Good afternoon, colleagues. Before we proceed with the orders of the day, I wish to make a ruling on the series of written questions submitted by the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses, on Monday, March 4, 2013.
Mr. Moses and all honourable Members need to be reminded of and respect your rules governing written questions. Written questions may only contain one initial question and four supplementary questions. Members may not circumvent this rule by simply renumbering their questions into smaller subsections. This is contrary to the spirit and intent of your rules.
I must rule Mr. Moses’ initial series of questions out of order, as they did not conform to the rules. After I brought these limitations to Mr. Moses’ attention, he continued with “new written questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services’ which did, in fact, adhere to our rules and I will allow these questions to stand. However, I will ask Mr. Moses to resubmit his earlier series of questions in a proper format on a subsequent day.
I would ask all Members to keep these parameters in mind as you formulate future written questions. Thank you.
Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Speaker, few social issues are more visible in a community than those that stem from addictions.
Not one community in the entire Northwest Territories can claim to be free from the health and social problems caused by addictive behaviours.
That is why prevention and enhancing established treatment facilities in the NWT are priorities of the 17th Assembly.
Homelessness, poverty, violence and chronic disease all become part of the cycle of addictions that destroy lives and communities.
Our government spends over $9 million annually on counselling and treatment. The department continues to enhance existing programs to provide treatment and solutions to addictions. Unfortunately, many residents still suffer and are unable to break free from alcohol and drugs. Mr. Speaker, it is time for a different approach. We need to encourage more personal responsibility and provide more support to those who make the choice to remain clean and sober.
We want our people to stop suffering and to have access to treatment that works, so that they can become productive members of society and proud residents of the NWT.
That is why we have taken a stand and established the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness. Mr. Paul Andrew chairs the forum and its 11 members come from across the NWT. Members break into teams to hear from the residents who have firsthand knowledge about the damage addictions can cause. We want people to share their ideas about solutions that will work in their communities.
The forum has already visited Fort McPherson, Hay River, Enterprise, Fort Resolution, Hay River Reserve, Lutselk’e, Fort Smith, Fort Good Hope, Norman Wells and Deline to seek out answers to addictions issues.
Common themes so far are the need for parenting skills, cultural activities for youth, and on-the-land activities for families. We realize that we have to adapt these ideas for each community, as there is no single solution.
This is an important first step in implementing our Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, A Shared Path Towards Wellness.
We will hold discussions in every region of the Territories. The focus will be on what works for our people and our communities. We will talk to people who are sober, people who are struggling with addictions, and family members who experience firsthand what living with addictions is like.
Communities have developed effective practices and responses to addictions and mental health issues that need to be supported. I want to know what makes people stop drinking and want to live a healthy, fulfilling life.
The forum will make recommendations on the direction of community-based addiction programs by May 1st. The final report will provide advice about how to enhance our territory’s community-based addictions programs. I look forward to reporting its results to this Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Abernethy.
Mr. Speaker, the universal skills required to lead people, champion innovation and manage change are becoming even more important, given the GNWT’s complex and ever-changing work context. These skills combine with our staff’s technical skills and knowledge to make them strong, capable leaders. I am pleased to announce that our new Senior Management Competency Model will guide the development of management expertise within the public service as we work to achieve the 17th Assembly’s vision and goals.
The Senior Management Competency Model provides a description of the patterns of behaviours that are valued by the GNWT and are required for success as a senior manager in the public service. A senior manager means a job with titles such as deputy minister, president, chief executive officer, assistant deputy minister, director and superintendent.
Mr. Speaker, we all expect both leadership and management from the top levels of government. Based on those two qualities, the senior management competencies define how managers can be successful in their roles.
Leadership excellence focuses on personal and interpersonal conduct, how to strategically think about problems and strategies, and building relationships with stakeholders to achieve the goals and priorities that are important to Northerners.
