Mr. Speaker, talking to health providers in the small communities, their response on what is driving the costs in small communities seems to be addictions. Talking to local people in the small communities, their solution seems to be on-the-land programs for people with addictions. Has this government talked about how to decrease the cost of health in small communities? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, the health costs are, indeed, a pressing issue. If we start first with the personal responsibility, the simple things of diet, exercise, don’t smoke and don’t abuse alcohol would diminish in a very dramatic way our health costs, and we have not yet been able to come to grips with how to encourage Northerners in all communities, wherever they may live, to make those right personal choices. In the meantime, we continue to invest millions of dollars in counselling programs, addictions programs like Nats’ejee K’eh. We have community programs that are being funded, including in the Member’s riding. Deninu Ku’e First Nations are given assistance for an addictions counsellor position, and as well in Lutselk’e there is money there for both mental health and addictions programs as well as youth addictions initiatives. There is additional funding.
We know there could always be more money used, but we are doing the best we can with the resources we have. I know the Minister, through her Foundation for Change, is looking at ways for us to come to grips with that fundamental cost driver of how do you get people to make the right personal choices. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Infrastructure like youth centres and day cares and access roads are all things that will, in the long term, decrease the cost to government. My question is again for the Finance Minister. What is the government doing to shift much needed infrastructure resources in this government from larger centres, where it is not essential, to the smaller communities where infrastructure projects are essential? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated, we are in the third year of a very ambitious capital planning process of over $1.1 billion, a record amount. We are going to be moving into the year after this coming fiscal year of 2013 into a much more normal -- humble as it were almost, on a comparative basis to what we have just been spending -- capital plan of about $75 million. We currently have made some significant changes on how we do capital. There will also be added attention and rigour to the system that Cabinet and committees come up with to view the capital projects, because there is going to be a small pot and a huge demand. We also cannot take our mind and eye off of the fact that we still have to, as well, pick away at our deferred maintenance budget, which is still over $300 million. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like my other colleagues here today, I too am concerned about the efficiency and costs of government and what it is doing to deal with that cost. As I highlighted in my Member’s statement, it is clearly mentioned in the Finance Minister’s budget today under Fiscal Strategy. He is willing to seek out creative new ideas. Mr. Speaker, to the Finance Minister, I would like to pose the question. What would be stopping the Minister of Finance from hiring an efficiency expert to review our programs that we are doing? Because I am not convinced at this time that the Program Review Office is doing that type of work that needs to be done to scrutinize our books. Mr. Speaker, would the Finance Minister be willing to examine that concept? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It depends whether it is going to be on contract or whether it is going to be using one of our own employees, I would suggest.
Mr. Speaker, I suspect that answer wasn’t for me. It was for someone else. By and large, that answer was very inefficient in its quality because it didn’t actually have an answer to it. The reality is, Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what would stop the Finance Minister from hiring an efficiency expert just like large industry does, whether it is BHP or any type of large conglomerate that spends a lot of time examining every dollar that they spend. Would the Finance Minister be willing to do that? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have, I believe, all of the elements that we need in place to make those right decisions. We want to work with the Members, like the Member for Great Slave with his suggestions, about somehow harnessing in a more effective way the creativity of our existing staff and are there ways to have less reliance on the very many contract folks that we use to do the very many pieces of work that government needs to get done, because, on a normal course of events, the staff we have are fully engaged. I think we would have to think carefully before we commit outright, standing up on the basis of one question and start hiring efficiency experts, be it on contract or be it on adding new positions to government when one of the efficiencies we have to look at is what is the right size of government. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, to some degree I think that the Finance Minister gets it, but he is spending my question period answering the previous Member’s questions, which isn’t very efficient for my issues.
Mr. Speaker, part of the other issue I raised during my Member’s statement, which still is in line with the same issue about efficiency of government, is about setting the appropriate targets. In the Finance Minister’s budget, he did talk about capping expenditures at 3 percent. Mr. Speaker, what was the resistance setting it at either a reduction of 1 percent or a reduction of 2 percent and allowing our competent managers and skilled individuals who work for the government to meet those targets, let them do the details for government such as the Finance Minister to provide the direction on those initiatives? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we had set the target, as the Member indicated, to cap it at 3 percent net of compensation requirements. We are going to bring it in at 2.
