Mr. Chair, the offset is in savings in Public Works. There is no transfer of funding, but there are savings from closing units, because the savings are in the fact the units won’t have to be maintained by Public Works once they’re closed. Thank you.
Thanks. So I guess I have to read the sentence and ask for an explanation because I don’t understand. The Minister’s remarks said savings realized by PWS from closing the existing units will be used to fund $469,000 of the $898,000 increase to the department’s main estimates. Is that maybe referencing PWS as opposed to ECE? Thank you.
That’s correct. The maintenance of the units is budgeted in Public Works. So that’s where the savings are realized. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m done.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, we do have another person on this page for questioning. However, we’re going to take a short break and return on page 10-23 after the break. Thank you.
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I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we’re on page 10-23 and continuing on with questions we have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll focus my questions on the management and program support that negotiates, and monitoring training and employment provisions in the socio-economic agreements. What’s allocated here is just over $2 million. I’d like to ask the Minister how that funding is distributed throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. For that we’ll go to Mr. Devitt.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The management and program support is the regional offices or ECE service centres and as well as headquarters management, the director’s office is budgeted under the $2.041 million budget.
Thank you. In light of some of the recent studies in regard to the skilled workforce and some industry not meeting the standards for not having a skilled workforce that are outlined in the socio-economic agreements, would the Minister, through the management and program support, look at seeking more funding to address this concern so that we get more of the skilled workforce for residents of the Northwest Territories to get trained so that they can actually enter into some of these jobs in the industry, but also be meeting some of the standards that we set out in these socio-economic agreements. Right now I feel that the funding that’s allocated to these regional offices isn’t able to meet those requirements. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Through the SEMA agreement, Socio-Economic Monitoring Agreement, there are certain targets in place and with the three diamond mines there are some negotiations that are underway with the potential industries that are coming on board. We have been behind a bit on the target itself. So through time we’ve developed an MOU to work with the three diamond mines. I can refer to the three diamond mines because we’ve been working actively with them and in 2008 we signed on. We’ve made some progress in that area where there’s been some training programs. The Mine Training Society that we work closely with and also Aboriginal organizations. We have funding available, as well, through the Labour Market Agreement and the Labour Market Development Agreement. Federal funding flowed through the GNWT into the communities. There is also an ASETS training program that is available through Aboriginal organizations via the federal government. There is money available, it’s just that we need to integrate and coordinate with various organizations that are out there because we need to get ready for Beaufort-Delta, Deh Cho, and also Sahtu. Those are a lot of activities happening there. There will be in the Beaufort-Delta. We want to have a trained workforce. That is an area that I’ve instructed my department to work closely with those organization groups. Mine Training Society is the one firm that we need to be prepared. We want to capture the target percentage. At this point it’s very difficult to achieve, let’s say, within the next couple of years, but on the long-term basis we want to achieve that.
I’m thinking it’s the management support offices that negotiate with industry here, so, obviously, somewhere something is happening that there’s not enough dollars or not enough marketing or promotion to get our skilled labour force to get educated and get the training that they need.
These regional offices, I imagine they probably report to headquarters, but does the standing committee or SCEDI get reports from the regional offices on how dollars are being spent, and if they are being spent in the appropriate areas such as training, or is it just an office to fund an office for staff and forms but no dollars allocated for training?
That $2.041 million is strictly geared towards the PYs in the regions. That’s an area we will continue to monitor through our department. With the training, that is additional funding that we provide through our Education, Culture and Employment department on to the Aboriginal groups or agencies or those firms that are willing to work with us to initiate a training program, such as HEO or underground training, such as the Mine Training Society. We are actively partners in those areas and we have the funding to provide that. The Mine Training Society has the funding to provide that as well. We’ve been successful to date in those areas. We feel that we need to do more. We need to prepare for those three regions that I highlighted earlier. Not only that but there is Fortune Minerals and others that are coming on stream. The $2.41 million is strictly for PYs in the regions.
In terms of these regional offices and the management and administrative support, do they have a database of individuals or beneficiaries who have training or a certain type of training, so that when our industry is looking for a particular job they can go to the database and say we have X, Y and Z employees that have this type of training, let’s contact them and get them over to put in an application to get the training? Do these regional offices have a database for our skilled workforce?
