Debates of February 3, 2011 (day 32)

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a document that was presented at the public meeting in Aklavik. It is: What can we do to as a collective - ideas for the Joe Greenland Centre. More importantly, Joe Greenland elders daycare improvement and quality of life for seniors.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Thank you Mr. Krutko. Item 17, notices of motion. Item 18, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 18, motions. Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, first reading of bills. Item 21, second reading of bills. Item 22, 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 $5000 Report, Year Ending March 31, 2010; Tabled Document 133-16(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates, 2011-2012; Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Social Assistance Act; Minister’s Statement 65-16(5), Devolution Agreement-in-Principle, Impact on Land Claims and Protection of Aboriginal Rights; and Minister’s Statement 88-16(5), Sessional Statement, with Mr. Krutko in the chair.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

I would like to call the Committee of the Whole to order. Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: tabled documents 4, 30, 38, 62, 75, 103, 133; Bill 4, Minister’s Statement 65-16(5) and Minister’s Statement 88-16(5). What is the wish of the committee? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Jane Groenewegen

Hay River South

Thank you Mr. Chairman. The committee’s wish today is to begin on general comments on the budget address.

Committee agree?

---Agreed

We will deal with Tabled Document 133-16(5). General comments. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank, Mr. Chairman. Once again I would like to thank the Minister for his opening comments on the bill today. I just want to talk a little bit about some of the things that we heard and some of my general thoughts.

Obviously, I am looking forward to getting into the detail as we go department by department. Going through the statement, once again as I talk about my Member’s statement, I think it is important for us to be looking at new and creative ways to gain efficiency on the dollars that we are spending and utilize our dollars in the most effective and appropriate ways. I think, if you talk to a lot of our employees, they would like increased accountability, they would like some additional responsibility, they would like to be able to make some decisions and they would like to be able to do some of the work that they are currently managing contracts to have contractors do. I think it is certainly something that is worthy of some investigation and some looking at within the department.

I am looking forward to seeing the joint results of the review that is being done and the borrowing limit that is coming out in April. I think that is a huge, important endeavour and I look forward to seeing the results of that.

Going through the document on some of the individual areas, supporting the economy. I am happy to see some increased funding going to SEED and one of the things that I would obviously like to see done in this area is, if you look at our stats from throughout the Northwest Territories, my colleague Mr. Krutko is right, the employment rates in some of our communities are really quite awful, which is leading to increased costs in delivery on the social side. I would like to see the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment take some of these dollars, get into some of these smaller communities and work with some of the youth and even some of the adults to explore the opportunities, increased opportunities, to bring some small sustainable business opportunities to our small communities. Let’s work on getting some of these people employed.

Now, I am happy that on the next page that the Minister talked about the $925,000 that the Small Community Employment Program that is going to be invested in, and obviously that is an important initiative but it doesn’t take away from the work that Industry, Tourism and Investment with all of its experts could be doing in some of these communities to increase employment opportunities.

Under the Reducing the Cost of Living, I did listen to what the Minister said, and obviously reducing the cost of living in our communities is critical. But when I look at the types of activities that he was talking about, with the exception of the reduced power, I don’t see anything that has actually tangibly resulted in a reduction in the cost of living and, quite frankly, we are not even 100 percent sure yet that the Electricity Rate Review and the change that it made is actually going to result in cost savings and a reduced cost of living. I think we hope, and I think we expect, but we don’t actually know. We need to see some results here. The people are having difficulties with the cost of living in the communities and I think we have a responsibility to actually try to do some tangible and real activities that we can see clear results on reduced costs of living. I think the Electricity Rate Review is great and on the right direction, but right now I am not even sure that we can say that we have fully reduced the cost of living. Hopefully soon you will be able to tell us that you have.

