Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize a class from Sissons. It is the grade 5 middle French immersion class, and the students here today have come to watch our session. Their names are Taylor Clark, Caeley Cluderay, Ali Fleming, Jay Fleming, Sterling Ingraham, Anna Koldewey, Katie Lapka, Rylie McGuire, Liam McKay, Cassidy Menard, Nancy Ngo, Tisha Organ, Nathan Round, Kristy Taggard, and their teacher, who I believe has to go now — she’s waited very patiently — is Monique Marinier. I appreciate them staying and watching our Members’ statements.
It gives me great pleasure to recognize a relative of mine in the gallery, Mr. James Cardinal from Tsiigehtchic. I wish James all the best, and welcome to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. If we missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the House. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s good to have an audience in here.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. It’s with regard to my Member’s statement. The question is: why is there such a disparity with regard to programs and services in the larger centres and the smaller communities?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s passion and commitment to enhance everything that is or is not in small communities, but that is quite a general statement. Under the integrated service delivery model that we follow in the Territories, all residents are entitled to have access to Health and Social Services programs. All the authorities do their best every day to make those programs accessible to everyone in the Territories.
Mr. Speaker, one of the priorities of this government is to have safe and vibrant communities. I think one of the fundamental bases of any community is to have health care, a good education system, and good programs and services. I think it’s important that we see the disparity between our small communities and larger communities because of the social conditions that they’re in. Not having access to health care is definitely one of them.
I’d like to ask the Minister: exactly why is it that this disparity exists, when most communities don’t have to worry about access to health care? They take it for granted.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is well aware that we do have different categories of services that are available in communities, but every community in the Territories has access to programs as they need them. I think the community of Fort McPherson, for example, is quite fortunate in having a stable nurseincharge and long-term staff who work there. The same is the case for Aklavik. For the community of Tsiigehtchic, while they may not have a number of health care professionals and social service professionals residing in the community, they do have access to care in the Inuvik facility by medical travel or whatever services they may require. It’s a constant challenge for us, but I do believe that we have a program that we can be proud of and that we need to continue to work from.
I don’t think we should be proud of a system where you don’t have front-line workers in communities — from nurses to basically having the basic services.
I’d like to ask the Minister: exactly why is it we don’t even have nurses in our community?
Communities of different sizes have different PYs allocated, whether it’s for nursing or any other services. We do have a constant challenge of vacancy rates and being able to recruit and retain, so we do work constantly on making sure that every community, no matter the size, has the level of service that people require.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister if she can verify or get information in regard to the health of communities based on the lack of programs and services. What’s the mental, emotional and physical health of those people in those communities, compared to other communities that have those services?
Mr. Speaker, I just reviewed and approved a document that’s been produced by the Department of Health that gives a very good indication as to why the residents of the Territories visit health centres and access Health and Social Services care. I expect to have that published and tabled in the House. I think that would give us a good starting point to have further discussion on that. I agree with the Member that we need to continue to work on this challenge. I look forward to doing more work with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Mr. Speaker, today I spoke about the Aboriginal Sport Circle and all the good work that they’ve been doing. I’d like to follow up with some questions to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
I spoke about the need to recognize and provide similar levels of support for the Aboriginal Sport Circle. Can the Minister tell me what kind of funding arrangement is currently in place for the sport circle?
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, this government spends approximately $5 million in the area of sport and recreation. That’s including the support we provide to our five non-governmental organizations that work with the NWT Council of Sport and Recreation partners, and they allocate the funding. It is part of their mandate to coordinate a system that recognizes their priorities and to provide direction. We also expect them to provide the resources fairly. On top of the support that’s provided by Sport and Rec, we as government also work with the Aboriginal Sport Circle to provide funding to go to the North American Indigenous Games, this time in B.C.
With all the great programs and events, the Aboriginal Sport Circle has demonstrated it can deliver much-needed programming to territorial youth. Will the Minister commit to recognizing the increase of core funding to the Aboriginal Sport Circle?
I thought I was pretty clear that the core funding does not come directly from us. It does come from the NWT Council of Sport and Recreation partners.
With the North American Indigenous Games held every two years and, more importantly, with programs and events happening every day in our communities, will the Minister commit to work with the sport circle staff to start increasing core funding as soon as possible?
Mr. Speaker, we’ve had a very good relationship with all the sport organizations, including the Aboriginal Sport Circle. We meet with them on a very regular basis. They have some new staff. They’ve taken a new approach and set some new directions that we’re quite excited and pleased to see. We meet with them. I met with them, in fact, yesterday. They’re doing a very good job on the North American Indigenous Games. They have relayed to us their concerns as to core funding, and we will continue to support them.
We have, in the last while, lobbied the federal government to provide increased funding to the Aboriginal Sport Circle on a national basis. We were also successful this year in lobbying the federal government to provide travel dollars to the North American Indigenous Games. The Northwest Territories is getting $144,000 of that money. I think it’s a challenge that we’re all continuing to work towards, but we’re finding small pots of money, and we’ll continue to work with this council.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I referenced in my Member’s statement a report on homelessness. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the homeless what programs and services exist to assist homeless people to find appropriate housing with the support services they need.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for the homeless, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We do have coordination between the departments of Health and Social Services, NWT Housing Corporation and ourselves, and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We do have programs with the Small Communities Homelessness Fund towards homelessness and also homelessness support projects, so there are plenty available for these individuals at the community level. Also, when they’re outside their community, there’s assistance for them to go back to their own communities.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that information. I recognize that those programs do perform some service, but individuals who are homeless and need some place to turn.... Can the Minister advise where a particular individual or a family might go when they are desperately in need of housing?