I do believe they do. There are steering committees in place to deal with industry’s needs and also community needs based on their assessment. Through various agencies we’ve been working with as a department they have produced data on individuals that were trained, what year they were trained, and how many are available to work and so forth. We do have that information available through our department and our regional representatives.
Just in terms of the management program support, I was looking on the website and I couldn’t find any links to the specific program under the advanced education. Is there somewhere we can get more information? Where are the regional offices located in the Northwest Territories?
With representatives at the regional level I believe we cover all five regions. Other communities, as well, beyond the five regions. We can provide some detailed information on the data itself and where individuals can collect that information via if it’s not on the website where it is at. We will find that out from the regional perspective and from our department.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Page 10-23, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, advanced education, operations expenditure summary, $48.727 million.
Agreed.
Page 10-24, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, advanced education, grants and contributions, contributions, $35.349 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I need to ask here under this small community employment contribution, it’s gone down significantly from $339,000 to $160,000. Can I ask why?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Ms. Eggenhofer.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount has been reduced because $400,000 will be re-profiled from the Small Communities Employment Support Program to the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat to hire three regional language coordinators in Fort McPherson, Deline and Fort Providence.
Thanks for the information. So this Small Community Employment Fund, my understanding is that was established by one of the special committees during the 16th Assembly and I think this committee was revived in the 17th. Was this re-profiling of this $400,000 something that the Rural and Remote committee was aware of? Were they consulted before the decision was made to re-profile the money?
I’m not entirely certain how much information was provided to the committee in advance of the decision being taken, but I do recall it was in the business plan last fall and it was identified there as moving the $400,000. I think at the time the rationale for targeting the $400,000 was that the program wasn’t fully subscribed at the time and there was an opportunity to also access the Labour Market Development Agreement and Labour Market Agreement for funding to hire people in the summer. I think that was the reason for looking at that program to render the $400,000.
That’s good.
Page 10-24, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, advanced education, grants and contributions, contributions, $35.349 million.
Agreed.
Page 10-25, Education, Culture and Employment, information item, advanced education, active positions.
Agreed.
Page 10-27, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, income security, operations expenditure summary, $41.591 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I wanted to say this is a very important program. There are many people throughout the North who need government support because of their personal situations. This division plays a big role. However, based on feedback from constituents and listening to other colleagues, there are still some major issues here. Dignity is still missing in the treatment of income assistance clients on a too frequent basis. I’m not saying all the time, but more than it should be. People, frankly speaking, are treated like they are dirt. This is totally unacceptable. I know it’s unacceptable to the Minister. Our workers are consistently losing client paperwork on a monthly basis to where clients not only have to come in and re-establish it, but they have to learn to photocopy everything, which is not always an easy thing unless you happen to have a photocopier in your house or some piece of equipment that will serve, and that’s not typically true of many of our income support security clients. Often they have to go back to original sources such as the fuel distributor, the utility, their landlord to get original receipts because of this lost paperwork. Unnecessarily requesting a person is present when there are mobility issues, which engenders expensive taxi rides.
These are some of the issues that I consistently come up with or hear from clients about. I know the Minister has heard these sorts of things and knows what I’m talking about here.
Does this budget include or is the Minister planning a way to really try and make progress on this? I think many of our workers get into the business out of social concerns themselves, and yet somehow, after a period of time, their behaviour changes. Does the Minister see any way to deal with this situation?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I feel the frustration of the Member and I do get those requests as well. As you know, we are going through some changes and recommendations being brought forward from the office of the Auditor General. That gives us an opportunity to improve our programs. As you know, these are regulations that we follow. It’s part of the Auditor’s report that we have to be stringent and follow our policies in place. There are some areas that we can be somewhat flexible and I’ve instructed my department, when it comes to professionalism, we need to treat everybody with respect.
We’ve conducted, I believe, a couple of workshops and training for CSOs, client service officers. We know it’s a high-demand position. We know it’s a very stressful position to be in. We provide support as best as we can as a department. There are times where one individual is working on a caseload of 30 or 40 at times. It’s a high demand, high stress area. Sometimes they lose their cool but at the same time we remind them they have to be courteous, they have to be professional in the work environment. Due to that, there has been some improvement to ensure those are consistently followed through.
