Debates of March 10, 2009 (day 26)

The daycare funding is based on the enrolment of the children in the daycare, similar to the school operation. We continue to monitor that. We talked about it within our department how we can improve in those areas where students may be missing for up to five days. I guess you can say the organizations get less funding due to that fact. But we will continue to look at that. Certainly we continue to re-evaluate our position, our programs within our current system, again, highlighting what kind of penalization is there for an organization and how we can improve in those areas. We continue to monitor that.

I just have to comment that rather than more review and monitoring we really need actions now. Our daycares have highlighted that this is a problem. Let’s not review and monitor; let’s act on those problem areas.

Are we considering legislation or at least setting standards for early childhood and child care workers?

I believe the Member alluded to the Early Childhood Certification Program through Aurora College. We do certify them in that respect. Whether it be the legislation to, I’m not sure what the Member’s referring to, but certainly those are the areas we need to continue to discuss. I’d like to hear more feedback from the Member on where he’s going with this. Certainly we’re open to ideas and suggestions within our department. As I stated earlier, we will be going through our next phase of business planning process, so we continue to look for options from the Members.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the issue of training our child care workers, it’s been highlighted in the past that we are not providing certified child care workers up to national standards. That’s the basic fact. We really need to address that. I appreciate the Minister’s willingness to do that. Finally, given the new recognition of the clear benefits associated with economic stimulus packages that focus actually on early childhood development and child care, what has the Minister done to increase funding this year since we’ve learned about the recession that is now impending on the Northwest Territories along with the rest of the globe?

Certainly early childhood and the language nests, more specifically, has been sunsetted by the federal government. We continue to pick up that program through our territorial government. That has been our commitment. We believe that it is an important piece of program that we need to continue with. New Initiatives Program increased funding in the early childhood. So those are the areas we continue to improve and increase our programming dollars. We continue to monitor those again. We will continue to work with the Members on updating them on current status and where we’re going at the next level. We’ll continue to work with the standing committee.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Transportation with regard to the Deh Cho Bridge Act that was passed in this government to build a $165 million bridge across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence. As part of that proposal, which was to look at the design, build, and finance and own the bridge by way of the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation in which the government will be responsible for paying the cost for what the ferry operation is today with the cost of the bridge crossing, which is about $101.8 million, and then they topped it off to about $2 million a year going forward. We also found out we’re paying for the cost of the tolls that have to be collected for that bridge. It was a proposal that was given to the Minister and Premier by the Gwich’in Tribal Council to look at the possibility of doing a similar project with regard to the Peel River. Yet in response to a letter we see back from the department and especially from the Department of Transportation it seems that they’re not too enthused to do anything like that. They are saying this has to fit within the government’s capital planning process. I’d like to ask the Minister why it is that other bridges built in the Northwest Territories cannot follow what was agreed to under the Deh Cho Bridge Act.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that the unsolicited proposal that came from the Beaufort-Delta was brought forward with a price tag and request to put it through the conventional capital process and that’s what we’re doing. I don’t believe I’ve seen a request to a proposal outlining the concepts similar to Deh Cho Bridge.

That’s exactly my point. Under the conventional system of putting this into the GNWT capital planning process, it ain’t going to see the light of day. Yet the Deh Cho Bridge was billed for $165 million by simply passing an act in this House. Will the Minister bring forward a Peel River Bridge Act so that we can do it under the same circumstances as the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation?

The Deh Cho Bridge Act was brought forward as a result of many years of discussions and a very detailed proposal. If the Member would want to bring a proposal for us to consider, we would be pleased to take a look at it. Thank you.

I heard a yes there, so there is hope for this project after all. Mr. Speaker, I believe that in order for this proposal to see the light of day, we do have to find a unique way of doing it. We may have to consider tolls. We may have to consider how you finance it, the cost for the ferry operations, the cost for the ice bridge going forward and also exactly how long a term of the lease there is.

Right now, there is a proposal being developed looking at the different scenarios of a 30 or 40-year lease commitment. Will the Minister consider looking at the possibility of looking outside the GNWT capital planning process and finding ways to finance these projects?

