Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier and I’d like to follow up on my statement about the Anti-Poverty Strategy. I want to follow up on the report which went to the government last December from the workshop that was held in October.
I know that there is a GNWT working group that has been established and I also know that it does not include any representatives from outside of government, that there are no representatives from the Anti-Poverty Alliance. I know there is an advisory body but that body is not involved as part of the working group.
So I’d like to ask the Premier why, on the part of the government, why there is this reticence to involve the Anti-Poverty Alliance in developing the Anti-Poverty Strategy. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Well, yes, quite simply, Mr. Speaker, the issue comes when in past experience within the Government of the Northwest Territories when we have a large working group together to look at the issues within the North and there are a number of issues that we have examples of, this is one of those, the Anti-Poverty Strategy. The work they’ve done is good. It was good to get the information together from those that help deliver and deal with those issues on their own. We also, as a Government of the Northwest Territories, deal with those issues and we can’t forget that as well, and we need to collect our information, use the work that was done as part of the process.
The trouble becomes when there’s such a large working group and the recommendations that may come out of that, at times the government then is faced with the ones having to try to fund and put into practice all of those. So that’s one of the considerations.
We know that the work has been done and it will be a part of the process, because we need to do our work internally, as well, and look at how we deliver the programs from our end to ensure that we are meeting the goals that we’re intended to meet. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier. I have to disagree. I think the original Anti-Poverty Alliance is a large group, but it’s not all of the members of the Anti-Poverty Alliance who needed to be on the government’s working group. They certainly would have been happy with a couple of representatives who were not government members.
I think the Premier also suggested that all of the recommendations from the anti-poverty report, the No Place for Poverty report, needed to be accepted by the government and that’s not true. I think if the report is read carefully, there are a couple of priorities that the report specifies.
One of the things that I need to ask the Premier is: there is currently a proposal and I think it may have already been started, but there’s a plan to go out and to do more consultation, the community consultations. Those that will be consulted will be invited to consult, it won’t be an open invitation to anybody to come. I’d like to know from the Premier why this consultation is needed. The consultation was done last fall, and why do we have to go and consult with specific community people as opposed to anybody in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you. The work that we need to do now from a Government of the Northwest Territories side is we’re involved heavily in the field of dealing with the poverty issue in the North with quite a number of departments: the Housing Corporation; Education Culture and Employment; Health and Social Services. We’ve got quite a number of others: ITI, Justice, in some form or another. So we need to look at our end of the work that’s being done and relate that to the work that’s been done by the NGOs as well. So the work they’ve done will help inform the work that we’re going to and are doing.
I think the important piece is we’ve got to do a measurement of what we’ve done in our day-to-day service as the Government of the Northwest Territories and see how we can bring those together.
Thanks to the Premier. I certainly don’t deny that the government is heavily involved in programs to try and attack poverty. What’s necessary is a cross-departmental coordination and cooperation among departments and the silos are still evident. I also don’t deny that the government needs to do the work and there needs to be an analysis of what we are doing.
My question to the Premier had to do with the consultation that is presumably about to happen and I’d like to point out to the Premier that there were representatives of the government at that workshop, approximately 12 percent of the people in attendance. I’d like to know if the Premier, based on that information, will reconsider the consultation plan which is apparently ready to go and/or may already be gone. Take the advice of the Anti-Poverty Alliance and move forward from the report instead of doing work already done.
The work that was done by the anti-poverty group had a preliminary focus. Yes, the government was involved in the workshop at our request, but, quite simply, the fact that as the GNWT a number of departments... And yes, the reason that we include Executive, Health and Social Services, Education, Culture and Employment, ITI and Justice as part of the review of this is to knock those silos down and we have to look at the way that we’ve delivered those programs and come back and correlate that with the work that was done by the NGOs and come out with recommendations that would fit at that point going forward. We’ve committed to working with the Standing Committee on Social Programs to provide those results as we do that work.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier again. I didn’t, unfortunately, hear an answer to my question. I do hope that the Premier will reconsider this proposed round of consultation and change it to be more meaningful.
I’d like to know from the Premier if this working group and advisory group and whoever else may be involved will be able to give us a definition of poverty prior to September 2011.
Well, first and foremost, let’s not discount our own staff within the Government of the Northwest Territories from having a good level of input and credibility when it comes to this kind of work. It’s a mix of all services, whether it’s NGOs, but let’s not discount the work of our own people that are in the trenches, as well, day to day. I think bringing those two together can help at the end of the day and our goal is to have the work done before the end of the life of this Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about evolution before devolution and I think that these two go hand in hand. It’s actually being forced by the signing of the agreement-in-principle as we move forward.
I have questions for the Premier. As we move along with the talks towards the devolution final agreement and there’s resistant Aboriginal groups out there only because there’s lots of information and there’s lots of uncertainty and fear about what it really means to sign on to the AIP, are there other solutions out there that can still involve the Aboriginal governments working with the GNWT as we work towards devolution?
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The agreement-in-principle allows for groups to sign on at any time during the process, once they feel comfortable and they feel that they understand it more, if that’s a concern they have. In some cases, some groups may choose not to be there. It is a choice that they will need to make.