Members have shared their concerns with me and I did follow through with my department to provide training. We’ll continue to do that. This is an area that I am fully familiar with, and again, working within the office of the Auditor General, they reviewed our income support file, as well, and that will be before us soon.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate his comments there. I appreciate the focus he’s bringing to this, and I urge him not to stop or slow down. There are issues remaining out there, and I want to acknowledge that not all income assistance officers are like this. I do acknowledge that there are undoubtedly some people taking advantage of the system and that must be very frustrating, but we shouldn’t be making the people that really need our help – for whatever reason, it’s real – they shouldn’t be paying the price here. Thanks to the Minister for that, and I’ll look forward to more on that.
Just one last one. I see utilities have stayed the same as last year. I know the Minister is aware that electricity rates have gone up 7 percent this year and will over the next two years, with another 5 percent the year after that. Obviously, there’s a question here. I think we’ve heard about gasoline rates in Yellowknife and so on and elsewhere in the North. Is there a policy to try and adjust utilities here? Are we talking utilities for income support?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Devitt.
Mr. Chair, when we did the budget, we looked at actual expenditures and found that there was sufficient flexibility in the budget to cover the higher costs of fuel that the Member mentioned.
That’s great news. What would have happened last year with the extra dollars budgeted for utilities? How would they be reallocated? What’s the process there?
Mr. Chair, when we look at our variance reports, usually we’ll see some expenditure areas that are higher than budget, some that are lower, and we’ll manage across the department. So we don’t necessarily reallocate funds.
That sounds logical. What would it be called? A transfer of funds. Is that different than reallocation?
Mr. Chair, if there was a change in the budget, it would be done through a transfer. That’s correct.
That’s it, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Moving on with questions I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to, at the outset, say that I echo Mr. Bromley’s comments. I think the Minister has heard me say a number of times that I’ve encountered constituents who have had great difficulties with income support. It is an area that is difficult, and I appreciate that it’s a difficult area for the department to staff and to keep trained up.
But it’s such an important area, and I give credit to Mr. Bromley’s request for dignity for everybody who has to go there. I think lots of times that’s not what comes first when people are going to income support. It’s not what they feel when they first go there, so I would urge the Minister to do everything he can to try and change some of that culture within this part of his department.
Knowing that there are so many difficulties with income support, I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not there is any contemplation of a review of the income support programs.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The office of the Auditor General conducted a performance audit of income security just recently, spanning from April 2009 to September 2012. There has been a review, I guess, from outside, highlighting various aspects within the income security framework. The last changes we made were in 2007 after a review of our income security, so we’re just waiting for the outcome of the office of the Auditor General, what the outcome would be, and then we have to follow through with that. We’re just waiting for that, and proceeding once we get that information.
That’s good to hear. The Auditor General, in my experience, always does a grand job of providing excellent recommendations.
As the department underwent this review with the Auditor General’s office, I know that people usually discover things as they have somebody who’s poring over their books and their programs and so on. So does the Minister have anything at this point where he can say that, yes, there were some areas where they already know that there are deficiencies and that they will be looking at trying to correct?
I can’t really speak specifics to the recommendations that will be coming down. I believe it will be tabled this week. So we’re just waiting, and I guess we’ll stay tuned until it’s tabled. Then from there the detailed information will come out. In due time, we’ll have to follow through with their recommendations. It is before the office of the Auditor General, so I really can’t speak to it at this point.
I wasn’t asking for the Auditor General’s recommendations. Normally, when somebody is looking at things and you are looking at what they are looking at, oftentimes things jump out at you. I just wondered whether or not the department had, at this point, recognized that they have some deficiencies on their own without the Auditor General having to tell them that.
I wanted to ask a question with regard to the amount of money at the bottom of page 10-27 that talks to program delivery details. The amount of money for income assistance programs actually is going down this year, ’13-14, as compared to the current fiscal year. We’re in a situation where we’re in a fairly large economic downturn. The trend that I’m aware of is that the requirement for income assistance and the number of people using income assistance has been going up as opposed to staying steady or going down.
Does this amount of money staying steady, actually going down just a bit, does that indicate that there’s been a change in that trend? Or is it simply are we kind of on a wish and a prayer that things aren’t going to change and that we’ll need more money?
