Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To clarify, I don't think this is an and/or solution we need to look at. Shelters serve a very important role. Housing First is a separate model. Both are equally important, and it's about being compassionate. Everything costs money, of course, but we need to think about the compassion and supporting Northerners and empowering them to make positive choices. That's what we are talking about today with Housing First. It's a proven model that works, gets people back on their feet, and solves a real problem in our community, in our capital city. That is what I am fighting for, and I hope the Minister is hearing me loud and clear and seeing the good work the city of Yellowknife is doing.
Just to clarify, will new construction be going on to create these new 30 spaces? Is it new construction or is it using the existing space? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Compassion is really important within the homeless population. I do adhere to the Housing First model, but I also recognize that within the North, we have other models that are successful, so I give credit to that. It's important to have a northern perspective on northern solutions. The final part to that question is absolutely yes, the units that we are going to be building for the semi-independent living will not be in the emergency shelter area. They are totally separate from the emergency shelter, and they will be independent units for homeless people, for chronic homeless people.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice, who conveniently is also the Minister responsible for Public Engagement and Transparency. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my Member’s statement, transparency and openness has been an overarching theme of political life in the NWT through the past Assembly and last fall's election. This Assembly has taken steps to recognize and address those themes. One important way we did that is enshrined in the commitment 5.3.11 of the mandate document that identifies a commitment to developing legislation within two years to establish an Office of an Ombudsman. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister if the Department of Justice has begun the work referenced in that commitment to develop the legislation to establish an independent parliamentary office of the ombudsman. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government is committed to fulfilling the priorities developed by the 18th Assembly, including exploring options for the creation of the position of ombudsman. The Department of the Executive and the Department of Justice are working together to develop options for the establishment of this position. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to go on with my questions, but quite frankly, I have to stop and ask for clarification from the Minister. Can the Minister elaborate a little bit more for us on what exploring options actually consists of?
I am pleased to do so, Mr. Speaker. There is work underway to develop materials to support a discussion by the caucus. We are having a summer meeting where this is one of the issues that is to be discussed, so we are exploring options. There are many different models in Canada. As the Member quite correctly pointed out, there are nine provinces, all of them except Prince Edward Island, I think, and the Yukon that have developed this position. However, the position is different in every jurisdiction. We need to look at options and decide which models we wish to follow. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I understand that a draft Ombudsman Act was prepared on behalf of the Members of the 17th Assembly and was tabled in this House. I think in that effort, there were probably a lot of options considered. Can the Minister advise whether the department intends to use that act to inform this work? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes. There was a draft proposal which was prepared in the last Assembly which I had the opportunity of reading, but I believe that the first step would be for us all to decide which model we wish to follow, and at that point, legislation will be brought forward.
As I mentioned earlier, there are many different models. There is the Quebec model for one, which is a very extensive, expensive model, and others that are more limited. The cost has been found to be between perhaps half a million dollars at the minimum and multi-millions of dollars at the maximum. It's to be determined whether we will follow the model, and I haven't reviewed that draft piece of legislation lately, but that is perhaps one of the models that we may follow, but that is yet to be determined. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and what I gather from the Minister is that there is a lot of work yet to be done. Mr. Speaker, how will the Minister commit to keeping Members of the Assembly apprised of the progress that this legislation is required? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Well, of course part of that will be determined by our discussions this summer, and of course, I will keep the House apprised. We will keep the House apprised as the legislation moves forward. We are hoping to look at a series of options in the summer, choose the best option, and that would be reflected in the legislation that we will bring to this House. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. As I stated earlier this afternoon, my constituents are concerned with the lack of information on this year's harvest from ITI. How does the department plan to engage with the communities to help manage the activity in the Deh Cho this year regarding the mushroom harvest? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The activities associated with morel mushrooms don't change from year to year. Last year, we spent a lot of time working with the communities developing materials for the communities and to assist in working with the mushroom pickers. Our regional staff have had several casual conversations with chiefs in the region, and we are willing to assist anyone interested in morel mushroom harvesting. We have brochures that guide us to morels in digital form and print as needed. Right now as the Member has stated, it is too early to say how the harvest will go this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. How is ITI building on the lessons learned from last year's mushroom harvest? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We certainly learned a lot over the years. The goal of ITI's work last season was to raise awareness among Northwest Territories residents and entrepreneurs to the economic potential presented by the morel mushrooms harvest. Accentuating the success of this initiative is the fact that $1.7 million of the $1.9 million generated in cash flow stayed in the Northwest Territories last season, Mr. Speaker.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources plans to introduce new forest management legislation during the life of this Assembly. How is ITI involved in this important work in terms of using our forest resources industry?