Throughout the discussions and throughout the bill there are a lot of studies being done, and that is great. I understand the value, I understand the importance of studies, they help us make decisions. It is important to be informed when we make decisions, but at the same time, it would be nice to see some more actions on the ground. I have seen a lot of studies go through this Assembly in the last three or three and half years and couple months, whatever the case may be, and honestly, before I was an MLA, I saw a lot of studies being done. Like I said earlier on a different topic, there are a lot of studies sitting on shelves. Do we need to keep repeating the studies, or can we please, please start implementing some of these ideas that are out there to actually impact the people on the ground? One hundred fifty thousand dollars for a study could go a long way in program delivery and helping the people that we have.

Investing in Our People. Some good initiatives here, I am happy to see and I am looking forward to discussing them more specifically. One of them that obviously jumped out at me was the $75,000 to expand territorial respite, but I think this is critical, I think this is important and I look forward to that. I understand that we probably won’t have a territorial respite program fully designed by the end of the current fiscal year and that the design will go into the next fiscal year, and later on I will be talking to the Minister about how that is going to affect some of the existing programs that have questionable futures based on the direction that the department is taking. I will save that for detail.

I have to say that under the Sustainable Communities section, I am disappointed that, quite frankly, there is only a seven word reference to NGOs and support for NGOs in the budget address, and I’m hoping that we’re going to see more detail within the budget itself, because, quite frankly, the support and strength of the voluntary sector and the NGOs is part of our strategic vision and our strategic direction, and I’m not really seeing as much progress in the support of the NGOs that I thought or hoped we would see when there seemed to be some passion for this at the beginning of the 16th Assembly. I remain frustrated and I think it’s really unfortunate that there is only a six letter reference to supporting NGOs.

Protecting the environment. I think a lot of good things are done and I’m happy to see some of the initiatives going on. I think there’s still room we can go here. I think we need to make some real targets that aren’t just affecting the GNWT on reductions but are real and meaningful throughout the Northwest Territories.

Refocusing government. I think there’s lot of work here, lots of opportunity here, and it goes back to some of the things I was saying in my Member’s statement about, you know, our employees have some great ideas. I know we listen to them, but let’s empower them to make some hard and fast decisions and give them the opportunity and accountability to make some of those decisions and changes in the best interests of the people and them themselves.

Under the Looking Forward section there was a significant amount of talk about Foundation for Change and health and social services. One thing I have to say, and seems really missing to me, if we’re looking at the future, I’ve read statistics and research that says to have effective health promotion you need to spend about 3 percent of your budget on health promotion. In the Northwest Territories we spend barely 0.2 percent of our budget on health promotion. Oddly enough, unfortunately, health promotion seems like an easy area to cut in departments and, as a result, I don’t think we’re investing in health promotion to the degree that we need.

We need to help people live healthier lives. We need to put in programs, we need to put in initiatives to help people make choices and give them the opportunities and tools they need to make productive choices to maintain their health. It will save us a lot of money in the long run, but if we’re not investing in it, we’re not going to make any difference in health promotion. Yes, I’ve seen the initiatives the department has and there are a lot of really good initiatives on health promotion within the department. Can’t knock it; won’t knock it. I think the department should be proud of those things, but we need more. We need significantly more investment in health promotion. Yes, it’s going to be an upfront cost, but it will save us money in all other areas in the long run.

So obviously, I’m going to push and ask a lot of questions on the health promotion and why are we not asking for more money in this area. Why are we not doing some upfront work on this area to help our residents and give them the tools to be healthy and live healthy lives so that they can be successful in education, so that they can be successful in employment and business, so that they can be productive in any area they chose to be productive? It’s really unfortunate to me that so little effort is being put into prevention.

Foundation for Change. I’ve had briefings and I think there’s a lot of good work happening in Foundation for Change. I’m looking forward to details. Sometimes I’m a little bit frustrated by the lack of detail I’ve received in some of the things that are going on in the Foundation for Change, but I have received briefings and I have been kept updated, to some degree. I would like more information on Foundation for Change. In principle, it sounds like good things are happening, but this is our biggest department, our most expensive department and, quite frankly, we’re all MLAs here and we’re all working in the best interests of the people of the Northwest Territories and I think more information would be beneficial as opposed to the opposite.