We will, as the agreement-in-principle states, allowed for every opportunity right through up until the final negotiations have been reached in the sense of initialling a final agreement for decision. The groups that would be a part of that can influence it.
That’s why I say come back to the table early. I say come back, because even the groups that said they were observers influenced the agreement-in-principle as it’s been designed. At the same time, to access the funding that’s there to help and the work that they need to do, by signing the agreement the same as we have done allows us to tap into some additional resources to help us in the preparation of that work.
I think that the future development of the Northwest Territories does include having the GNWT and Aboriginal governments having a dialogue. Once again, is there a solution or another alternative that we can involve Aboriginal groups in discussion as we work towards a final devolution agreement without them actually signing on? Can they be observers, like the Premier said, or is there another mechanism to allow full involvement? I really believe that as we work towards devolution, we’re also talking about evolution of our political development of the Northwest Territories. All must be involved.
The process we’ve engaged in has been inclusive and open to quite a number of avenues in the work and up into the agreement-in-principle that was signed. That included groups that would officially call themselves observers but had representatives that influenced some of the discussion and the way the language was written.
As we go forward, though, towards a final set of negotiations, as there will need to be bilateral discussions, so formal discussions on, for example, the jurisdiction sharing about how we share our arrangements, how co-management bodies can work together, for example, or the resource revenue sharing section, they’ll need to sign up to this to be able to move forward on this because that will require bilateral discussions, Aboriginal governments to the GNWT, in some of the specific areas.
So I would say that we’ve been very flexible to this point, and as we go forward the groups need to look at what it is that we’re asking them to do and look at the language that’s been in place with the advice of many of the regions, observers as well as official groups at the table, that speak directly to the participation and safeties built into this document when it comes to protecting Aboriginal rights established as well as interim measures on the negotiations that are ongoing.
Some of the alternate solutions, of course, without Aboriginal groups actually signing on, is some of the funding that’s available to hold in trust their portion thereof of whatever percentage of their group. Is that something the Premier can look at?
I know the funding that we’ve discussed, the portion for the GNWT and the portion for the Aboriginal governments through this agreement-in-principle signing, by signing on you get access to that. The portion for Aboriginal governments, they need to sit down with the federal government and work out that arrangement. We don’t have an affect on that. As we go forward towards a full set of negotiations, even ourselves as the GNWT, we’re going to have to look at our resources available and come up with a formula as to how we would progress forward and see if the federal government would be interested in that process.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Just in terms of timing -- I think the Premier just mentioned it earlier -- what kind of timing do the Aboriginal groups have to review and acknowledge and perhaps even sign on should they wish to? What is the timing of that? Is it end of April? Is it this summer? Is it this fall?
There is no deadline to signing on to the agreement-in-principle. Of course, I would say the earlier the groups sign on and get access to the revenue source to help them in the preparation work, the more influence on mandates that are being established and positions that would be looked at and influencing the final decision as we look to going forward. Especially those that are bilateral, we need those groups who would agree to sign on. There is no timeline in the sense of deadlines that groups need to sign on.
What I would caution, though, is anybody coming in at the 11th hour when we’re about to initial a framework agreement or final agreement. For example, most of the decisions will be made by the parties that were there, and probably the revenues used up by the majority of groups by the latter stages. Signing up early allows access early to dollars as well as influencing final outcomes.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement was regarding the teachers’ housing subsidy that is being looked at and being cancelled this year for the community of Tuktoyaktuk. The teachers that we try to retain in the small communities, it’s tough enough to get good quality teachers. We have to provide accommodations like we do with the nursing stations to try to help out as much as we can. It’s a critical time to continue the success for our students. I’m asking the Minister of Education if it’s possible to get the subsidy back in place for the community of Tuktoyaktuk in regard to the five-plex for teachers’ housing.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The teacher housing subsidy that the Member is referring to is sunsetting, I believe, this fiscal year. That particular subsidy has been in the works for a number of years. I do believe it’s under the NWT Housing Corporation as well. There was an agreement in place between government and the organization in Tuktoyaktuk. The Member is asking if we would, I guess, reinvest into that particular area. As you can see from other jurisdictions, we have teachers across the Northwest Territories. We do provide funding for their northern allowances. Based on that, they pay for their rental units as well. We’re not in a position to invest more money into the teacher housing subsidy.
There is negotiation that is ongoing with the NWTTA, the Teachers’ Association, and other union issues that are on the way. That might be an avenue that can be raised. My department is not willing to move forward on that at this point within our current budget.
The sun just came back in my riding two weeks ago, so no sunset clause, please. Will the government recognize the real challenges of the small, remote communities that face recruiting and retaining professionals for the various needed subsidy assistance programs and commit to providing ongoing multiyear resources to the program? We have to do this for the students in our future. The communities in my riding, we’re the furthest north and the hardest hit all the time. This government has to step up to the plate and help our teachers in the communities.