We all must recognize there are very many things out there that continue to drive our costs that we don’t control, but we also know, and we’ve already heard from some of the Members, in fact quite a few of the Members, about the things that we should add in addition to what we’ve already put into the budget as we struggle to contain the costs. I point out in the budget address the demands and levels of expectation of Northerners is very high because they are used to an extremely high quality of programs and the ability for government just to keep adding more programs. As I’ve indicated, if we’re going to keep adding them, we have to have the hard decision of what don’t we do if we’re going to continue to do this and stay within a 3 percent cap. We’re down to 2 percent. I can tell you 1 percent is going to be a significant exercise because just getting to 2 is difficult.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would argue with the Minister by saying that the direction starts here and although the rattling of the swords should not be happening in the department of opposition, they should be following the direction of the Finance Minister. So when he says that it would be difficult, the dye needs to be cast at the FMB table, not within the department telling the Finance Minister where their cap is. I’m convinced that the cart is leading the horse.
What, really, at the end of the day can the Minister speak to this budget where we’ve had a significant notice in the reduction of costs to government? I’ve highlighted at least one. We don’t have to go through that. What is a noticeable reduction of cost of government that is being proposed or has been demonstrated in the last couple of years?
The Member has to keep in mind what we collectively agreed would be the role of the government and the Legislature through the course of the last number of years through this economic downturn; the worst, as I like to say, since the Great Depression. We’ve managed our way through this, we have kept our expenditures where they were, we didn’t lay off folks, we invested a billion dollars in infrastructure because we knew we had to step into the gap as the private sector struggled, as the private sector revenues dropped. As we’ve seen today, the fallout is still with us with the drop in corporate income tax. We realized and took it upon ourselves to play that stabilizing role. Now it’s time, like every other government across the land and across the world, to look at managing the budgets, the fiscal situation, so that we don’t mortgage our future. We’ve started to do that. Two percent growth net of compensation is, I would suggest, over time, if you look back, a significant decrease when the average rates of growth were 4 or 5 percent and health was growing at 8 or 9 percent.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance as well. I’d like to start by asking where the funding, I didn’t see any funding identified for the implementation of a new Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy which the Minister is committed to complete by this spring and I think is well on the road towards doing that. I’m wondering why we haven’t identified that in our initiatives. That’s obviously going to require some new dollars to achieve, hopefully, some more progressive targets.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s question and I recognize that this is an issue of great interest and concern to him. He’s an articulate proponent of the need to do this, as he’s indicated in his statement.
We will first complete the work and then see what the work tells us. The government, through practice and hard experience, is very loath to book money on an undetermined figure that is just an estimate. We will have to demonstrate first what we’re going to be moving forward with and then we put a cost on that and then we look at identifying the resources, if it is in fact going to be truly an initiative of this government that we want to see in place during the life of this government. Then we will have to collectively sit down and see what that cost is and where we can possibly identify the money. Possibly from within some slippage within the energy investment section.
I appreciate the comments of the Minister. I assure him that it’s not just a priority of mine. It probably is, and should be, a priority of most people in the Northwest Territories, if you listen to the radio at all and hear what’s happening out there. I’m hoping that this is not a hollow exercise like the Heritage Fund, that we’re going to go to all this work and then not be prepared to fund it. A little bit distressing there.
I’m also wondering about the devolution negotiation funds. Obviously, we’ve signed the AIP and we’re now on the trail towards a final agreement. It’s going to be a costly exercise, especially the way we’ve started here with a lot of catch-up to do. Why wasn’t that funding identified in this budget address?
The Greenhouse Gas Strategy and the Heritage Fund, neither are hollow exercises. There was a lot of work done to get the infrastructure, to get the tool in place, the legislation in place. The Heritage Fund will be there. If the Legislative Assembly chooses to identify money to put into the Heritage Fund, then money will be put into the Heritage Fund.
First we have to get the legislation through. It’s not through yet. It’s going to committee. We’re going to bring it in for first and second reading. It will be approved very late in this Assembly, so we have to get that done. Then it will be the decision of this Legislature.
The same for the Greenhouse Gas Strategy. We have to see what all the consultation and feedback is going to tell us, what we’re going to bring forward as recommendations to get accepted both by this Legislature, by Members, by the government. Then we’ll see how we move forward in a planned, measured way.
The devolution funding that is there is federal money that’s on the table -- $4 million for this government, $3.9 million for the Aboriginal governments -- and that has to be, we have to deal with the federal government for the $4 million. As the Aboriginal governments sign on, they will be dealing with the federal government, as well, on the $3.9 million and how that money will be allocated to those Aboriginal governments.
As I mentioned earlier, we’re skirting dangerously close to our somewhat extraordinary debt limit that we’ve been provided with. Albeit I suppose we could have skirted a little bit closer, even. I appreciate the effort that’s been made to build a small cushion, although $60 million out of $1.34 billion is a pretty modest cushion. I’m wondering what vulnerabilities the Minister sees in the upcoming year that would push us up against, or perhaps even beyond, that debt limit, and any perspective he might provide on making sure that doesn’t happen.