Just some general comments. I’m going to go into more detail in many areas as we move through. Like I said in my Member’s statement today, I’m happy that we stuck to our fiscal strategy, that we are under the 3 percent growth, that we have room on our borrowing limit, should unforeseen circumstances arise and we have to go there. I’m hoping we don’t have to go there. I believe $1.34 billion is a lot of money. We have a lot of work to do in the 2011-12 fiscal year and I think this is a starting point and let’s get it done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Just direction from the House. Would you like to just do general comments or have the Minister respond to each general comment? So maybe just asking for some direction from the House. General comments. Mr. Abernethy.

They are general comments. From my perspective, I just made some general comments. I would like to hear what everybody has to say and have the Minister respond to all of us in general. We will get into the detail when we get into the line-by-line by department. I don’t need to hear from him now, but once everybody has talked, I sure would like to hear what he has to say.

Is the committee agreed?

Agreed.

Okay. Next on the list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to tell the Minister, in terms of the budget, there are some good things in the budget that I’m very happy to see in the budget, specifically that speak to the smaller communities and the challenges that they have to deal with day to day and some of the things that would be improving their lives, such as the Small Communities Employment Program, increasing the CHAP -- Community Harvesters Assistance Program -- the education program. Things like that will make a difference in my people’s lives.

I’m really glad to see that this government has implemented a program that will reduce the rate of electricity in my communities also to help reduce the cost of living. That’s a positive thing that this government can pat itself on the back and all of us in the Assembly can say. I’m going to be watching very closely as you go department by department and see how programs are going to be implemented in the name of efficiency and effectiveness in terms of the operations of the government, because sometimes we might have some heated debate because sometimes it will come down to communities having the programs opted out for regional delivery or deliveries in larger centres.

That’s just what the Minister said in the finance book, Mr. Chair, that we live in a very vast land and all needs sometimes can’t be done in the communities. However, there are specific basic needs that need to be done in the communities and some of those needs are not being met right now for the safety and health of the people in the communities as we progress into a more modern society. I just want to make note of that to the Minister.

I do want to say that he’s put together fairly comprehensive areas that he needed to touch on that I feel has made some improvements, and I’m very happy that he’s listening. There are areas that, for example, I said Colville Lake certainly needs to be brought up to the standards of living in the Northwest Territories, such as other communities also do not have a nursing station with a qualified nurse. Sorry, they have nursing station health centres but they don’t have a qualified nurse there permanently. They have to fly them in from other communities. And you know what, Mr. Chair? When they fly in, they get off the plane and they go like this. They have to look at their time, look at the weather, are we going to be over-nighting here or not. That’s the reality. We should have a nurse going into Colville Lake or other communities, saying, I’m here for three days, I want to spend time and talk to people. But we have a system that feeds that type of services. It’s not servicing the people.

The same with the RCMP. We don’t have it in Colville Lake. They give us the stat and tell us when they visit and how long they visit. But we don’t have a system where people’s needs are being served. Mr. Chair, we need to really look at that, and that’s the difficult thing about this government here. How do we service the smaller communities where they see it, they hear it? They ask us MLAs, why does this community have this and we can’t have that? I know this government is doing its best to service people, but also in the budget we see where there are other programs that are in other communities. How come not ours?

Energy initiatives, we have a couple in the Sahtu that I am very happy to have, but those are studies. We don’t see any type of hydro facilities going into our communities. There are studies and studies. We don’t see any type of wood pellet initiatives going into our communities on large scales. We don’t see any type of initiatives such as geothermal or residual heat or anything like that. It is always good that we could have hydro, but we need to see construction. We need to see something happening in our government facilities or our businesses.

