Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, decentralization has been a priority for this Assembly. My questions today will be for the Premier of the Northwest Territories.
Is the government expecting to announce any further government decentralization anytime soon?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we’ve pointed out, we’ve taken a three-phased approach to decentralization. We’ve now completed phase one and phase two and started phase three. I’m pleased to say that to date we’ve decentralized 124 positions from Yellowknife to centres outside of the capital, and we are actively discussing other opportunities for further decentralization under phase three. Through the leadership of the Minister of Finance and the Department of Finance, our expectation is that we will be able to identify to the standing committees as we undergo the 2015-16 business planning process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I’m glad to hear that we’ll maybe get some updates in the business planning session.
Has the Premier and his office and the Cabinet come up with this bigger plan of how this thing is going to roll out, considering the housing needs, the office space needs and how exactly these positions will be decentralized?
We always have a plan, so you can be sure of that.
As we’ve announced in the budget, we will be spending $21 million over three years to build 100 houses in communities throughout the Northwest Territories. We are also spending $783,000 for an additional 69 market rental housing units, and we’ve also approved in the Infrastructure Acquisition Plan for 2014-15 $300,000 for office space acquisition.
Our Department of Human Resources has implemented a Regional Recruitment Strategy to address the high vacancy rates outside of headquarters. With the 2015-16 Business Plan, we’ll be identifying which positions and how many positions will be decentralized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Premier has indicated that they have a plan in place and they’ve indicated some of the expenditures that are tied to that plan.
Is it possible for the Premier to share that plan with the general public and the Members on this side, because we haven’t seen that plan yet.
As it is our normal practice to brief the standing committee on all of these plans, we will continue to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just wondering if there’s a direct correlation. When I look at the housing expenditures, is that where all the positions are going?
It’s not a quid pro quo. We will identify some of the houses to go to remote communities, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we will put a decentralized position in there immediately.
As we go through the business planning process, which we’ll be meeting with committees early this fall, at that time we expect that we’ll be able to outline the positions that will be decentralized.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The past previous winter, I think, was on record as the coldest winter we’ve experienced, and likely as the trends towards global warming continue, likely we’re going to see more cold winters up here in the NWT. Of course, colder winters have an effect on people’s homes in terms of their heating costs. My question is to the Minister of Public Works and Services.
How does this government help NWT consumers control the fuel pricing?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do this in a couple of ways. For communities that are under the petroleum products division where we are providing fuel, we only charge to the individuals the cost of the fuel plus a commission plus the transportation of the fuel. In situations where we have, in the middle of winter, a sharp increase like we had seen last February, we use the Stabilization Fund that we use to run the PPD as a division to make sure that we keep the prices stable until after the winter season, and we use up some of that Stabilization Fund in order to do that.
I’d like to thank the Minister for highlighting at least one measure that the government is undertaking. It’s stabilizing the fuel prices.
What kinds of current measures are in place to help consumers meet the high price of fuel, and also, in the future, what measures would the government contemplate if indeed we have a higher than average cold winter up here and it, of course, affects the consumers and maintaining their fuel costs to heat their homes?
Another method that the department is using, the Department of Public Works, we are trying to become anchor tenants in a lot of the communities where it’s not feasible for individual companies to have a biomass presence. What we’re trying to do as we make our units more energy efficient, we’re introducing biomass in some of our buildings so that there is some volume there for an individual to be able to… A business can be created in the small community where biomass becomes feasible for them as the distributor into a community because they would have a good anchor tenant as in the Government of the Northwest Territories. This would allow to bring in, for example, the wood pellets at a reasonable cost so that they can resell those back to individuals that can convert their units from just fuel to a combination of fuel and biomass or just biomass.
I think it’s an acknowledged fact and reality that the biggest factor, in terms of determining the vibrancy of the economy, is just the cost of infrastructure, and one of them is in terms of the fuel prices. At some point government has to step in on behalf of, of course, its citizens, and so I wanted to ask the question: What steps is the government taking to standardize fuel pricing? The Minister has outlined some complementing initiatives such as biomass as one example.
At some point will the government look at standardizing fuel prices for the NWT?
The Department of Public Works is responsible for providing fuel, heating fuel to communities where there are no other individuals that find it feasible to provide that product to the people. So in communities where our department is providing fuel, we do that and it’s just at a cost basis. There is no actual increase to the charge of fuel other than just to get it into the community and provide it to the individuals. We do have some charge that’s in the Stabilization Fund. That is something that I had indicated earlier that that type of stabilization fund is then used to support the communities or provide funding to the communities where the prices go up sharply, and we try to stabilize the costs with that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question is in terms of fuel and its pricing in terms of the oil and gas industry. Surely the Minister of Public Works and Services, in terms of the department monitoring the fuel prices and its fluctuations, what future trends can northern consumers expect in terms of fuel pricing as we go into the summer, the fall and the winter?