I point out, as well, that we are currently engaged with the federal government on a review of the borrowing limit, not only for the Northwest Territories but the three territories. We anticipate that work will be completed by spring, by April. It is my hope that we will come to a better accommodation than the recognition of and our ability to manage debt. That’s one thing.
What is out there that we don’t control, most immediately of course comes to mind -- something I start worrying about in April -- is fire season and what could possibly happen. British Columbia, I understand, last year had a fire budget of around $50 million to $55 million; their fire season cost them $500 million. It’s a huge issue potentially. The price of oil on the Brent Market is over $100 a barrel. It has huge upward pressure on all governments, on everything we do, on all business. It’s the same as what happened last time when it was at $150 a barrel. It wreaks havoc on budgets for everybody: individuals, governments, and those people trying to get by. Those are two things. There are other things that could happen globally. If you look at the Middle East, if you look at the European Union with all the countries teetering in the balance, if things go south in the States, those could affect us. We have those types of factors that we don’t control that could impact us.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for those remarks. Our strategic plan for the 16th Assembly, a couple of the pillars supposedly identified there were a preventative approach and a comprehensive, government-wide, cross-departmental approach to try and get rid of the stovepipes that are out there, so called. How does the Minister see this budget bringing an enhanced focus on a preventative and cross-departmental or government-wide approach on some of the big issues in a way that we haven’t seen to date despite our plan?
The focus of this budget, as I indicated very clearly being the last one of the 16th Assembly, is one that we want to consolidate, one that we want to try to get as many things completed or firmly on the rails as we can during the life of this Assembly. We are continuing the work of the Strategic Initiatives committees. One of the intents was the very thing the Members talked about, was to write down the stovepipes, to get people in the room, senior government officials into areas outside their direct departmental responsibilities, not only to deal with the relatively small amounts of money that were there but to in fact come up with a way to develop, a way to engage in a policy level on a broader thinking, big picture approach, and how do we put the creativity that the Member for Great Slave talked about of employees to work in areas that they might not normally be applying themselves. That is going to continue. I believe we’ve made some very fundamental steps just by our commitment in this government, to water, to a land use framework, to the Wildlife Act, to the money we’re spending on energy and the fact that we want to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon footprint and at the same time reduce costs and become more efficient and reduce our reliance on diesel.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Finance, as well, today. I want to follow up on the questions asked by my colleague Mr. Ramsay. He and I were obviously on the same page when we were developing our questions relative to the budget address.
The Program Review Office has been there for three years, since 2008, and I agree that it was a necessary office for us to set up. I have some concerns with the results as well. The budget address read by the Minister lists six reviews that have been done by the Program Review Office. They have done other work, I presume, as well. I’d like to ask the Minister which of those reviews or what work that the Program Review Office has done has had an impact on the development of this budget.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The office building for sure has an impact as we think about this budget and the budget that’s going to follow this one in terms of what flexibility and capacity does it give us if we know we’re going to have a $100 million savings. We know that we’re identifying a $100 million savings over the life of the lease. We know that we’re doing work in a number of very critical areas that relate the programs in education and health that are going to be very significant and we identify those as areas for future work or future decisions because we’re not going to be able to make those final decisions in the life of this Assembly. Those are some of the areas that we contemplate as we carry on the work of government for this budget and thinking into the future for the 17th Assembly.
So it is, as the budget address indicates, that apart from the review of the office building space within Yellowknife and the decision made to go based on that review, everything else that the Program Review Office has done will be for the next Assembly. That wasn’t my understanding when this office was established three years ago, that some of that work, more of that work would have an impact on the work of this Assembly. So the Minister has indicated that there was no political appetite. It was his understanding that people didn’t want to proceed; people on this side of the House, I guess. So I’d like to ask the Minister where his position came from. What was it? What conversation did we have? What update did we have? What letter did he receive that led him to the position that there was no political will to go forward and that we should not carry on with inclusive schooling and PTR, for instance?
It’s my recollection of the last briefing we gave to committee where we identified the work that was being done on these various and looking at what was possible. Some of the complexities, some of the impacts as it would be felt depending what the decision was in terms of, for example, the PTR being higher, considerably higher than is required under legislation, or changes to the inclusive schooling budget that would allow us to reprofile. It was at those meetings and the feedback and the discussion and the juncture where we were in this Assembly that there was not going to be much political appetite to get into a contentious issue of possibly reducing or reprofiling education money to schools, for example.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to say that I’m distressed by that answer. It sounds to me as though the last update we had from the Program Review Office, which was some months ago, to my recollection, quite a long time ago, the Minister made an assumption based on conversations around the table and feedback from Members. I’d like to ask the Minister to confirm to me that there was no correspondence. I presume it was from the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning. Did he receive any correspondence from the committee which led him to make the decision that he did, or did he make the decision on his own? Thank you.
