Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s all within the budget figures that have been shared with the Members. I believe it’s $182 million for the total project costs. Thank you.
Thank you. To the Minister, yes, I am aware of those costs, thank you very much. I’m trying to perhaps provide some information to the public on what kind of an impact this change in project management is going to have on this government, because I think it affects our residents. So this $181 million, to the Finance Minister, could he advise me what kind of an impact that’s going to have on our budget as we go forward? Thank you.
Thank you. The Member is aware, fully aware of the steps we are taking in terms of making sure that the bridge project goes ahead and on solid footing to get the project complete. We are currently underway with some of those steps and we’re going to continue to work on those, and in due course we’ll be coming forward with a full plan and opportunity for a full public review and be made aware of all the steps that have been taken to make sure that this project succeeds. Thank you.
Thank you. To the Minister, I can understand the reticence to discuss specific finances at this time, but I did hear him say that they would come forward and I don’t want to ask the Minister for a response of in the fullness of time, but I’d like to ask the Minister when might it be that the public could become aware of the financial implications that this bridge project will have on our GNWT finances. Thank you.
Thank you. We’re collectively working to a time that hopefully by the end of this month we’ll be in a position to bring clarity to all. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for that answer and I appreciate that timeline of a month or so. Could the Minister advise how he intends to “publicize” this information? Will it be a news release? Will it be another media briefing or what? Thank you.
Thank you. First, of course, we’re going to continue to work fully with all the Members and then as the days move forward here through this month we’ll be mapping out the full communication plan as we nail down the issues and steps that have to be addressed prior to the end of the timeline. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the NGOs in the Northwest Territories. According to my information, there are 472 in the Northwest Territories. We spend about $20 million on NGOs and certainly these NGOs do a lot of hard work and there’s a number of NGOs around the Northwest Territories. As a matter of fact, I mentioned that there are 219 in Yellowknife and there’s nothing in the Sahtu. I wanted to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services how she can help the Sahtu communities, the health boards, the communities or the bands to establish NGO programs and how can we get those kind of programs such as family support or emergency shelters for women or children.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NGOs are just one form of organizing a group of people together with like-minded philosophies and goals and desires to advance the causes that they work for, whether they be environment or women’s issues or family violence issues or a whole number of areas that NGOs are involved in.
In terms of being able to access program funding or tap into government programs, this government considers applications from groups other than NGOs, because we are very well aware of the fact that small communities don’t necessarily have these NGOs. So we often work with local societies or band councils or municipal governments or regional corporations. In that regard we give as much consideration to groups that are not NGOs from communities.
The Minister indicated there are other sources that can be tapped into of NGO-type of funding by the band councils or regional corporations. I want to ask, I know there was a request by the band council of Tulita for emergency shelters to the Minister, but we just couldn’t get $10,000 for the community and now we have to wait again for another fiscal year. These type of situations that we run into we have to get our foot into the door with NGOs. I asked the Minister about working with the health boards in the communities to establish strong NGO support in our communities where we can get the type of services that we get in other regions to help our people.
That is a good example. I need to state clearly that the reason that application was not able to be approved was not because it was not coming from an NGO but because the funding for that specific fiscal year had been fully subscribed. We are considering that application for the next fiscal year, which is coming up on April 1st.
I can also advise the Member that we have had applications from other communities like Fort Resolution and we worked with people interested in accessing that funding to find a sponsor in that community who could apply for funding. We are totally able and we will work with the community to make sure they can find a suitable body. The band council is fine, and municipal governments as well, to have that application considered. We will be considering that for the next fiscal year.
I ask the Minister to also consider the complexities of NGOs when they have to request for funding, administer the funding and report the funding. One instance in the Sahtu where the band was running the drug and alcohol programs, there was so many complexities and the band did not have much support so they gave the money over to the GNWT and things changed in the funding and support and benefits. Would the Minister look at how to work with the small communities to have simpler programs to report and administer while staying within the guidelines to abide by the funding criteria for NGOs?