The department does buy all fuel at wholesale. We do try to look for the best wholesale price. Having said that, I am not able to answer the Member’s question. I don’t have the information of what our anticipated fuel costs would be going into the future.
What we do is we have the trends that we recognize that fuel goes up and down on a daily basis and then slowly inching upward, but we recognize that the wholesale purchase this year compared to the wholesale purchase last year was substantially higher this year. Therefore, there were increases of up to 19 cents, 20 cents on a litre of gasoline, fuel products and so on this year over last year.
Unfortunately, going into the future, I don’t have that information with me, but I would be willing to provide that to the Member if I can get that from the organization that works on that for us.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Colleagues, before we go on today, I’d like to welcome my daughter Chelsey into the House. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has provided me with a briefing note. The Minister has provided me with some stats. The Minister has provided me with some further information, and oddly enough, all these three pieces of information conflict with each other. I’ve talked to the people in the community of Paulatuk and their information conflicts with all three pieces even further.
I’d like to ask the Minister of the Housing Corporation who is doing these particular assessments on these units, what is their qualification, what are their competencies and when were the assessments of these units in Paulatuk last done to know that they’re up to date, because the condition ratings given to me in these pieces of paper are not what’s actually on the ground, and I would challenge him to say that they’re being done by qualified, professional people who can make these proper assessments.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister responsible for Housing, Mr. R.C. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a lot of confidence in our LHO maintenance ability to do these condition ratings. We do have some training with them. The latest batch of condition ratings would have been completed as of March 31, 2014. Out of the 2,160 units across the NWT, we’ve got 2,146 that have been completed. They were completed as of March 31, and again, we do have a tremendous amount of confidence in our LHO maintenance staff’s ability to do these condition ratings as they have been doing them for a while.
I’m glad we have confidence in these people who deliver the program, because somebody who, obviously, we have confidence in said all the molding material was removed, area was treated, new material was installed, and by the way, that’s the fall of 2014. There is conflicting information with this work done. I’m speaking to people in the community. The Housing Corporation owns 75 percent of the housing units. There is nowhere else to go. They’re deplorable.
Will the Minister step this up and do an evaluation of all the housing in Paulatuk, because there are no options and nowhere to go, and people are living in unhealthy, unsanitary conditions there that need to be addressed now.
Two of our units in the community are very good, but I will commit to going in there and doing an assessment. We have people from our district office going up there all the time and working with the community, and some of the numbers may be different because the numbers that we use are the assets that we control. There may be some homeownership units that are in there that the residents might be counting amongst our units because Housing would have been responsible for building those units in the first place, but at the end of the day they’re homeownership units.
I will follow up and make sure that all of the information that we have is current and up to date, and I will share it with the Member as well as the MLA for Nunakput. Thank you.
Back to my very first question, I will accept that as an offer, but back to my first question. I want to find out what competencies that these people who are going to go in there and do these particular assessments. I suspect that the everyday person can spot mould, but are they aware of what type of mould it is and how dangerous it is?
We have overcrowding in that community and we have zero options. We own 60 of the 80 units in that town and there’s nowhere to go, but there are nine sitting empty with nothing being done, but your information provided to me says there’s only three. So we need to find out what’s actually happening on the ground. What is the Minister prepared to do?
As I said before, I’m prepared to confirm all of those numbers, any information. I’ll confirm the nine units, whether some of them are homeownership units that may have been just lumped together with our own assets.
As far as the mould issue goes and the competency, again, our folks on the ground, because there are more and more issues with mould, there are many remediations, and that we try to communicate to the residents of the communities, but once we identify a unit with mould, we either try to remediate it, or in some cases where it’s not being able to be remediated, we will dispose of the unit.
Again, I will confirm all that information and make sure all of the information correlates and I will share that with the Members. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re getting somewhere on this file and I want to be very clear. Will the Minister send proper professionals with appropriate credentials to go and assess those particular units, not send some secretary in there to walk out or some administrative assistant to walk in there, count heads, count bodies, whatever the case may be to say is your unit well. I want competent professionals that can go in there, assess them properly, develop a plan with the community and show them that the housing issues matter to them. Because right now I’m getting calls that there’s an oil spill in that town, people don’t know what’s going on, they see pads all over the ground, it’s springtime. That means that fuel could be going anywhere. We need to ensure that this community is safe and taken care of. Thank you.
