We’ll do the work that’s needed. Obviously, there are some groups in the Northwest Territories that do some fairly good work as far as dealing with the homelessness. It would be wise of us to have some discussions with them, get their input, and get the input from folks all across the Northwest Territories, because if anybody knows the conditions of homelessness in the Territories it would be the folks across the Northwest Territories, especially those in the larger centres that are seeing a migration of people coming into the communities. We’ll have discussions all across the Northwest Territories, and when we update Members in the fall, we will provide a list of all those groups that we have talked with.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the Minister of Transportation. We heard lately about the extra – if anyone hasn’t been paying attention – $10 million that will be required by this government to complete the bridge for its, I can’t remember how many times completion, but to allegedly complete the bridge on a date in the future. Can the Minister indicate to us when we would expect to see these so-called extra crews on site to do all this extra work? They were talking about working around the clock, two shifts, 24 hours per day. Can the Minister indicate when this will happen?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That has been the case on the project for the past two weeks. We’ve been two crews working 20 hours a day and when concrete begins to be poured here shortly, that will increase, undoubtedly, to 24 hours a day construction on that project.
That’s good to hear that we’re moving on that project as we were promised. Anyone who works with paving clearly understands that paving requires a certain temperature for pavers to go and actually do the road and it has to be warm enough to do that road. Can the Minister indicate to the House here when is the last possible date, not predicting weather, but there’s a window of time when paving has to be done and it has to be done in temperature. Can we get some sense of when paving should be completed by to visualize this project going forward?
There are various options that could come into play. It could be paved in sections as it’s complete. If it doesn’t happen that way, it will happen in September, weather permitting. There’s always cold surfacing that could happen. There’s technology out there now that would allow it to be done in colder weather. Optimum conditions and our expectation is that would be done by mid-September.
That’s good. I’m glad to hear we have some plans happening and plan B. The next question has to do with our plan B process. If by chance – and I’m trying not to be hypothetical in the question, I’m trying to be forthright here – the date of the opening of this bridge is not completed, does the government have a plan B in place for this?
That very much is a hypothetical question. Our expectation is the bridge will be open this coming November. I thank the Member for his question but it is a hypothetical question.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe it was hypothetical. Anyone in construction or building has plans Bs and Cs just to make sure we have contingency plans. That said, I will be asking that question, I’m sure, later on in the Assembly.
Can the Minister be a bit more clairvoyant as to which date the government is proposing that this bridge be built and open for public? Hansards have a couple dates in there. We’ve seen the 24th. I’ve heard the 26th. Can the Minister be a bit more clear as to the AIP, this new agreement, which date is circled on the calendar for people to be excited about?
Our expectation is that could happen sometime in November. To be on the safe side, I would say the last week of November.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I talked about a perceived or real process problem of potential conflict. Perceived or real are about the same in this type of business. It’s about the integrity of our particular system. The folks I’m talking about in my examples, I know are all good and honourable people and they certainly work to do the best job that they can. My questions will be directed to the Minister responsible for WSCC.
Knowing that the Governance Council is well within its authority to make rules and procedures regarding conflict of interest, and with respect to that, it would only seem reasonable, therefore, for the Minister to request the WSCC to ensure the board directs those type of policies to be drafted. Would the Minister be willing to investigate this particular situation, ensure that conflict of interest policies apply to all of their adjudicating officers under the act under WSCC?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission, Mr. Jackson Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With this particular case, the Member brought it to my attention and I did forward it to WSCC Governance Council immediately to find out if there is a perceived conflict of interest. At this point it is a perceived conflict of interest and they came back saying they don’t see any perceived conflict of interest. There wasn’t any correlation between the clientele and the worker at that time. There is no connection there. The word that came back is that they don’t foresee any conflict of interest on this particular case. I will be dealing with this case with the Governance Council as we move forward on other potential perceived conflicts of interest.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister but the Governance Council, as I pointed out earlier, had already felt the decision of the Appeals Tribunal was not improper and unreasonable as to how it applies to the policies. Due to a fair bit of research we have been doing, we have not been able to find a conflict policy for it to apply to. In other words, they didn’t breach the policy because there is no policy. Ultimately, that is the question. It’s not about the specific example of names when I say this case; it’s about the bigger picture of how we deal with them in the future. Therefore, I restate the question in a different way.
Would the Minister be willing to investigate the need for the conflict of interest policy, and to ensure that one is established under the authority given to the Governance Council, to apply to all its adjudicated officers under the WSCC Act?
I’ll definitely be meeting with the WSCC Governance Council – I’m planning to meet with them anyway – and I will definitely be addressing this particular topic.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Hawkins.
I’ll decline. The Minister answered the question satisfactorily.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not too long ago I believe we learned a lot from the province of Alberta when they were faced with forest fires. I’d like to ask the Premier, will the Premier and Cabinet set up a disaster fund for communities that are directly affected by natural disasters such as floods, forest fires and landslides.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe we have an assortment of disaster funds that we can call upon. I think the biggest one is the arrangement we have with the Government of Canada where they have a disaster fund. We do have a Forest Fire Disaster Fund, mainly for harvesters. We do have a Harvester Disaster Fund for hunters and trappers that have acts of God causing them to lose equipment. I believe through MACA we have emergency funding that can be called upon if required.
