Debates of June 5, 2006 (day 5)

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 12, Garnishment Remedies Statutes Amendment Act, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 1, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 4, 2005-2006, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes supplementary appropriations for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2005-2006 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that Bill 2, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2006-2007, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes supplementary appropriations for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2006-2007 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Good afternoon. Welcome to Committee of the Whole. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to consider Bill 3, Bill 4, Committee Report 3-15(5), and Bill 5. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. We’ll take a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

I will call Committee of the Whole back to order. We are here to start off with Bill 3, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act. At this time, I would like to ask Minister Bell if he would like to introduce the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would; and, with your indulgence, I would also like to do the opening comments for Bill 4 at the same time as I do Bill 3.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bill 3, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, and Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act, implement many of the recommendations of the Independent Commission to Review Members’ Compensation and Allowances. The report of this commission was tabled during the last sitting of the House. I want to take this opportunity to again thank the members of the commission for their thorough report and thoughtful recommendations.

Bills 3 and 4 are the first step in implementing the commission’s recommendations. Many of the recommendations not addressed in this bill will be addressed by way of regulation and Board of Management policy in the next year. Some of the commission’s recommendations, after careful review by the Board of Management, are not proposed for implementation. Among these recommendations which the board has not included in these bills are the proposed nine percent increase to MLAs’ salaries, the inclusion of a housing component in the northern living allowance, the inclusion of constituency assistants in the public service and a reduction in the maximum transition allowance from 12 to six months.

With few exceptions, Mr. Chairman, this bill maintains the status quo with respect to Members’ compensation and allowances. Specifically, Bill 3 proposes to implement the following recommendations of the independent commission:

recommendations three and four which link annual increases and MLAs’ salaries to the consumer price index as opposed to negotiated UNW wage increases;

$7,500 increase in the annual indemnity paid to the Speaker of the House to bring this position closer to the pay provided to a Minister;

the introduction of a $3,000 indemnity to the chair of Caucus, which is currently an unpaid appointment;

the replacement of the current penalty system for failure to attend meetings with a public attendance report to be tabled at each sitting of the House;

the replacement of the current non-taxable allowance with an incidental expense allowance for all Members, and dual household allowance for non-Yellowknife Members;

enabling legislation to allow Cabinet to establish additional allowances and benefits for Members of the Executive Council on the condition that the policies establishing these allowances be tabled in the House in addition to an annual report of all allowances paid.

Bill 4 amends the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act to allow a Member to opt into the pension plan after each general election on a go-forward basis, should they elect to do so.

The effective date of all these legislative provisions is the commencement of the 16th Legislative Assembly. The bills will not impact or benefit any sitting Member of the 15th Legislative Assembly.

It’s the opinion of your Board of Management that these proposed changes are balanced and reasonable given the nature of the duties and responsibilities of an MLA and the evolving social and economic realities of the Northwest Territories.

This concludes my opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. At this time, I would like to ask the Minister if he would like to bring in witnesses.

I would, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort in the witnesses, please.

Does committee agree?

Agreed.

Thank you. Minister Bell, can you introduce your witness, please? Thank you.

With me is Tim Mercer, Clerk of the Assembly; and Mark Aitken, legislative counsel, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments by Members. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would just like to put a brief comment about some of the provisions in this bill for the record, as I am fully aware that this bill will not be going through normal committee hearing process as it has been in the convention and practice. I just want to speak on not just the provisions in this legislation but the policy changes that will come about in the next Legislature that will help, I think, the work of the Members.

I made a presentation to the commission when it was consulting and taking input from the public. I had the occasion to meet with the commission members and I made some recommendations to the commission, some of which have been adopted and some of which have not. One of the things that I spoke for, and I know that a lot of Members have asked for, and I think it will benefit the work of especially the out-of-town Members, is to increase the constituency budget for out-of-town Members that would enable them to travel to communities a lot more often than they are able to now due to cost limitations.

Mr. Chair, I have to say, and I think a lot of Members here feel the same, one of the real privileges of being an MLA is to be able to travel to all of the communities and to meet our residents in the Territories, get to know them better and to hear from them directly what is on their mind and what the issues they would like us to work on. I believe that, in the interest of good government and in our democratic forms of government, there should be no situation where constituents in any part of the Territories feel that they don’t have as good an access to their MLAs as the constituents in ridings like mine, which I could go to every day of the year, unless I am travelling, and I have ready access to. I am in full support of increasing the constituency budget so that the Members that represent especially very remote communities like Trout Lake, Colville Lake or places where it is not convenient or not inexpensive to travel but that is the cost of doing business for the government. I know that we need to put a priority on good spending and be wise and economical in our spending. I am mindful of that. I think there are certain things that you can’t put just dollar values on, and access to their legislators by our constituents have to be a top priority.

I also want to put on record my support for increasing the budget to allow for more Pages to visit the Assembly. I know that, whenever even for the children of Yellowknife, in any of the Yellowknife schools, any time that they spend within this Assembly is a meaningful time for them. They will remember them. They always leave here with memories that will last them a lifetime. They always learn something about how our government works and how the procedures go. Often they get to meet the MLAs in person. Whatever we can do to inspire our young and for them to get to know our system of government and the legislators of the time, I think that is money well spent. I think these are some of the things that we can’t just concentrate on dollar value. I think it is something that will be beneficial to many more young people from small communities. They will be able to come here more and to get to know us more and to experience firsthand the seat of the government and the government building here. I would just like to state my support for these provisions. I think those are some of the highlights of this legislation.