Management excellence focuses on setting a plan in motion and getting it done. That means creating the conditions to allow people to achieve results and maximizing effectiveness and sustainability of our human, financial and environmental resources.
Mr. Speaker, creating an effective and efficient government is a priority of the Legislative Assembly. The new competency model supports the objectives of the NWT Public Service Strategic Plan, and provides a solid business foundation to transform our strategic human resource processes, from hiring to succession planning. Our expectations for senior managers will be clear and we’ll give staff the help they need to develop as leaders.
Training for senior managers on the new competencies is scheduled for March. Our next steps are to develop a competency model for all other GNWT roles that will work hand in hand with the ePerformance module of PeopleSoft. ePerformance, approved through the Department of Human Resources’ 2012-13 Capital Estimates, will streamline our manual performance evaluation process and support the performance management process for all departments and agencies.
Mr. Speaker, as we work together to build a strong, sustainable future for our territory, the Senior Management Competency Model is an important public service investment. It will support our staff to meet the needs of all of our residents as they provide critical programs and services throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment continues to improve its income security programs to ensure that residents of the Northwest Territories receive the support they need to tackle barriers they face to enter the workforce and meet their financial needs.
In April 2009, the office of the Auditor General began its financial and performance audits of income security programs in the Northwest Territories, completed in September 2012. In anticipation of recommendations coming from the audit, the department has already begun work to improve accountability and streamline services.
To highlight some of the recent changes we have already made, we improved upon the Child Care User Subsidy program by including it as an enhanced benefit under the Income Assistance program. We have increased child care rates, introduced shorter payment wait times, and are supporting part-time daycare. We have also made the program more flexible to accommodate our clients who work more than the standard work week. Mr. Speaker, we are very pleased to announce that, as a result, participation in the program has increased by 56 percent. These changes also support our early childhood development initiatives targeted at raising healthy children.
In December 2012, the department set up a new exemption for clients that receive Impact Benefit Agreement, Treaty and land claims payments up to $500 per household. This is in addition to the annual $1,200 exemption. Neither of these exemptions affects clients’ benefit levels. This change recognizes that these monies should actually benefit those who are affected by development and not penalize those at a lower income level.
I am also happy to announce a partnership with the Department of Justice to allow fully eligible clients to pay for criminal record suspensions as an income assistance benefit. This partnership will assist clients in attaining valuable employment and help to strengthen the Northern economy.
Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize the client service officers who deliver this program across the territory. These workers often come from the community and face enormous stress every day to balance the need for supporting people’s progress and the need to account for program expenditures. As a rule, they treat people with respect and dignity and diligently focus on promoting healthy and productive choices for their clients.
We recognize that we have more work to do to meet the needs of our income assistance clients. With the pending recommendations from the Auditor General and the improvements we are already making, I am confident we are on the right path to ensure we have healthy, educated people free from poverty. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Hay River Community Channel is owned by the Hay River Community TV Society and is licensed for their channel on an annual basis. The daily operation and funding to run the community channel, also known as Hay River’s Green Screen, is donated by the Hay River Elks Club.
The Hay River Community TV Society is a member of an organization – and this is where this gets interesting – called CACTUS. CACTUS stands for Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations, which was created to educate consumers to improve access by Canadians to two specific media services: local media, especially video and television programs, and media production training and equipment at the local level, especially video and television.
CACTUS approached the CRTC a little over a year ago regarding seven communities in Canada that are members of CACTUS and operated a community service channel the same or similar to the Hay River channel. They requested a review of small community channels, suggesting that the community content in smaller communities was being lost. Can you believe the CRTC passed a ruling that Bell Expressvu would take on these seven community channels and order them to run on Bell satellite? Hay River was one of those seven communities and now is being televised coast to coast.