It gets tiring after awhile to see where all the other initiatives are being spent. There are millions being spent in other communities. There are only a couple hundred thousand in the Sahtu. We are glad that you are going to look at it, but Deline has been studying hydro for 17 years. I think sometimes we need to ask these questions. I will be asking these questions to the Minister and put them on notice that we need to ask these questions and how they are going to make a difference in my community.

We need to look at areas that would really support our initiatives that we set out in our vision and goals. Those types of things I want to look at and see where they are going to make a difference. Like I said, when I went to Deline, Fort Good Hope, Colville Lake, Tulita and Norman Wells, one of the things that was really surprising is the people were talking about the empty houses in their community. Colville Lake has been over a year that we have had these empty houses, yet the highest core need. Could we not, as a government, get our staff, who are in the thousands in the GNWT, even within the Housing Corporation, come up with some policy that would get our people into these houses? Yet they are still sitting empty in Colville Lake with the highest core need in the study. Colville Lake, of all places, has three empty houses over a year. Unbelievable! Yet this government can’t take care of 134 people in that sense. That is what I am going to ask, those things that make a difference in our community.

In Deline people are being asked to leave their units. There are empty units in Tulita and in Deline. We had a really good meeting and meetings with the Minister of the Housing Corporation, with the leadership in Deline and Tulita, yet those houses are not being looked after. The bureaucracy is so unbelievable in terms of putting our good intents down. We have to do something that is simple that we get people into their houses, make them proud to be in the North, to be raised in the North, to go to school in the North. We have to get them off the dependency because a lot of them right now sit home collecting a cheque. We train them to get a cheque. They can go down to the income support with their bills and that is what they do. We haven’t given hope or inspired them to make a contribution to their community or to their family. We have all kinds of policies that block them.

In the Minister’s statement, we have Solomon Resources. I don’t know if that is an oversight or Solomon is not big enough to be mentioned. Also, Mrs. Groenewegen hasn’t seen what we have done up in the Sahtu. Solomon has started there. They are invested in the North. Most of it is done in the Yukon, by the way. We have a little bit going on there. Hopefully, in the future it will be more, if they continue to invest more of the Chinese investments into Solomon. We have Naats’ihch’oh Park coming into effect. If the Tulita Groups sign on with the park and with Canada, that will bring millions of dollars into our region. Those kinds of things that we need to look at, I think, because in my region we need to be very aware of the difficulties and challenges we have. I want to thank the Minister for his budget.

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

David Ramsay

Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is never easy putting together a budget to try to cover off everything and be everything to everyone, but there are a few things in here that I just want to comment on, if I could.

There is a lot of good news in here too, but there are some things here that I just have to provide a little bit of comment on. Like my colleagues, as we go through the detail and we get into the budget session, I will have much more to say on these things, so I am going to get going on some of these highlights.

Again, health care spending for me has been an issue for a number of years. We continue to allow the authorities to bleed red ink. Nobody seems to want to take the bull by the horns and actually do something. I have suggested a solution to the Minister at Social Programs committees. It is not going to be an easy fix, but there is a solution there. That would be to get rid of the authorities, pull it all back in. The more moving parts you have in something like health care and when you are spending that much money, you better make sure that every dollar you are spending is going to be one that is well spent. I don’t think we have done enough there. I think we continue to look for solutions.

The Foundation for Change is just another example of the department going out and looking for something to pin a decision on, but some of the decisions are just so readily apparent that you just struggle to understand why decisions aren’t being made. I certainly wish that, and I know that it is not an easy job managing the Department of Health and Social Services. I do wish the Minister success in trying to manage that, but we are getting very late in life for this government and not much has changed there. I have to be blunt when I say that.

If we want to look at family violence, that is another area that domestic family violence you can lump elder abuse in with that. I will be talking more about that as session goes along, but I am glad to hear that we are going to have some kind of evaluation put in place to see that programs that we have at the community level are actually making a difference. In my mind, Mr. Chairman, I don’t see how that is happening. Just recently an individual had 48 prior convictions, 18 of them of a violent nature, beats his girlfriend. He gets five months in jail. The sentencing has got to be addressed. We have to get tougher with folks who are committing acts of violence against their spouse, against elders, against children. We have to take domestic violence very seriously in the Territory. Again, you will be hearing me talk a lot more about that as session gets going.