Yes, absolutely, and we do that already. I believe when we were in Tulita, the Member and myself, the grand chief in fact recognized us for having streamlined the funding proposal process and they were able to access funding. On a daily basis our staff does work with band councils or municipal governments to help them with the application process so they can access the funding that we offer.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do thank the Member for the reference of my home community of Tulita. I also represent four other communities in the Sahtu where there is certainly much need for these types of programs. For example, the family support centre in Hay River receives $430,000 to reduce the incidence of family violence. The Alison McAteer House receives $600,000 for their programs. The NWT Council for the Disabled receives $300,000. We want to look at those types of dollars for the Sahtu in order to coordinate these types of dollars for families in the communities to help with the goals and the safety of our communities. How do we do this type of work? That’s what I’m asking for all the communities in the Sahtu.
On that specific file the government has recognized that there are only a few shelters that are funded in a specific way. We recognize there are other communities without shelters that need outreach and support. Not everybody wants to be able to or wishes to take advantage of a shelter, but we have people in the communities who need the support on family violence issues. We have put in money to do the outreach work. I’m not sure where we are with that money for the Sahtu region, but I will make a commitment to get back to the Member as to how we are reaching the communities on that.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of the Housing Corporation. In light of the switchover from the rent supp from the Department of Education to the Housing Corporation, we’re still getting calls from our communities that depend on a fly-in income support worker who goes into the community to do the assessment and then flies back out. What we’re finding is people are still being charged economic rent. In some cases the whole community is charged economic rent until the income support worker arrives. I think that through this transfer back to the Housing Corporation I was hoping we could avoid this.
I’d like to ask the Minister of the Housing Corporation if there is a possibility for those fly-in communities that the income support worker has to fly in or drive in to, if the local housing authority could receive the rent supp so that they can administer it in the local housing authorities.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That has been a concern raised by tenants from a lot of the communities where they only have access to fly-in/fly-out workers. The whole transfer should, the local housing authorities should be doing the rental assessments by June. That’s our goal right now. However, if there’s an opportunity for some leeway given to those that are getting charged full economic rent, the LHOs are usually pretty good at adjusting the rents once they get the proper documentation. It is something that we have about three or four months now until the actual assessments go back to Housing. I can commit to the Member that I will follow up on it and see if there’s anything we can do in the interim until the rental assessment transfer takes place.
This problem seems to be occurring mostly in the Mackenzie Delta region where we have isolated communities, that income support workers are brought in because there is no local income support worker. I’d like to ask the Minister if there is a possibility that we can transfer the authority of the paperwork to the local housing authorities and then have the cheque cut directly from the regional office to those communities.
We already know how many clients we have. We already know who is on income support. We already know who gets the supp. I’d like to know if there’s a way that we could speed this up by transferring dollars from one department to the Housing Corporation from ECE to hopefully resolve this problem before the date the Minister mentioned of June.
We do have LHOs right now that are quite capable of taking over the assessments. However, we were hoping to wait until the June date to make sure we had everything set to go before we implemented. But if there is an opportunity for some of the LHOs to maybe take this on a little earlier, I can follow up on that and see if the LHOs are ready. I know most of them are, but we’ll see if the opportunity is there for us to do this. I will follow up on that.
I would also ask the Minister if he could inform the communities that this is going to take place. I believe the community of Sachs Harbour does not have an income support worker now. They used to have an income support worker but do not have one now and they have to bring someone in from Inuvik. Same thing for Tsiigehtchic, they have to bring someone in either from Fort McPherson or Inuvik. If they can find a way to work with these communities that are facing this challenge where the people are being charged economic rent and the problem is that hopefully we won’t have to evict anybody because this transfer has taken place. I’d like to get a commitment from the Minister to inform the communities and maybe have something posted so the people can realize that even if they are being charged economic rent, they won’t have to pay the whole thing unless the assessment has taken place.
