Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Enterprise has put in a desire to have their own water treatment plant. Our role now is to work with the community, and look at all of the options, and look at some of the different cost factors, and work with them to try to come up with the best deal possible for the community.
I wanted to ask the Minister what kind of options there are. Are there at least some parameters to ensure that the community’s aspirations are achieved? At the same time, whether there’s a path of at least a workable solution that the Minister can commit to the community in terms of working with them.
We have communicated our desire to work with the community and they have communicated their desire to look at some of the options of establishing their own water treatment plant. The letter that we’ve received from them, they had laid out some options, and we would like to sit down with them and work on some of those options. If there needs to be some changes made to the way the community is funded, we would have to look at that also. They’ve made the initial communication that they have a desire to establish their own water treatment plant.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that. I’d like to ask whether the Minister has discussed with the leadership, in terms of a timeline of how this process could work for all parties to ensure that there is a committed timeline to achieve the establishment of a water treatment plant in Enterprise.
That’s one of the options we would have to look at, as far as the timeline goes. We have to explore with the community the different options, as far as the types of water treatment plant. We haven’t had that discussion yet so we have to sit down with the community to discuss those options. I think at that time it would probably be best, or appropriate, then to come up with a timeline depending on which system they choose.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit, at some point, to meet with the local leaders of Enterprise to discuss their aspiration of establishing a water treatment plant.
We already know what the community is looking for. Our officials will sit down and have a discussion with them. I’m always happy to meet with the leadership of any community, and if the need arises, then I would be pleased to meet with the leadership of Enterprise. Right now their officials and our officials are trying to iron out some of the details and we look forward to the results of their meetings.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Public Works and Services concerning the Hay River hospital and the design/build contract that’s closed just over a month ago. Does the Minister have any information to provide this House about that public tender?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Glen Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The applications that have come in are being reviewed and we’re hoping to have a decision soon.
My question to that response would be soon and what kind of timeline soon is.
I imagine it’s going to be in the next week or two, and as soon as we have that information and a decision is made, it will be posted on-line and be available for everybody to see, but I will absolutely let the Member know as soon as I know.
My next question is as soon as that is completed, does the Minister have any commitments to have a public meeting in the community of Hay River on the building?
I’m not sure what the Member means. Does the Minister have a meeting in the community about the hospital, or the department have a meeting in the community about the hospital? The department will be meeting with the successful candidate, or the successful bidder, and they will be working out the details, so I will certainly share that information with the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
I’ll ask my question a little differently. Some of the concerns in the community are about what’s in the building and what’s not in the building, so there is a great deal of concern in the community and that’s what I am referring to, is if the department is planning to have a discussion on what is going to be incorporated in the building. It’s a design/build, how the building is going to look, and get some feedback from the public on this future building in the community of Hay River that’s supposed to represent us for the next 50 years.
The program content and, therefore, the design is actually a responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Services, who is responsible for the program. I’m not sure if the department is going to be going into the community to talk about the program content, but I will certainly talk to the Minister of Health and Social Services about what their plans are. Technically the department will be meeting with the builders who are building it based on a design.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier and have to do with our dealings with Ottawa. In the past we as an Assembly have gone en masse to Ottawa. We called it NWT Day. We broke into small groups and visited with Ministers. We went to Parliament Hill. We had a reception there. Everybody in Ottawa who met us thought we were really cool, but I don’t think we came home with much. I’d like to ask the Minister, in view of all of our government’s negotiations with Ottawa, when are we going to re-staff the Ottawa office to coordinate our efforts for the best results when we do make trips to Ottawa.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to advise the Member that we have booked conference rooms or a ballroom in the Chateau Laurier and we will be holding NWT Days at the same time that the Winterlude is happening in Ottawa. We are doing business plans for 2013-2014 at which time, with the support of the Members, we’ll be asking for funding to upgrade our Ottawa office.
I noticed in some of the Ministers’ statements today they talked about working with Health Canada on various projects. I think that a strong presence by a hired person in the Ottawa office in the past has been a great asset to our government in setting up meetings and keeping their ear to the ground on what’s happening there, feeding information back to us, facilitating our efforts in Ottawa. I’d like to ask the Premier, is there a plan at this time to consider staffing that office again with that kind of a person.
At this time we do have a person in the Ottawa office. We are looking at increasing our presence in Ottawa and we’ll be looking for support to get additional resources to a higher level position.
So the Premier refers to NWT Days in the Chateau Laurier and the Winterlude and so on and so forth. Can I ask who’s going to Ottawa? Are we all going to Ottawa? Maybe I wasn’t aware of that.
We have had input from the standing committee and they have advised that they want to see the number of MLAs attending be staggered over a four-year period and we will be organizing it accordingly.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very glad to hear that. I would like to see small groups of MLAs go to Ottawa with a very specific task and an ask, and to come home with a report on the results that they achieve while they’re there, as opposed to us all going down there at one time for just kind of a feel-good time. That’s very good news. I appreciate the Premier’s respect for the input of the standing committee and we’ll look forward to the schedule of what we’ll be going there for and what we’ll be asking for.