Again, we have an act in place. There was supposed to be some legislation coming forward in regards to a P3 project. I would like to ask the Minister to consider some flexibility in regards to how we look at these projects -- this is not the only bridge that is out there -- and to be able to have the flexibility to at least make an attempt to look at what our options are, looking at these types of big capital projects.

The Member is correct when he states we have to be creative when we look at the projects, and that is going to be the way forward, in my opinion.

There are a number of projects. There are a number of bridges that need to be built across the Territories, five fairly large ones in all told that we need to, at some point, address. Right now, the challenge is to find the financing. If there is a way to do the work and package it up so that it is attractive, affordable and viable, then certainly we would be willing to look at that and talk to my Cabinet colleagues and the federal government or whoever the sources of funding would be arranged through.

Up to now, Mr. Speaker, the request for me to process the submission that was made through the conventional methods, that is what I am doing. That is where the project has been forwarded to for consideration among other projects, Mr. Speaker. Up to now, we have not seen a detailed proposal nor have we asked for one, actually, Mr. Speaker. Until that time, it is difficult to analyze what the concept would be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, we talked about unconventional ways of building capital. That is what the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation Act is. It is an unconventional way of building a bridge for $165 million. All I ask from the Minister is to allow other organizations or bridges to be considered for replacement or being built under public infrastructure that we consider having that option on the table similar to what was in place with the Deh Cho Bridge in light of what is being considered for the Peel River Bridge.

Mr. Speaker, I am not one to discourage good ideas coming forward. I mentioned before that we would be willing to look at any unsolicited proposal. If it makes sense, if it is viable, if there is a way that we can identify the resources to do it or whatever that means may be, I would be glad to do an evaluation on it, having our people see if it is something that is doable, have the discussion with the other Members and talk to my colleagues about the potential of projects such as this. I don’t know where else I can go with it or what else I can commit. The Member has asked for something that I have already agreed that I would look at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. It gets back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about some research that has been conducted. It appeared in the Canadian Journal of Public Health in regards to chronic diseases and indicators that would suggest that the trend in northern Canada is not a good one, Mr. Speaker. We need to be doing more in the area of prevention. It is not too late to look at prevention. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if her department is aware of the research that has been undertaken. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for the question as well as providing me with a copy of the research. Mr. Speaker, I can advise the Member that this is an issue that is on top of the minds of everyone who is involved with Health and Social Services system. There is a lot of research done on that and the need for work that we are all aware, Mr. Speaker. In fact, one of the writers, Dr. Kue Young was in my office last month because he is very involved with the research in the North, especially aboriginal health. He is pursuing a multi-year, multi-million dollar grant program to do further research. He asked me and the department for support. I was glad to do that. The research is important. There is a lot of research in the books already. All of the previous Health Ministers have been talking about how, and including myself, we need to make a lot more advances on this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to hear that the Minister has been in contact with one of the researchers. Getting back again to my Member’s statement, the government spends millions and millions of dollars on prevention but the numbers just don’t seem to be corresponding to the investment that we are making there. How do the Minister and the department suggest that we get Northerners more physically active? What is the game plan going forward to try to get people who live in northern Canada more physically active? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think the Member should be aware that this is part of our everyday work. There is staff in the department. We spend about $2 million. We could use more, but we spend about $2 million within the department to promote active living and healthy living. That is what our front-line staff work on. We work with other departments like MACA and Education that work on that. I think the article that I read in Hill Times talked about the importance of investing in prevention.

In my meetings with the federal Minister of Health, we need federal Health to do a health prevention strategy and make some investment in this area because, ideally, you would want to spend at least 3 percent of your health budget on health promotion. We don’t have as much funding, but we do a lot of work with the money that we are spending. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have been here for five years. I know we do a lot of work each and every day on prevention. I know that work happens. What I am suggesting is that I don’t think things are getting much better. What I would suggest to the Minister and the government is we need to take more of a policy look at what we are doing. And I agree with something that the Minister said: it starts early. I think we have done a disservice to our youth by allowing curriculum to be taken out where it pertains to physical activity. Children today in the classroom or in a school in the Northwest Territories don’t get the physical activity that I had when I was in school. I know that. They get a half hour. They get 45 minutes a week. It is not enough, Mr. Speaker. Kids need to be more physically active. How is the Minister going to get children more physically active in this territory? Thank you.