Last year in the 17th Assembly, we were planning to amend our regulations so that it would provide for morel mushrooms. We ran out of time, so this year it will be provided for by ENR through the updating of the Forest Act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier, I have questions for the Minister of MACA regarding highway rescue services. I direct my questions to him because MACA is heading the interdepartmental committee that's looking into this issue. I understand it is a complicated issue. MACA can say it's Health's problem. The department can say it's the authorities’ problem, so I'm not trying to place blame. I just want to get some clarification on these issues so we can figure out how to move forward. My first question is: who actually has the legislative responsibility to provide highway rescue services in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within the GNWT, there is no single department that has legislative responsibility to provide ground ambulance service for residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I guess this responsibility has been deferred to the communities. I was wondering: what formula does MACA use to determine what funding will be allocated to communities based on the amount of highway they have to service?
The department… We provide annual funding for community public infrastructure based on which community governments may use to procure equipment to support highway rescue and ground ambulance services beyond their municipal boundaries. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It sounds like the general money provided to communities is what they're supposed to use to provide the service. Speaking of the interdepartmental committee, I was wondering if the Minister could sort of elaborate on some of the work that they have done and how far along they are.
Mr. Speaker, the committee was formed in 2012. It had representatives from the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Social Services, MACA. They were formed to implement a strategy to strengthen our community based ambulance and highway rescue services. The strategy actually resulted in $1.63 million being provided to community governments to support their community based ground ambulance and highway rescue services, including upgrades, major repairs, or enhancements to existing mobile equipment or the purchase of new mobile equipment. Training which we found was going to be one of the major challenges for a lot of the communities, and we have taken steps to enhance our training programs to the communities so they can be a little more qualified at being first responders. There is a lot of work that has been done, and I think the next step is to try to identify the funding or find a way where we can provide the service or make it quite clear who is responsible for the service.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It sounds like the committee might be trying to focus on some legislative changes to identify who is actually responsible, which would be a nice movement ten years after those recommendations were made.
My question is: what can I do to help the Minister move this process along? Is there information I can bring back to the town? Is there some way that we can collaborate? Because Hay River does have 800 kilometres… It must have one of the largest stretches of highways, so it does affect the town quite a bit. What can we do moving forward? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things we could do to move forward on this. One thing I would like to see is we hear from the communities that it's costing them money and use of their equipment and that to get people out on the highway to rescue those that are in need, and one thing we know about the North is nobody is going to say no to anyone that is in need, so they will go there. What I would like to see is justification for the money that they say that they are spending going out, and then also, we need to work as a Legislative Assembly to try and meet some of our fiscal challenges so we can free up more money to put towards initiatives such as this, so there is a number of work we can do, some work we could do, and I will commit to the Member that from my part, I will see how we can move this forward, because the Member is absolutely correct. This has been something that's been on the books for about ten years, and we hear about it every time we attend the NWT Association of Communities annual general meeting. I will do my part to try and move this initiative forward, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I mentioned that I was going to address the homecare and daycare facilities here to the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. My first question is to the Minister. After reading and listening to the presentation yesterday, there are changes underway. There is restructuring and reintroduction of new subsidies, so is it sounds like the program for the day home and daycare is being revised. Can the Minister explain: when is that going to be done, and what are the main highlights or the main principles of the new program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, and I'm very glad the Member brought some his concerns with the daycares in the Sahtu, and following up to the statement that I gave in the House yesterday, we're looking at the fall in October to have these all put back into place, and it is so our daycares can actually sustain themselves. There is attendance based review, but also just funding that is going into utilities, the costs and maintenance, rent, and mortgage of these daycares. Those will all be coming into effect in October and I look forward to seeing the rollout of this program and we can start providing early childhood programs in the communities of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
One of the changes that I have heard is a concern back home, and I'm hoping and I'm getting the feeling that it is going to be in this new program. Can the Minister confirm that housing units will be made available to the day home that operators live in, to turn that into a day home facility?
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
That's a very complex situation. Anybody who is in housing and wants to provide daycare is in day home programs, doesn't currently fall under our criteria, and in fact, it would be almost starting up a business within the housing program. It's not currently in the criteria. I don't believe we will be looking at that as an option, but we will see, if there is, what other options that we can provide in the Sahtu. I know we have gotten some requests from members in the communities that would like to open up that daycare or a day home that live in public housing units, and right now, that just doesn't fall under our criteria.
Can the Minister clarify on yesterday's presentation his statement when, and I quote, we are also changing our approach to operators in government-owned buildings? What is the rationale behind that statement?
Yes. We do have daycare operators in some of our government buildings. Currently, we give them funding of up to 50 per cent. Under the new changes, we will be subsidizing their rents, mortgage, or their rent to 75 per cent. We already offer it to people that are doing it in their own buildings or nongovernment buildings. We should be having it equal right across the board, so any daycares that are operating in our government buildings, we will be subsidizing up to 75 per cent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question is: I ask the Minister to provide me with a briefing so I can advertise and market this new service this year within the community I represent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, we will be glad to provide a package for the Member. I know that we do have an early childhood consultant in the Sahtu region who has been working with various stakeholders to see what options we have to provide daycares in the community of Norman Wells. We will get that package to the Member, and maybe we will also see if we can set up a meeting with our early childhood consultant to see all the work that has been provided to the stakeholders and the options of possibly, if we can't find a building, looking at a day home that is not a public housing unit.