That has been a concern raised by folks across the Territories, because Housing, according to their policies, are obliged to charge economic rent if the assessments aren’t done. There’s been an issue getting some of the assessments over from the income support workers quick enough. The LHOs have been charging full economic rent. However, they’re understanding the situation and they do make adjustments to the tenants’ assessments once they get the proper documentation.
I will commit to the Member that we will try to get the message out there that there is an opportunity for those that have been charged full economic rent waiting for the assessment from ECE. I’ll make the commitment that we’ll try to get the message out there that once the proper documentation is in place, then it will be adjusted.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The time for question period has expired. I will allow the Member a short supplementary question. Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also believe that we have to work with a lot of the housing authorities. From the information I saw, the majority of the housing authorities are in a deficit situation and a lot of it is because of the time that they get paid from ECE for the rent supp. I think, if anything, we can hopefully work with the local housing authorities and the tenants and get them out of the arrears they are in to keep the residents from being evicted from their units because of technicalities due to transfer of paper from one department to another.
There have been a lot of challenges with the transfer over. However, we’re quite confident that once the assessments are transferred back to Housing, then I think we’re going to see an improvement in a lot of the services we deliver; especially the arrears. There are a lot of people who have been accumulating arrears because the assessments are not being done quickly enough. So we’re working with tenants and we will continue to work with the LHOs, because this has affected their overall financial position and we’re quite confident once we move the assessment back to the LHOs, that will continue to improve.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
With respect to the service levels of therapy provided to clients:
How many hours of patient service are provided in each respective therapy area by the client’s community in the NWT and out of Territory for the 2008-2009 fiscal year?
How many therapy service requests are outstanding as of January 1, 2010, by community in and out of Territory?
Please provide details of the established service limitations and/or caps for therapy services such as injuries, speech therapy, stroke recovery, slip and falls, et cetera, and whether those limitations are established by the department, third-party insurers or Government of Nunavut.
Please provide the status of any agreements with Nunavut for these services, the amount of billing undertaken for the last three fiscal years and the amount of outstanding receivables related to that billing.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Would the Minister provide a list with descriptions of emergency funds that are available from each and every GNWT department for residents of the NWT, to assist them with costs related to an extensive infrastructure failure?
Would the Minister provide a document showing the redistribution of GNWT water and sewer funding to NWT communities which includes funds for the City of Yellowknife for future fiscal years 2011-2012 through 2014-2015?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier of the Northwest Territories.
Can the Premier please explain why the government has not yet implemented a residential school aftermath advisor in the GNWT?
Can the Premier provide me with an analysis of what such a full-time position, similar to the special advisor to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women position would cost?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on the Order Paper.
---Unanimous consent granted.
I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention one of my most passionate items that I’ve raised in this House, which is the Nahanni Butte gymnasium. We had some deficiencies, we had a plan to address them, and I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services at what stage is the repairs of the Nahanni Butte gymnasium to the deficiencies. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that has been of great concern to the community and to the Member. We have taken a number of measures to come up with a plan to rectify the situation where the moisture in the cement flooring has caused some swelling of the covering that was placed on the floor. We have now gone back into the community and have come up with a plan with the contractor. Several tests were done and it was found that some of the vents were closed to allow the slab to dry and get some of the moisture out of the floor. We have ordered most of the material, most of it’s on site, and as soon as the floor is ready, we will come up and have the contractor in the community to rectify the situation. Thank you.
Will the contractor do the same type of material replacement or is there an alternate solution to have a floor that adheres to the cement? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we had the contractor do an analysis. It was determined that there had to be a change in the methodology of applying the product that was going to be the finished surface. There has to be now a buffer in between it. There also has to be some allowance for airflow so that the system can be rid of the moisture that builds up. So it’s a different product completely from what we were initially trying to use for this flooring. Thank you.