Many times when we have these funds available to the communities, there are a lot of barriers. I’d like to ask the Premier and Cabinet if they could please not put so much red tape on the communities that they can access this funding.
As a matter of fact, that is the very reason why we have a Reducing Red Tap Initiative that we’re doing through the Refocusing Government Cabinet committee. In most cases, these disaster funds, the only requirement is that they be acts of God or natural disaster. For the Harvester Fund, you have to show that you have actually earned some revenue from hunting and trapping.
Many times communities face flooding. As many may know, communities face a lot of silt, either in their houses or on the roads. I’d like to ask the Premier if it would be possible for the communities to use a lot of that funding to chipseal their roads.
I’ve been listening to these kinds of requests before. For those communities that have gas tax funding, they do have the authority to make those kinds of decisions on whether to chipseal a road or not.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. The Minister tabled the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan 2012-2015 the other day in the House, and I’d like to ask him some questions regarding that report. One of the first actions that is intended to be done by the department in 2012-2013 is a Minister’s forum on addictions. The Minister has had Members looking for potential membership on that forum for the last little while. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not this forum is intended to be a one-shot affair, of an ongoing forum that continues on from year to year, and what is the purpose of this particular Minister’s forum.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intention of this forum initially was to have the forum around December, depending on how much information we are able to gather. Although we thought we had a structure in mind on the forum, now we’re considering the deliberations that have occurred during Committee of the Whole and we’re looking at maybe changing the structure of the forum at this time.
I’ll try the question again. Is this forum intended to be ongoing, is it a one-shot deal, or will it carry on for more than one year, and what is the purpose of the forum?
I’ll try to answer it again. December 12th is the time that we’re hoping to have the forum finalized. The purpose of the forum is to travel to the communities or have those individuals from the communities travel here. We still haven’t finalized that. We’ve had to start to rethink how we’re going to do it, but the purpose of it is to gather information on addictions. Thank you.
Within the report there are a number of service gaps that are identified. I can’t remember quite how many there are, but one of them that I think has been recognized by the department and has been recognized in the action plan is lack of detoxification facilities. It’s been mentioned many times by Members in the House in statements and in questions.
To the Minister, I’d like to know whether or not this action plan will address that gap specifically, that we do not have detoxification facilities, and if it does not, in the future, how does the Minister intend to address that gap. Thank you.
In the action plan, detoxification, I think, is the first gap that is identified in there. Our intention is to try to have people go through detoxification without necessarily building infrastructure for them to do it in. I think the intention would be to go to more programming than anything. Also, we have some confidence that if an individual wants to quit using drugs or quit using alcohol, that they will stop and go through their own personal detoxification. We have to have some confidence that people that wish to quit drinking, will quit drinking, and that at some point down the road they could be ready for treatment. Thank you.
Another thing that I noticed, in my quick perusal of the plan, is there’s no reference to extra funding, there’s no reference to an increase in personnel. I presume this plan is going to start in 2013-14. Will there be additional funding required in the next fiscal year for both to put the plan in place and to hire extra personnel, or is it all going to be funded from within? Thank you.
For this fiscal year, ’12-13, the intention was to look at the money that we have in the various programs now, the money that we have in on-the-land programs for healing, some of the money that we get from Health Canada for wellness, and also the $6 million. It’s a total of about $9 million when you look at treatment and everything in the system. We’re thinking of looking at that money through counselling and so on, to try for us to build on this plan and then make a decision whether or not we think that if we can’t fund everything internally, then we’ll go back through the business planning process to fund the areas which we don’t think we can handle internally. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for his response. What the Minister has outlined is a good solution, to look internally first and then see whether or not you can accomplish it.
The other thing that isn’t mentioned in the actions that I have read, I don’t see a specific mention of prevention. I’d like to know from the Minister if that is a focus of this particular action plan and it just happens to be a word that isn’t in there. Is it represented by the particular actions in this action plan? Thank you.
The whole plan is all about prevention. We are trying to help people to sober up so that they lessen their use of the health system. What we think is common knowledge is that sober people are healthier, and there are serious problems with alcohol and that it has a heavy price tag on the health system. Generally, the way we view this is that the nature of the whole action plan is going to be on prevention. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of film tax credit comes up from time to time and it was broached to me recently. The question was, quite simply: Why doesn’t the GNWT have one and present one to industry? It really came on the heels as a reminder that Arctic Air is booking its second season. My question to the Minister of Finance is: What type of process is involved in establishing a tax credit, such as film tax credit, that would help encourage industry to invest and do work here in the Northwest Territories? The process, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’d have to look at that specific subject. We’d have to look at other jurisdictions, many of which are, in fact, removing their tax credits, look at the pros and cons and then try to factor it in and bring it forward through a business planning and budgetary process. Thank you.