The challenge is that volunteers like Gary Hoffman, who is with the Elks, have been doing this all on their own. It’s a non-profit organization; it’s pretty low key. If you go on the Hay River Community Channel you can play bingo on Tuesday nights. We have people contacting us, asking us to send them bingo cards down south because they’re not from Hay River. The Anglican Church tapes their services on Sunday mornings and plays it Sunday afternoon. Then there are community announcements which rotate on there. It’s kind of low key. Town council has a live feed for town council on Monday nights.
I’ve had friends and relatives from down south contact me for weeks, saying that Bell has been promoting the fact that there is a new Hay River channel coming on. They’re going, what’s going to be on it? Well, I didn’t know it, but it’s the community channel that’s going to be running and it’s gone live. They’ve already flipped the switch.
We have this amazing opportunity, and would you believe that the channel is 649? We have won the lottery in Hay River with this channel. The Northwest Territories has won the lottery. If we can use this 24-hour channel and we can get some staff into that office to run it, can you imagine how much we can publicize Hay River and the Northwest Territories? I’m obviously going to be asking the government for some money to get this going and get a paid position.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last December the Yukon Court of Appeal issued a very important ruling on the duty of the Crown to consult with First Nations. The Ross River Dene case concerned the Yukon court’s Mining Act. This act provides for a free entry system by allowing an individual to physically stake a claim and then record it. The officials have no discretion to refuse to record a claim unless certain technical requirements are not met. The court found that the Yukon government does have duty to consult with First Nations when recording claims in asserted traditional territory. This decision calls into question the Yukon’s entire mineral rights system.
Others have also questioned the fairness of free entry systems generally. In the NWT we also have a free entry system which is now governed by the Canada Mining Regulations. The Yukon decision should make us ask whether the federal regulations also fail to reflect the duty to consult with First Nations.
It is my understanding that the Canada Mining Regulations will continue to apply in the Northwest Territories after devolution, possibly in the form of mirrored legislation. It concerns me that we could be taking on legislation that does not reflect Aboriginal rights.
It is critical that mineral development in the GNWT involve consultation with First Nations, by both government and industry. We need to make sure our legislation reflect this and this could mean we need to make some changes. I hope we are prepared for this.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to highlight the work of a young Frame Lake constituent. Ms. Jazzy Hans is a 10-year-old student at J.H. Sissons School and she has taken the occasion of the annual Heritage Fair at her school to follow her Olympic dream.
Jazzy decided to do research about her role model, Christine Sinclair. After Ms. Sinclair’s performance at last summer’s Olympics, hopefully Members know that she is a spectacular Canadian Olympic soccer forward, that she plays for the Portland Thorns Football Club and is captain for the Canadian National soccer team.
Jazzy has been hard at work writing letters to various people in Yellowknife, including me, her MLA, and members of the soccer community in the NWT. As part of her research, she’s also asking Ms. Sinclair to come and visit Yellowknife. Jazzy’s Heritage Fair activities are a great example of project-based experiential learning, learning that positively engages our students.
Heritage fairs in the NWT are coordinated by the NWT Heritage Fairs Society, and the society is a volunteer-based organization dedicated to encouraging young people to explore and share the history of their family or their community, as well as the heritage of people and places of the Northwest Territories. The opportunity to take part in a heritage fair is enriched when students explore a personal connection to their heritage, like my young constituent, Jazzy Hans, has done. Heritage fairs present opportunity for students to create projects about persons, places, events and traditions of the Northwest Territories or Canadian history, culture and heritage.
These projects encourage students to develop good research skills using a wide variety of sources. Projects are intended to encourage students to pursue topics that have a meaningful connection to their lives. Research that goes beyond the use of books and the Internet is encouraged and it may involve various skills such as interviewing, collecting artifacts, photography and so on, including writing letters.
Over the years, heritage projects have proven to be a very engaging way to make learning meaningful. Families, multi-generations of community members and students all benefit from the conversations and the resulting projects and displays.
