bridge is being formed in our small communities, and that the Aboriginal culture is certainly at the foremost and at the base of our education in our schools.
I have given specific directive to the school boards on Aboriginal programming. The funding that we provide, we want specifically for on-the-land programs to deal with cultural and language preservation. Those are areas that we continue to monitor. We work closely with the school boards as well. Part of the residential school curriculum that we’ve developed has been very positive to date. It is very preliminary right now. We just wrote it out in October 2012. We’re getting a lot of positive feedback. That is reflecting on the northern perspective. There is also a social studies program that we’ve developed through engagement with the communities, the schools, and that also has a northern reflective, as well, in the new texts.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Aboriginal context or Aboriginal culture in our schools starts with our elders. I’ve been at this job for close to nine years and I want to ask the Minister, in the nine years that we’ve been working – and he actually worked on this side with me – when will we see the elders in our schools. It’s been promised before and I want to ask again, when can we see elders in our schools?
This particular area has been a key point of our discussion. It took a bit of time to get here. We want to have somewhat of a perfect system where elders are in the schools, and how we can get around where they’re being penalized if we pay them and they get the clawback from their federal pension, federal old age security and so forth. That’s what we’ve been trying to work out. I’m happy to say that we’ve finalized that area and we want to deliver elders in schools as part of our team within the schools starting this fall school year. That’s our target date. I want to see the elders. Obviously, we’re going to start small. Not every school will have elders but we have to start with possibly one per region, and eventually I would like to see elders in all schools as a long-term strategy.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