I am very concerned about respite care here in the Northwest Territories. I am concerned about the money that was taken from the Yellowknife Association for Community Living. I support 100 percent a territorial-wide program, but I told anybody that would listen when the funding was cut for YACL, that the government, it would be impossible for the government to come up with a coordinated meaningful plan to address respite care in the Northwest Territories, so I am still having a whole lot of trouble understanding how that is exactly going to happen when you have one program that is working and you have that in favour of going for a territorial-wide program. To heck with the program that was working, that’s not good management or sound management, in my mind. I think that should be a model off which the territorial program is developed.

In reducing the cost of living, again this is something that I’ve talked about many times in the past. I don’t think there’s been a concerted effort by the government to convince the federal government that the three territories should be at least a GST-free zone or at the very least maybe the discussion has to take place on making the three northern territories income tax-free zones as well. Negotiate that into a final devolution agreement for the people of the Northwest Territories and the other two territories. You want to attract people to live here and raise families here, there has to be that type of incentive and we need to be ramping up our efforts with the federal government to get at that.

Looking at the sin tax, we’re raising tax on cigarettes and alcohol again. To me this is just a backward approach to trying to grab some cash from people. The people it’s going to hurt the most are children in families whose parents are addicted to smoking and addicted to drinking. Who is going to pay the price is the kids. The children. That’s who’s going to pay the price in an effort for the government to grab some more money. That’s not going to stop anybody from smoking. It’s not going to stop anybody from drinking. If they want to drink and smoke, they’re going to get the smokes and the booze and the family unit, at the end of the day, is going to be the one that pays for that.

Looking at the Taltson situation, I really am having a hard time believing that the project has had five years in the making. We’ve spent about $13 million or $14 million and they submit an incomplete submission and it gets sent back. How is that possible? How do we sit back and let that happen? It just boggles my mind how we have scant resources but we can throw around $13 million or $14 million and have an incomplete submission sent in. No wonder it got sent back. That’s something we need to get on top of. That’s money we’re not going to get back.

We do have a bunch of good news. Some of it was highlighted in the Minister’s budget address. Gahcho Kue is a big one for the Northwest Territories, the development of that diamond mine. The seasonal overland route, that’s a big positive. If the Government of the Northwest Territories continues working with the feds and industry on development of that seasonal overland route, that would be a great benefit for the Northwest Territories as well.

I can’t underestimate what the Mackenzie Gas Project will do for the Northwest Territories in terms of development, opportunities for our people, exploration, turning us into the energy giant we can be. All the potential is there. I think that moving forward is such a huge opportunity for our Territory. Also Prairie Creek, Avalon, Tyhee.

The government did a good job. If I could, and I spoke about it a little bit in my statement, but the injection of the infrastructure dollars was timely. It got us through some rough times. Again, I’d like to thank the government and the Ministers responsible for getting that on the go and for the federal government, too, for the partnership that enabled us to get some money and some projects moving forward and completed. I think just perfect timing for us. Hopefully we’ve seen the end of the rough economic times and we can continue to move the Territory forward.

There’s just one that, while I’ve got the floor, has been in some cases a lack of decisions being made by this government and it looks like we’re leaving a lot of the hard choices and decisions to the next government. I think we have to do everything in our power while we’re here to make some of those decisions. It would be nice if some of those decisions got to us. They haven’t and I talked again about the Program Review Office and my disappointment that in three years we’ve really only got to make a decision on one thing. That’s not very good.

Also, streamlining government operations at improving effectiveness and efficiencies. We just haven’t done that in a meaningful way. I don’t believe that’s been done. We have to do a better job in that.