I will commit to confirm that for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that commitment. I look forward to receiving that in short order.
I’ve mentioned that I’m a little concerned about the amount of work that the office has done. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could, maybe not today, but if he could commit to provide for the Members the efficiency of the office as a percentage of the savings that the office has determined from their reviews and from the work that they’ve done so that their savings as a percentage of the cost of the office. Thank you.
I will look at the wording of the question so it’s clear exactly how the Member sees us doing this. For example, if we’ve budgeted to save $100 million over the life of the lease of the office building in Yellowknife, if that’s the kind of math we use, or will that not be satisfactory to the Member. So I’ll have to check Hansard to see how we could best respond. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to my Member’s statement, it has come to my attention that there has been a letter sent to two elderly individuals who are in the Joe Greenland Centre receiving long-term care support. Mr. Speaker, I’d just like to read a sentence out of the letter. It says, “The staff will help you transition to your family’s home on or before February 16, 2011, by 5:00 p.m.” So they’ve got to be out of there exactly at 5:00 p.m., February 16th.
Mr. Speaker, we had a public meeting in Aklavik on January 25th, with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Housing and also the deputy minister of Health. It was a four-hour meeting with over 100 people, the residents of Aklavik in attendance. That was a meeting where the community... It was the first time they have ever been consulted on the closure of the Joe Greenland long-term care side of the wing. But yet, Mr. Speaker, we committed at that time to work with the community to develop a transitional plan, look at exactly how the families are going to be dealt with, the employees that are basically going to be losing their jobs, and try to find a workable way through this situation.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services why this letter was sent after the commitments we made in public in the Aklavik community meeting, and more importantly, the commitments we made there, or the Minister made, to work with the community to work out a smooth transition for this process and not to have these types of letters sent to family members and notify them that they’ve got two weeks to vacate the premises.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The staff of the authority have been working with the families for the last number of months and they will continue to work with the families. That letter, I understand, went out because that’s what the staff thought the family wanted, agreed to, but, obviously, the Member has spoken to me about it and that’s not the understanding the family had. I will commit to the Member and I have already instructed the staff to work with the families and we will have more time to work with the families and work out the schedule that works better for the families. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, again, there was an understanding that the Joe Greenland Centre is going to be open until March 31st, in regard to the process for the public union arrangements we have with the staff, and more importantly, working with the families to accommodate them in the transition of trying to find other ways of dealing with their loved ones. But again, Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister: is the March 31st date the date we’re working from? Basically because of this letter, it definitely is not the understanding at the public meeting in Aklavik.
There are a number of things going on with respect to changes to the programming at Joe Greenland Centre. It is actually a really good news item in many ways. The Housing Corporation has committed to do a renovation to a wing of the facility that is badly required. We’re going to increase the number of independent beds from seven to 15, and there are people and elders in Aklavik waiting for those spaces. We are going to redesign our program so that instead of serving three elders, on average, that Joe Greenland Centre on that wing was able to do since 2007, we expect to serve up to 40 to 50 seniors who are also in need of programming. And we look to expand the home care program in Aklavik, which is exactly what we need to do more of.
There’s a lot of good stuff going on with respect to reprogramming, but we are ever mindful of the needs of the two families and we are committed to working with those two families so that we work out an arrangement that works for them, and they have been working with us. It is unfortunate that that letter went out, but we have until April 1st to work out the arrangement. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, again, the individual that I speak of is 90 years old. He’s visually impaired. He’s already in a controlled setting in regard to the Joe Greenland Centre. He has 24-hour support. I’d like to ask the Minister exactly what are we doing to work with the families so that when the individuals transition out of the Joe Greenland, that their needs will be met in regard to their disability or the respite responsibility or palliative care, whatever will be required to ensure that those individuals have the care that they need to be able to live either independently or basically have the support of their families. What is the department doing to ensure that we have a smooth transition for these individuals?
Those two residents have been assessed by the Territorial Admissions Committee and I believe they have placements in Inuvik. We have to work out the timing and arrangements to place those elders there because they cannot be taken care of at the current setting. In a larger perspective, we are looking to develop a program in Aklavik where we can change the program so that we can look after up to 40 to 50 seniors who we believe are going to be in need of support from the government. So we look to expand the program and as I committed with the Member and to the public when we were there last month, we will work with the community and get their input on how to do our elders program at the Joe Greenland Centre. We will continue to have the program there, it will just be a different program. Thank you.