More sporting events in schools, I know that the Minister of Education works on that area, but I think that the Member would agree with me that we need our people to eat healthier, exercise more, drink and smoke less. Our people drink more, and more heavily. We know the prevention strategy does work and the government has spent money on a non-smoking campaign that has worked. I think it is important to note that there are people in our community clinics who work on prenatal, on children, on healthy families, on Diabetes Strategy, even FSC is a preventive disease. That work is being done. I could update the Member on exactly what we do in that area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The numbers that I suggested are made in my Member’s statement. They don’t lie. The numbers are there. The thing I like about this research is that it is done over a five-year period. It is not just a snapshot; it is the whole nine yards, Mr. Speaker. Again, in terms of policy, what is the government going to do in terms of policy to get people more physically active in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

I realize this is a longitudinal study over five years. I can tell the Member that I just talked to someone with Healthy Food North who is actively engaged. We have groups in the North, health care professionals, who are involved in communities who are talking to the people, doing a study actually as things happen, not five years ago, an academic study, but working with the communities to see what their eating patterns are, what their exercise patterns are and what they can do in their everyday life with the traditional food and things they can do around their communities that could help them. There is work being done. I think the Member could benefit from some of the profiles. I think I should provide that. I would like to really thank the Member for raising this issue, because we all understand that it is an important issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for Minister McLeod, Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, in light of the recent announcement of the housing funding that is coming to the Northwest Territories, I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of future plans going ahead. Would his Crown corporation look at sitting down with the regional bodies in the Sahtu or any other region and look at how they can design and make use of these units that are coming into the Northwest Territories? Would the Minister be able to look at some future consultation with the Sahtu region?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of the Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The new funding has not been decided upon, as we all know. The agreement has not been signed yet. We are anticipating that these new dollars will certainly assist us in the area of housing needs across the Territories. We would like to have something brought forward fairly quickly. I don’t believe that is going to give us an opportunity to meet with all regional leaders. Certainly we don’t have a budget to travel across the Territories and set those up. Our plan was to have our allocations based on some of the needs assessments that have been done, and have a discussion with Regular Members and my Cabinet colleagues and see if we can have everything in place for the new fiscal year as that is just around the corner. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I say this in terms of the uniqueness and challenges in the Sahtu to construct houses. I am very happy. Yesterday the Minister had some positive exchanges with Mr. Menicoche in terms of the threshold communities like Colville Lake or Fort Good Hope. They need to come together and look at some of the challenges in terms of land and buildings, in terms of reading requirements to obtain a house here. That is why I asked the Minister if he would consider from his department to bring people together in the Sahtu and look at some of the unique challenges of constructing these homes here and see where people can actually build the houses that are empty right now in the Sahtu.

Mr. Speaker, right now our biggest challenges in the communities, especially in the area of public housing that has been raised in this House many times, is having our units brought up to a better standard, having our units a lot more energy efficient and to place a lot of these units so our targets or intentions are to focus on doing some of that work in the public housing area, and also to look at the programs we have so that we can deliver more opportunity for private houses in the communities. Those are the two areas that I have been really looking at for the last while. Along with that, of course, we are doing some evaluations, some tweaking on our programs in terms of changing our thresholds and looking at providing a better forgivable mortgage if that is possible. There are a lot of things that we need to do that I have raised in this House and that Members have brought to my attention. Those are the areas that we are focusing on. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the challenges that we have in our region is the short construction period by the time the materials get to our region. Again, in terms of going forward, if the people from the Sahtu could somehow sit down with the district office and list some of the concerns from the 2008 Auditor General’s Report -- the inspection, the construction, the material -- this would be very beneficial to the corporation. Again, I would ask the Minister in his reviewing of this budget, would he be able to get the leaders and people from the Sahtu to sit down in the district office and say this is how we see things, housing in the Sahtu?

Again, I don’t know if there is going to be opportunity for me to do that. I am sure the Member has heard all the concerns from his leaders and his visits in his communities. He probably could package that up just as well and deliver it to us for consideration, Mr. Speaker. I would certainly be open to hearing anything that the community leaders want to bring to my attention.