For the most part I think the future looks very bright for the Northwest Territories. There’s going to be a difficult period of time here, probably the next three or four years, financially, where I think managing our spending and capping expenditure growth is going to be key to getting us through the next few years. I think down the road the future does look very bright for us. I know there’s some austerity measures that have been enacted by the government that are going to help get us there, but I’d just like to see more decisions arriving at the table of the Regular Members so that we can be a part of that decision-making process. On the hard decisions anyway.

I want to thank the Finance Minister and the government for their work in putting forward the budget for 2011-2012.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next I have Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to also thank the Finance Minister for his budget. My comments are quite general. I will get into specifics when we get into departments.

In a general sense I’m okay with the proposed budget. I see it as a caretaker budget. I don’t see very little, actually, that’s different from the budget that we’re currently in this 2010-2011 budget year. I don’t see 2011-2012 as being much different. It’s staying the course, as the Minister has often said to us. I agree with that, but I only agree with it from a fiscal perspective.

The economy in Canada and the world is uncertain. I think the NWT is doing okay but I believe we are right to be cautious. There’s no way that I consider our economy to be booming, so we really ought to take things slowly.

Operationally I don’t agree that we should be staying the course and that’s what I see in this budget. When it comes to expanding the provision of programs and services for our residents, I feel that this government still doesn’t get it, particularly that we’re now in the last eight months of a four-year term. There’s very little that is going to be new and exciting and try to attack some of the problems that we see. I feel that our lives, our work, our thinking doesn’t and shouldn’t stop just because we have an election coming in eight months’ time. We can accomplish a huge amount in eight months if we accept that we are here to work until the Assembly is dissolved at the end of August. I am getting a huge sense that people are not thinking that we’re here to work for the next eight months. I don’t see that mindset and I don’t hear it in the conversations that I have with people.

Over the last three years Members have pointed out innumerable concerns that their constituents have encountered. I’ve heard some, every Member on this side of the House has heard some. I’m sure that Ministers have heard the same sorts of problems. People have difficulty accessing programs and services because of policies which are inhibiting or obstructing them; because of policies which are conflicting. The government creates barriers to services that our constituents need to access. I don’t think we do it willingly, but over time we put policies in place which conflict with each other, we get narrower and narrower in our policies, and it creates huge difficulties for our residents when they try to access our programs and services. Housing and Health and Social Services are probably two of the worst, but every department has it within this organization. I don’t see that we are addressing these basic issues, the issues and difficulties of accessing services. We’re not addressing that in a comprehensive way. I appreciate that Housing is going to be doing a comprehensive review of their policies. I think that’s great and I think it’s long overdue. It’s not going to be of any value unless we coordinate that with a review of other policies that also impact our residents. Income support is one, for instance. Housing and income support are two areas where residents are constantly in difficulty and constantly coming up against barriers and roadblocks.

I mentioned in my Member’s statement that we still have the silo mentality in our departments and amongst our staff. I’m speaking in generalities. I’m not speaking of specific people or departments, but in a general sense I think we still tend to think in silos. There’s some crossover between departments, absolutely. The Strategic Initiatives I think were set up to try and do that but I don’t think it really worked, because when push comes to shove and a department is facing a reduction in dollars or a loss of a program, that department gets really protectionist. They close their ranks and they do everything they can to either hang onto that money or that program. That’s where I think the silo mentality is really evident. It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s in the best interest of the government or the NWT as a whole if that program is lost; the department fights like crazy to keep it.

I mentioned in my Member’s statement there’s no new revenue in this budget. I believe that’s a mistake. A new tax may not seem the right thing to bring in when considering our current economic climate but I think we could and should be a little more open minded and far-seeing. I think we could have enabled our municipalities who, through a resolution at the NWT Association of Communities AGM last year, asked the government to give them the authority to levy a hotel tax in their communities. We didn’t do that. The Minister’s roundtable on revenue options as well supported this idea and I think, from what I read, they accepted it as a viable option and they recommended it. So I think we could have been proactive and creative. I think we could have considered giving the authority to our municipalities to enable them to charge this tax. I see it as a really positive step. It would generate revenue for economic development locally and it would generate revenue for tourism locally. That to me is revenue that would not then have to come from GNWT. It would reduce the drain on our GNWT budget.