I know that people out there might be more interested in how much increase we are giving in terms of our own salary and such, but I think it should be made clear that there is not a wholesale increase to the Members’ salary in any way. I probably should not venture in there because I don’t know. You can never come up with a good answer as to how much an MLA should be paid. But I think it is comparable to the management level salary in the government. I think the only difference we are having with this legislation is that instead of being connected to the collective bargaining through UNW negotiations, we will be tied to the cost of living index, which is a practice that is incorporated in other jurisdictions. I hope that people out there should be able to understand that. I think, for most reasonable people, that should be agreeable.

The only last thing I just want to make a comment and the recommendation that I made to the commission that was not accepted, was a suggestion to incorporate the staff of MLAs into the public service. I do respect the debates we have had on that. I do realize that there are pros and cons to the independence of operations of MLA offices in terms of whether they should be public service and union members or not. I have to tell you that I am still…It is unfortunate, from my point of view, that we couldn’t provide more comprehensive or any benefits to the staff that work for the MLAs. I think that it is a unique job. It is a good thing that a lot of people are interested in doing that job, but in this day and age there are not too many jobs in our society that work without any benefits other than what they would get normally under the GNWT health benefits and such. So it's very unfortunate that we were not able to incorporate that, but I do understand and appreciate the need for independence and the need for a sort of separate system of staffing and managing our staff that many Members felt that was more paramount.

I just want to, in the interest of keeping the record straight and just to put down what my thoughts are behind my support in general for most of the provisions that are here. I think, on the whole, it will go to some lengths at improving the work of the MLAs, especially for those Members who are from out of a Yellowknife riding, so let it be written in Hansard that the Member from Yellowknife does support the work and to do work to enhance the working conditions of MLAs from outside of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are my comments.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. General comments in regard to the bill? Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be speaking in favour of the bill with a couple of comments that, like my colleague, I would like to note for the record. As the Minister explained in his opening remarks, these are measures that we are bringing into play not for ourselves or this Assembly, of course, Mr. Chair, but as criteria and conditions I think that will improve the environment for our successors in the 16th Assembly.

Some of the amendments, as Ms. Lee has noted, will adjust for some of the variances and the discrepancies that our out-of-town or out-of-Yellowknife colleagues have experienced. I know that their voices were heard, and, I think, to a very large extent, supported by the more sort of urban, if you will, Members from the larger centres. In that context, Mr. Chair, I would like to extend my appreciation to the commission -- really, this was headed by Mr. Jake Oates, a former Member of this Assembly -- and thank them for taking this task to the people of the NWT and for bringing us back a report that we are able to deal with.

Mr. Chair, one other thing in this that has caused me some concern over my sort of term-and-a-half here has been our ability to be able to police ourselves, if you will, or monitor ourselves at least in terms of our attendance and involvement during our regular business. This is something that was reflected in a former or, with the recommendation on the books now, where certain types of unexcused absences could be fined. We have never been able to bring this to bear for a number of reasons. I am not going to go into it other than to speculate that this is a very political environment we are in and some things are done with a certain degree of confidence and comfort and others aren’t. What this bill brings in, though, Mr. Chair, is not a situation where we have to sort of be policemen amongst each other or seem to be punishing each other. It is a difficult thing to do in our environment. Rather, we are going to serve the interests of the people of the NWT in a much more transparent manner by asking our Speaker to table on a sessional basis, which would be at least three times a year then, the attendance record of every Member at duly called committee meetings and processes. That is where I think at least that aspect of our performance and our service as MLAs can be seen and then, of course, measured by anyone who cares to take an interest.

Mr. Chair, I guess I did have one question, and I am wondering if I may pose it to our witnesses now, where I believe, Mr. Chair, the types of increments or increases that are proposed in the bill are quite reasonable and perhaps even prudent and modest. There are some areas where we have found it appropriate, especially in the interest of Members from outside of Yellowknife, to increase their allowances. I am wondering if the Minister or his witnesses could give the Assembly some idea, perhaps on an annual basis, what the anticipated extra increase in costs is to running the Assembly under these new criteria, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Just some clarification of the question. Are we talking about the annual increases for Members’ indemnities tied to CPI and what that will approximately be per year, or are you talking about the total package of enhancements and changes here? I think we can give you some estimates of numbers. We don’t know the CPI going forward, so there are some unknowns here.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I am looking for some ballpark figures here where we do know that there are at least based on the three percent increment that I believe was allowed Members. This is taken from the Collective Agreement with the Union of Northern Workers. What is the CPI now; two and a half percent? Mr. Chair, my objective here is to be able to say to the public, okay, we think that increasing the costs for the Legislative Assembly under these criteria will result in a certain percentage of increase. What is that percentage of increase?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t have a forecast of CPI going forward, but maybe what I could say is that, in the last number of years, the last number of contracts, I believe the UNW has always negotiated a higher increase than the CPI. In my recent memory anyway, that has been the case, so I would think that this is probably going to amount to lower increases going forward than the UNW will negotiate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe I am looking for too fine a layer of detail here. There are also increments that the bill proposes to increase some allowances, the cost of doing business for Members at least outside of Yellowknife. Do we have some estimate of what the increment is there, Mr. Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do. The provisions contained in the bill we think are about approximately $20,000 per year more. The policy and regulation changes that we are proposing, and those are the things Ms. Lee mentioned, some of the high points, more Pages, going from travel for two Pages for each MLA to full costs for four Pages per year. We are improving the orientation programs for Members and we are also going to provide for five constituency tours every year. That will ensure that we don’t see what we are seeing now in some instances where Members have to make a choice about doing constituency tours as compared to writing newsletters or doing other things in their constituency. We think that is quite an improvement. But those policy changes, regulation changes, we think are about $200,000 per year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Braden.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the information. That is all the questions and comments I had, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Next I have Mrs. Jane Groenewegen.

That is okay, Mr. Chair. I think I will pass. Some of my questions were already addressed by the Member, so there is no sense in being repetitive. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Next I have Mr. Ramsay.