I can assure the Member that this community is safe and is taken care of. As with every other community, there are small issues that we have to deal with from time to time. As far as the mould goes, our folks in the community are getting more educated on mould and its effects. If they see mould and they need a further opinion, we do have folks in the district offices now that have taken mould identification and remediation training. We will send them to the community as we did with another community in the Beau-Del where we heard in the community meeting that they had some issues with mould. The very next day we had one of our folks go in there that just completed the training, and I haven’t heard the latest out of that yet, but we’re looking forward to seeing that.
Again, I mean, I will make sure that in dealing with these issues that all those folks are qualified, and if there is some identification that they’re unable to work with, then they will call in the appropriate people. We’re not sending secretaries or administrative assistants into these units to do the condition ratings. All of our LHO maintenance people are qualified. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my statement and ask some questions of the Minister for Health and Social Services about infant hearing programs in the NWT. I know we have an Infant Hearing Program and I guess my question to the Minister is if he could explain to me so that I’m truly clear on what we have.
What is the content of our Infant Hearing Program and when was it first started in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A universal newborn hearing screening program was introduced as part of the GNWT’s Early Childhood Development Action Plan, 2001-2004. Stanton, the audiology department there has been delivering the universal newborn hearing screening program since June 2004, which is called the IHP, or the Infant Hearing Program.
This program is delivered at all birthing centres in the Northwest Territories and aims to identify infants with permanent hearing loss by the time they’re three months old and provide the necessary services to support communication development by the time they’re six months of age.
Since beginning the IHP, more than 3,650 newborn babies have been screened for hearing loss, and this is as of March 31, 2013. Since 2005, the IHP has tracked outcomes and produced an annual outcome indicator report.
As indicated, in addition to the IHP, children are screened for hearing impairments during routine development screening or the well-baby clinics throughout the Northwest Territories. So, currently all babies in the Northwest Territories have access to screening for hearing loss or difficulties in the Northwest Territories. All babies. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that explanation. I guess I’m just not exactly sure, my understanding is that this is a voluntary service that parents do not have to have their kids tested at birth.
So I’d like to know from the Minister, he said that the program runs in all birthing centres, but that presumably means that if a child is born, for instance, in Alberta, they have to go to Edmonton to be born, if they’re not screened there, when they come back here do we know whether or not they’ve been screened?
Can the Minister confirm to me or give me some assurance that every child in the NWT, any newborn child, whether they’re a week old or five minutes old, are screened for hearing loss? Thank you.
Thank you. Babies born in the Northwest Territories utilize the IHP program here that we have in the Northwest Territories. As far as NWT residents that are born outside of the Northwest Territories, I can’t say that they are receiving the IHP because I don’t know what programs exist in other jurisdictions. But I can say that through health clinics and health processes here in the Northwest Territories we do have well-baby clinics, and hearing loss is one of the things that’s assessed for parents and babies. So if somebody is born out of the Northwest Territories and comes back and goes to a well-baby clinic, they will get the same assessment. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. Some of the information that I have indicates that we try to identify children or infants with permanent hearing loss. My concern goes to infants who have some hearing loss, because some hearing loss is going to impact kids as much as permanent hearing loss.
So to the Minister, if we have a child with some hearing loss as opposed to permanent hearing loss, do we follow up with supports and with treatment? Thank you.
There are a wide range of degrees of hearing loss that children may experience. Regardless of the hearing loss identified, rehabilitation services are provided. So hearing aid prescriptions and other types of things, fitting. There’s also speech-language pathology which is available and will help individuals who have some degree of hearing loss. So there are programs available to youth, children and babies in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker, and thanks again to the Minister. My last question goes to the staff that he was just talking about, the speech-language pathologists and the audiologists. In my time here I have learned that we have great difficulty often in filling both of those positions because they’re very specialized.
These are hard to recruit positions and I don’t actually know the status today of the individual positions, which ones are vacant, which ones are not, but I’ll be happy to provide that information to the Member and committee right away. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being that we’re wearing these purple boutonnieres today to raise awareness about elder abuse, I have questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I also just want to thank him for supplying this to raise that awareness today in the House.
When we send some of our senior population out for medical services, whether they go to Edmonton or come to Yellowknife, does the department or the health authorities monitor our senior population when they travel outside of the Yellowknife or from the small communities to Yellowknife? How do they monitor their clients to make sure they are making their appointments or just being in a safe environment without any harm and making sure they get to their appointments on time in a safe manner and that they are taken care of from their point of departure to arrival back to the communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