I’m really pleased to hear that the Minister is moving forward on establishing the Heritage Fund. I think that’s absolutely the right way to go. The sooner that we can set it up the better. But I also believe, and I don’t think the Minister spoke to this, but I believe that as soon as that fund is set up, we should start making deposits. They may only be token deposits, but I think they need to be made. The reason why I think that is, it will indicate support of the principle and philosophy of saving and planning to our residents. They will see that we are doing something concrete for the future.

I continue to support the government focus on energy initiatives, although I have real concerns about the Taltson project. It was mentioned earlier and I have the same concerns. I’m somewhat dismayed that the Minister stated that it’s still a priority for this government. I was pleased to hear in the second part of that paragraph that he talked about a business case for the project and I really believe that we don’t have a business case right now. So we better not be putting any more money in there.

I do think one of the better things that we’ve done is the energy retrofits of government assets and public housing. I think that’s been a very positive step and I think it’s going to reap rewards in the future. I also believe that this program needs to be extended to all NWT residents, particularly low-income and middle-income homeowners. They don’t currently have any incentive now to really do home renovations in terms of energy savings and if we can provide significant financial incentives to those people, it will get them to do home renovation projects and I think those home renovation projects will actually get done. If they do, it improves the quality of life for our residents, decreases their cost of living, and I believe it provides opportunities in the communities for economic development and for skill development.

So I stated earlier today that I believe that the government and its legislators -- that means us -- have to make fundamental and systemic changes to the way we deliver programs and services. I think we have to stop working from top down and start working bottom up. We have to provide communities with supports -- financial, human, physical -- and by doing so we will empower our communities, we’ll empower our residents to do what they do best, and that’s to look after each other.

I’d like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to make opening comments, and certainly when we get to individual departments I will have lots of specific questions.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Next I have Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the comments of my colleagues here. There’s certainly a ring of commonality out there. I’m sure the Ministers are listening. I think there are some real opportunities out there and I’m not convinced at all that we’re capturing those opportunities.

I want to start off by thanking the Minister for his budget address. I’m looking forward to getting into the detail, as I’ve talked about this a couple times today.

I note that three years ago we set a goal of living within our means and I will be commenting on that subsequently here.

With regard to the economy, I think I am on track with the Minister that the risks are clear in terms of as far as he went, energy prices, particularly oil prices, are rising. Many governments have high levels of debt and situations that are not sustainable. I think that one thing that governments are finding, both in Canada and worldwide, is that the costs of our changing climate are large and accelerating ever more rapidly, and if we do not plan for that and reflect that in our budgets, our sustainability will also be clear.

I wanted to note, I have mentioned already the cushion of $60 million and some of the challenges we will have there. Again, I appreciate the Minister establishing that cushion. In terms of his reference to working with Finance Canada to review the borrowing limit to be concluded by April, this is not something we have heard much about, so I am -- other than perhaps that it is happening -- looking forward to hearing how we are working with the Minister, what is our input, what are our goals, are we actually talking about increasing our debt limit given that we have proven already that we cannot live within our means, referring to the opening of the address. Again, I would appreciate some comments from the Minister on that.

The Minister went on to talk about the Program Review Office. I hope the Minister can detect a huge sense of frustration from Regular Members on this. We were expecting big things from this and some gains to be made, the shifting of priorities with the dollars identified, and I can’t see any productivity from this office -- not saying there hasn’t been any, but certainly not any that I have seen -- and when is this going to happen is the basic question.