I have heard from most of the community leaders over the last while. We have had opportunity to have some discussions around housing with some of the aboriginal governments, the Beaufort-Delta. The visit gave us a chance to talk to the Gwich’in on some of the issues and also the Inuvialuit. We have had discussions with the Akaitcho people also, Mr. Speaker. I would be glad, if there are other aboriginal governments that want to provide input, we would certainly be open to have that discussion.

I don’t think time is going to give us that opportunity between now and the time we need to have our houses on the ground, Mr. Speaker. We have two years to deliver $104 million worth of projects. We need to be able to hit the ground running and have them on the ground over this two-year window that we have in front of us. We understand the direction is use it or lose it. So we want to be able to spend all the money. We want to be able to put them into where the projects across the Territories have the needs in the area of housing lessened. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. A final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly I will be sending over a housing package to the Minister in terms of the needs here. Again, Mr. Speaker, because of the uniqueness of the challenges in the Sahtu, hoping that over time here the Minister will be able to look at some of the unique challenges in the Sahtu. I think he needs to hear from the people in the communities who are actually right on the ground in terms of what challenges are faced here. Yesterday I received a call from an elder whose house was frozen up. They wouldn’t give any service because he was in arrears. This is an old man in Deline that Housing had a hard time with. Again, it would be more beneficial for the Minister to have a regional meeting with the leaders.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I don’t think I heard a question there. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was listening very attentively to the questions raised by the Member for Weledeh. I certainly support the issue of trying to support our daycares in any way possible. The fact is the support that they need is certainly a very worthy effort that they do taking care of our youth as well as providing education. Mr. Speaker, when I was listening to this, it kind of made me think of the argument municipalities used or often the argument that the territorial government uses which is when they go to Ottawa and they talk about base plus. I am just wondering in the context of providing stable funding that it is really important to help keep the lights on and the staff paid, has the Department of Education, Culture and Employment ever put a lot of work into developing a new formula based on base-plus funding for these types of agencies. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The funding we do provide, the contribution agreements to the daycare centres are to cover the operation and maintenance costs and also the rental costs and the mortgage. Those are the expenses that we cover for ongoing daycare operations here in the Northwest Territories. We do continue to provide the funding and whether it be the capital or base plus, that is the area of discussion that we can certainly have.

As I stated earlier, wherever we can improve our program, we are always keeping our options open. We are always improving our programs. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I’m very pleased with that answer from the Minister that they’re always looking for ways to improve their programming. I’m sure the Minister in some way will agree, in his own ministerial way, that is, that disruption in funding causes real problems. I’m sure in his own way, through Cabinet approval, he’d like to find new ways to ensure that financial disruption doesn’t become a reality. The fact is, it is the reality that if a couple kids start missing for one reason or another, if they’re out on the land with their parents or they’re sick at home here in Yellowknife, those types of things, that creates financial disruption to that agency for trying to provide services. When the Minister says they’re open to new ways, how serious is this Minister interested in taking a look at this base-plus formula and perhaps taking it to the Standing Committee on Social Programs and saying let’s fund them a new way, let’s create a stable market for these agencies so we can provide good education programs for our kids?

This Minister is very serious on this particular matter. It’s not only us that deals with the programming dollars. We deal with the federal government. We deal with our own internal FMB as well. They’re doing cost analysis. We continue to work with that. As I stated earlier, we continue to improve our programming dollars. This is one area we are seriously looking at on how we can continually provide important services without any disruption. We will continue to have the dialogue.

Those are excellent answers from the Minister because I can really hear his desire to make sure that they’re successful. Is there any philosophy based in the funding principles of these agencies that some of this money will be lost or lapsed, or is the program designed from the philosophy to make sure that they get as much money as possible that we put on the books for them?

Our goal is definitely to look out for the children at hand. We want them to succeed at life. Certainly throughout the North that’s our goal, the primary goal; to look after those children and their well-being and so forth. Certainly this area that the Member is alluding to, we continue to have the discussion on again improving our program. On a going-forward basis, those are the discussions we will be having during the business planning process and having dialogue with the federal government and FMB on improving our programs.