We do recognize the pressure that’s out there in the Northwest Territories, especially in those small, isolated communities. Finding suitable units can be a challenge and the high cost of living in the communities as well. With that we have initiated, through the refocusing committee, that there’s interdepartmental groups that are working on identifying funds to deal with those matters at hand. There are challenges before us to find suitable units for the teachers and other professionals as well. We do have an interdepartmental committee that’s working currently and are actively involved in that.
Will this government re-evaluate the community’s entire subsidy program or programs and provide the standard of measures to fairly distribute resources accordingly to the need of the cost of living? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I can speak to my department’s subsidy. It is being reviewed on a constant basis and we make changes due to the needs of the communities and also the Northwest Territories. We also work interdepartmentally. The message is clear that the Member is referring to and we will be discussing that through our committees. This will also be brought up with my department, as well, with respect to the subsidy program. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we don’t support our teachers, Mr. Speaker, who’s going to support our students? There’s got to be a way that the department can find money to support the subsidy program. I think it’s $20,000 a door per year per unit, or $25,000, $150,000 that could be found for the community that is needed, Mr. Speaker. This has to be dealt with in a timely manner. The sunset is close at hand in regard to this. We have to support our teachers in the housing situation in Tuktoyaktuk, Mr. Speaker. I need the commitment from the Minister that he will work with me and the Housing Minister to get this dealt with.
Mr. Speaker, yes, we definitely do support the teachers that we have across the Northwest Territories. When it comes to challenges such as the housing issues in the communities for professionals, those are the areas that we need to work at within our committees. So, yes, we’ll work closely with the Member and also other Members as well, and the Members of the Executive. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Health on the follow-up to the child and family services response.
Mr. Speaker, there is in excess of $12 million in the area of children’s services. Will the Minister direct her staff to look at a program in the area of early intervention and prevention in as far as child apprehensions go? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The chair and the Members have asked that we revisit our budget to see what options we might be able to come up with, and I’m prepared to do that. I have to state, at the same time, that the department is under fiscal pressure, as is the entire government, and we need to work carefully and thoroughly to see how we make those decisions. But I’m certainly open to working with the standing committee to see what options might be available. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister work with the First Nation governments to look seriously at community solutions to combating addictions? Thank you.
We do that already, Mr. Speaker. For example, we have been working very closely with the Gwich’in Tribal Council as well as the IRC. We have given them funding and we are working in partnership on addictions and after-care issues. We are looking at some projects in that area to come up with on-the-ground addiction programs.
I realize that we have eight regions and many, many Aboriginal governments. I could list some of the projects that we are working on, but I just want to let the Member know that we do a lot of work in partnership with Aboriginal organizations and Aboriginal governments. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me what the plan is to strike more child and family services committees at the community level? Thank you.
I could advise the Member that is one that I was very passionately involved with as a Regular Member. I fought to have this in the legislation the last time around. The Members and this standing committee expressed a lot of interest from the beginning to have these groups set up, and I can advise the Member that we have reinforced and refocused energy in that area and we have written to every community, we have approached every community, encouraging them to set up the children and family services committee as is provided for under current legislation. We are seeing some success in Fort McPherson and it is our hope that we will see more of that.
Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the department and myself, as the Minister, are completely committed in making that happen. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell me if she has had complete discussions on the possibilities of re-profiling the Health and Social Services budget to address the recommendations in the report of the Standing Committee on Social Programs as it pertains to the Child and Family Services Act? Thank you.
Yes, I have. We have had the CFSA recommendations since October. My department and I went through the report, we reviewed them and we came up with every possible way of implementing as many recommendations as possible. There are some items that are big ticket items and we needed to put that into the next business cycle.
Having said that, I understand that the Members would like us to relook at it. I think it’s really important for all the Members here to have the full information about what re-profiling means, a $12 million item. My department is working right now to give the information to all the Members of what that $12 million entails. That’s the entire operations budget for our children and family services programming. Of course, Mr. Speaker, that is a debate that we could have, but it’s really important that we have the full information so that we know exactly what we are doing when we are re-profiling. It’s about jobs. It’s about programs in the communities. It’s about on-the-ground programming that we need to deliver every day. But I am absolutely prepared to have that discussion with the Members on the other side. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be directed to the Minister of ITI, the Honourable Bob McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, since the launch of the Made in the NWT Program, many northern manufacturers have told me they appreciated the leadership of the government in recognizing and supporting local goods being produced here in the North and they believe it’s been an incredible step forward in recognition of the work they do. Mr. Speaker, I truly believe that the Made in the NWT label gives Northerners a chance to buy local products that have been produced locally with a great sense of pride and value.
Mr. Speaker, what I’d like to ask the Minister of ITI today is would he be interested in expanding the program to consider other options to what I’d like to define as the “in the NWT program.” Quite simply, Mr. Speaker, we have many examples of homegrown or home-developed products in the North such as the film industry, be it agriculture through growing, arts and crafts. So you could say filmed in the NWT, grown in the NWT, crafted in the NWT, and even perhaps, but not limited to, performed in the NWT.
Mr. Speaker, my question directly to the Minister is: would he be willing to investigate the expansion of the program to allow us to look at other areas to continue to enhance northern pride in the things we do and produce here in the North?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