The second point there: assess the savings that have been achieved as a result of investments in energy reduction. I would encourage the Minister to do that assessment in terms of the full cost accounting approach that captures things like the number of jobs brought to the Northwest Territories economy, the renewable energy benefits such as reduced emissions and local business development and so on. The Government of the Northwest Territories has opportunities for revenue growth, I agree with that through our tax regime and I look forward to the development of that. I am pleased that the Minister has included that.

I also agree that we have some work to do on the cost and size or role and size of our government and I am looking forward to working further on that. I am sure that will be front and centre for the 17th Assembly as well.

Moving to Supporting the Economy. The biggest thing there that I see is the diversification, and we have put efforts, especially through our SEED program, into diversifying the economy, but here I want to reflect the comments of my colleague Ms. Bisaro. We need a whole new approach. Diversification is indeed key, but we haven’t been effective with our many investments and I think this new approach should include, simply, especially in our small communities since this is an area that we have talked about repeatedly, and we are not making any gains there, our small community economies are not, they are just not happening. We need a new approach that focuses, for example, on the provision of our basic needs. Energy, food, and housing are three of those, just by way of example. Focussing on those in ways that will develop skills and thereby have other benefits, jobs and development of entrepreneurship and so on, those are all side effects from simply deciding that we will not import these things from afar and have jobs afar. We will from now on focus more and more and more on providing for our people from their local and regional resources. Therein lies our best hope and the sort of new approach that’s required that supports the social fabric, as well, and addresses many, many of our wide and diverse goals as a government.

For example -- and the Minister has heard me talk about the need for a comprehensive approach -- the cross-departmental approach, government-wide approach. We still are not penetrating those departmental barriers, and I don’t see that reflected in the comments, either. We’re still compartmentalizing when we need to be identifying how these things need to work together and how we can penetrate those barriers; for example, when we’re talking about a proposal to spend a million dollars in our small community for a job creation program. Those need to be focused on. For example, housing tenants and developing the skills needed for maintenance of housing, for training on how to use a chainsaw for producing firewood for the community and implementing a district energy system and these sorts of approaches. So those sorts of connections, connecting the dots, are still not being made.

I believe the Minister misspoke when he talked about lowering the cost of electricity. We have not lowered the cost of electricity. We have reduced the electricity rates in our small communities and shifted that cost on to the taxpayer. I keep harping on this because we need to be accurate in order to know where our costs are for this government. We are speaking here as a government providing a budget. So again, I highlight the need to speak accurately here.

I’m happy to see that businesses do have an opportunity now in the small communities, they have reduced electricity rates, but I’m disappointed that we’re not making more progress on actually reducing the costs, as the Minister claims we are doing with that working.

There are a number of things that I support but I feel are too modest. I support the Community Harvesters Assistance Program. That’s good. It also identified $150,000 for agriculture infrastructure and support for commercial harvesting of wild foods. That’s clearly inadequate and I think we need to bring some more focus on that.

The $300,000 identified in the budget for housing, a sustainable housing strategy, again, this needs to serve our government-wide goals and it needs to be done in a way that enhances skill development, jobs, the social fabric in our communities, local economic development and so on, by requiring our housing tenants to participate in society and in addressing our costs to the extent that they’re not employed. This is, again, the new approach that’s required and these are things that include investing in our people so we cannot separate these things. We cannot separate reducing the cost of living from investing in our people and from sustainable communities.

The example of the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder syndrome person is an excellent move. We know that there are huge mental health issues out there. We hear about them daily and they’ve been discussed today. We need to bring some focus in that area despite the health costs we are having.

Mr. Chair, I see I’m running out of time so I think I will save the rest. There are some good moves on protecting the environment but there are still some tune-ups needed and some linkages needed to be made there. I’ll look forward to giving more detail on my general response through the budget address opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I have nobody else on my list. What is the wish of committee? Mrs. Groenewegen

Jane Groenewegen

Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Report of Committee of the Whole

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Can I have the report of Committee of the Whole, please, Mr. Abernethy.