Mr. Speaker, the homeless in the communities can turn to various avenues, whether it’s the social workers who work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, on call. We do have some facilities in communities — in Yellowknife the new Bailey House is going up, the Sally Ann, the SideDoor — and there are homelessness shelters here as well. These are the avenues that individuals can turn to. There are income support areas, but more so, it’s the social service workers that are on call. Those are the avenues they can turn to as well.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that we do have some avenues that people can take advantage of when they are desperate.
You referenced a number of facilities and a number of options, but in particular women do not have a facility, especially here in Yellowknife. I’d like to know if the Minister can advise what plans exist to expand the funding that’s available to communities to provide for homeless people.
Mr. Speaker, we will continue to provide the services and programs that I highlighted. We are in the process of meeting, as the social envelope Ministers — myself as Education, Culture and Employment Minister, Minister Lee and also Minister Miltenberger — on this particular subject that the Member is referring to: homelessness and the programs and services that we provide, how we can enhance those areas, where can we make changes, and how can we improve certain programs. We will be discussing those key areas once we meet. We were talking about possibly sitting down and dealing with those issues in, I believe, the next couple of weeks. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
I thank the Minister for that information. It’s gratifying to hear that the social programs Ministers are working together, and they are looking to expand the services or programs that would be available to homeless people.
He suggested they’re going to meet within the next couple of weeks. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could advise the time frame for when he can report back to this Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, once we meet as a social envelope committee, I can certainly share that information with the Member and also the Members of the Social Programs Committee. Certainly, after we meet, we can do up a summary report of what has taken place.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During my Member’s statement I talked about home rule as an initiative that could be launched by this territory to demonstrate that our rightful place deserves to be taken within Canada.
My questions go to the Premier of this House. Would the Premier move forward on an initiative that demonstrates that the territorial government is in charge of its own affairs by moving forward on home rule legislation?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’m not familiar with this home rule concept the Member has raised. In our jurisdiction, as we’ve been working through the process with the federal government and with aboriginal governments and organizations trying to bring more authority here, what we have started doing in this Assembly is, in fact, occupying some of the areas that some would say have legislated authority within the federal government. We believe we have the moral authority to govern in certain areas, and that’s why, for example, the Managing This Land Strategic Initiative will play a very important role as we progress down this path of devolution resource-revenue sharing.
Moral authority doesn’t bring home the money, I’m sorry to say. The fact is that we need to go beyond moral authority to be in charge of our land, our water and our regulatory system. That’s what I’m talking about.
Would the Premier consider looking at a home rule act that prescribes that the territorial government is in charge of these lands with a relationship built with aboriginal governments? We could use that to build a case with the Prime Minister and the other provinces that we deserve the same rights as the provinces have in Canada. Would he do that?
This causes me to think of the movie Braveheart. Maybe we have a new Member with a nickname here.
The fact is that we have engaged with the federal government and aboriginal governments and organizations to go down the path of devolution resource-revenue sharing. We continue to do that. We continue to work with the federal government to secure the resources, to keep them in the North, and we will look at other alternatives if that process doesn’t work. The new relationship we’re starting to establish — or enhancing the relationships — with aboriginal governments is that we are meeting with them four times a year and bilaterally once a year with each of their groups of leaders within their regions. We’re enhancing that process to try and strengthen our position to come with a position from the North and have the federal government engage.
We know the federal government is prepared to move on this. It’s a matter of what’s the best solution. The fact is that we also know that the federal government is not prepared to treat us differently than other jurisdictions, that being provinces. What we’re starting to work on is coming up with the fact that there needs to be recognition of some differences within the Northwest Territories and territories overall.
We don’t need to recognize any differences, because this territory should have equal standing with every other province, and anyone who’s negotiating down from that would be selling us out. The fact is that the best solution would be an act to describe our position in Canada which is full partnership. When John A. Macdonald went out with his crew to negotiate with Britain about Canada having its own autonomy, it didn’t take 30 or 40 years like this devolution agreement. Even those folks who signed the Constitution and were branded as traitors in the United States were later regaled as heroes. It’s time we carve our place in history.
Would this Premier carve our place in history by launching an act that demonstrates that our ability and our position in Canada needs to be a partnership by legislation that demonstrates home rule can be achieved?
In the area of new legislation one of the things we have to do as a government is look at the area of authority that we have when it comes to legislation. We have to also recognize the Constitution of Canada and the process involved to have our jurisdiction status changed. As well, we know that sometimes we have to be careful what we ask for. If we ask for status, for example, to be equal to a province, there are some other issues we will have to deal with as residents of the Northwest Territories. So it’s more than just saying, “Stand up and enact something.” In fact, we must do the proper research and see what the best avenue is to take.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The courage of Danny Williams, the Premier of Newfoundland, is legendary. That’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for that courage. I’m looking for the lion to find his heart, to get out there and claw away at that federal government, saying, “We deserve our right and place in Canada.” I’m just talking about a constitution that demonstrates….
Question, Mr. Hawkins.
Would the Premier take steps to work toward enacting a home-rule law? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