That was our intended approach.
I might add that I was invited to attend a Northern Lights Conference in Ottawa where it was organized by Nunavut, Labrador and Nunavik. The reception they had was very well attended by federal Ministers. There were about 20 federal Ministers in addition to the wife of the Prime Minister. We’re hoping to have the same kind of attendance from federal Ministers when we organize our NWT Day.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Housing and it continues to deal with the housing rental scale. It’s something that I have to continue to address, especially when I’m getting phone calls over the weekend and even just before coming into the House here. I’d like to ask the Minister, the recommendations that Members from this side of the House offered to the Minister and his department, as well as recommendations made from the Seniors’ Society to defer the implementation of this policy for seniors, as well as the motion that was made in the Elders Parliament, everybody’s saying defer and even take it out of the policy. The Minister’s statement said otherwise on Thursday. This new approach, at what length did the recommendations made from us, the Elders Parliament and the Seniors’ Society come into effect in developing this new approach that the Minister addressed last Thursday?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my response to questions the other day, I did talk about the fact that there was some concern raised by Members and by the Seniors’ Society. We did take some of the recommendations. That’s why we decided that we’d implement it over a two-year period with the first being September 1st and the second being July 1st of next year. I did say the other day that this is something that needs to be done, and it’s a question of treating all people across the NWT equally like we all signed up to do in our Members Code of Conduct. That’s where we’re going with this. To pay $35 to be all in as far as paying rent goes, I think that’s showing a lot of respect in looking after our seniors, where you have seniors that are living in their own houses on fixed income paying up to $1,500 a month to support themselves. I think this delaying it over two years, obviously, we heard some of the concerns raised by this Assembly.
With this new approach over two years, and it’s for seniors that live without other adults in their home, the economy is bad, there’s less jobs in the communities, high cost of living, in reality we do have adults that are staying with elders. I want to ask the Minister if he has the numbers of the percentage of seniors that are going to be affected where they will have to pay. I’m assuming that because of what I just said, that there might be a high percentage, so they are still going to be paying, getting all our seniors to pay. Does he have a percentage of adults that do live with seniors in the communities?
We do have some percentage where adults are living with seniors. Obviously, if their household income is low, then most seniors would be paying minimum rent. I think on average we have about 90 percent of our seniors that are going to be paying minimum rent starting September 1st, so obviously it’s half of what we were initially going to charge, and then July 1st of next year we’ll go to full implementation. We do have some numbers; I don’t have them with me. I will provide them to committee. Ninety percent of our seniors would be paying minimum rent.
The reason I asked that last question is sometimes we have caregivers, as well, who are taking care of our seniors, and if they are an adult staying in the home, then it’s going to affect the income and the amount of expenditures these elders do have. Since the statement, I guess, or even since we’ve been bringing up this issue in the House, has the Minister or his department contacted, or tried to attempt to contact, the NWT Seniors’ Society to get further input or any regional local elder committees, for that matter, to get their input on this policy and how it’s going to affect them in their communities, especially the small communities? Thank you.
We’ve done our homework and we know how this is going to affect seniors in the communities. As I said the other day, it will affect them to the tune of $35 a month starting September 1st, and full implementation on July 1st. One of the reasons we had the $1,000 exemption for seniors was the fact that we recognize a lot of them are on a fixed income. We have to be very careful that when they have adults in the home, again, I think we were talking today and there was some mention made of elder abuse. This sometimes can lead to elder abuse, where you have adults in the housing that are working and taking advantage of the fact that the seniors are not paying any rent. Then they move out and the seniors are left with high arrears. That’s happened in the past, so we have to be very careful with that. We have to make it so that if there are adults in the house that are making an income, then the household income would have to be assessed and they would pay rent accordingly.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to deferring this, I know there were recommendations to defer until further consultation. Some of us weren’t expecting the $35 to be implemented on September 1st, which will affect some of our seniors in the small communities. Would the Minister be willing to look at that approach again and have it at zero until proper consultation is made with a lot of our communities that will be affected with the high cost of living, especially up in the Beaufort-Delta region where the cost of living is extremely high? Thank you.
We have committed to zero until September 1st. On September 1st the $35, or half of what they would have initially been paying, will kick in.
In response to the Member’s question before, we have made contact with the NWT Senior’s Society. We have offered up a meeting. We got a response. Actually, it was this morning. They’re quite busy right now with summer coming on, so we’re going to try to make some time. But it is going to be zero until September 1st. September 1st until July 1st of next year they’ll be paying half. That will get them acclimatized to having to pay rent, because of not having to pay for the last 16 years. Then July 1st of next year, full implementation will kick in. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to ask the Minister, does he know how many NWT students are currently studying in the field of medicine to become medical doctors in the south at this time. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are 11 medical students that have taken the medical student bursary. There could be a few more that haven’t taken the bursary. That means that they’re probably not intending to return to the territory, but there are 11 that have taken the bursary. Thank you.