Students can participate at three different levels of fairs. The first is class, school or community, the second level is regional, and the third level is territorial. Jazzy, by taking part in any one of these, can be considered for the territorial showcase, which will be held this May in Fort Smith.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
I ask all Members to join me in wishing Jazzy good luck with her Olympic soccer hero Heritage Fair presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to touch base from what we heard yesterday in Committee of the Whole and what the Transportation Minister, Mr. David Ramsay, said during his opening budget comments on the northern portion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway system.
Admittedly, the Minister clearly has indicated that we have reached what he referred to as an important crossroad on this project. For the record, I agree. According to the Minister, the formalities of the environmental approval is imminent for the project to go forward, and with 85 percent of the design of the highway complete, the department has now sent a postcard to the Prime Minister’s office of an updated cost estimate of $299 million. I guess we better start ordering the party hats, or should we?
I stood in this House on a number of occasions now, and I said I would support this project if the math was sound and if all the risk was clearly laid on the table. I stand firm on this commitment to the people of the Northwest Territories. I wish I could rejoice with the Department of Transportation on this announcement, but I do have some grave concerns on the current math that is before this House, and I further have questions on the lack of the formal risk matrix of the project.
With all the excitement in trying to rush for the upcoming construction season, Minister Ramsay has failed to provide to this House the formalities of what is still unknown about this project such as:
With 85 percent design completed in preparation of this updated cost estimate, what if the remaining 15 percent of the highway is plagued with design issues or complications?
Does the cost-sharing agreement with the government take into consideration the already $12 million spent by taxpayers in doing our due diligence for this project?
Do we know for certain what total royalties will be paid to the Inuvialuit Land Administration for buying their gravel?
What should happen to the cost-sharing agreement with the territorial taxpayers if the project exceeds $299 million of that threshold?
Are we accountable for 100 percent of the overages?
All the public wants is a fair and reasonable presentation of all the facts before this government pressures this House to hurry on closing this deal. Therefore, it is with protecting the public purse in mind that I’ll be asking some of these fundamental questions to the Minister of Transportation later today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Previous programs to help businesses acquire renewable energy equipment and technology have been cut back. These programs promoted business prosperity and success, by cutting the consumption and high costs of electrical and heat energy. Given our reliance on fossil fuel, greenhouse gas production is also cut, an important bonus. But even with adequately funded programs, many businesses can’t take advantage because they lack the seed funds to go ahead. Programs provided up to $10,000 for projects of up to $40,000, but first you need to have the $30,000.
The savings available from improved technology are no mystery. Our Arctic Energy Alliance and equipment suppliers can document the savings to be achieved. There’s even a phrase, “the payback period,” the time it will take for the savings from bills to pay the cost of buying and installing the new equipment.
Other progressive utilities have programs to overcome the problem of business cash flow by upfronting the cost of the new equipment. The loan is paid back from the savings realized over the payback period. The customer continues to pay the same higher energy bill they would have anyway, and the loan is paid down by the amount the new lower differs from the average former bill. When payback is complete, energy bills drop.
This is just one example of the program innovations that are old news across the South, lessons waiting to be learned. Simple, progressive and, above all, tailored to the realities of doing business in the Northwest Territories.
One opportunity is a more proactive and progressive approach by our utilities. We are already bankrolling our wholly owned Power Corporation with massive taxpayer subsidies because it produces power at a huge loss. The Town of Hay River’s economic development coordinator was recently quoted as saying that high energy costs are the biggest disincentive to new business start-up and the biggest damper on business success. Families suffer because these high costs must be passed on in consumer prices.
Our new Energy Strategy is still in the works and there’s time to do the research, to cost the programs and include some new ideas. The last expensive review of NTPC took us nowhere, we’re still shovelling in taxpayer money. Without progressive action, it should be no surprise that as we wait for volatile fossil fuel costs to take off again, we will sink ever deeper.
I’ll be looking for a serious, innovative and helpful funded approach to a new energy program for businesses in the upcoming Energy Strategy. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to continue on today with some of the findings that I had read in the Mental Health Act. What brought me to there is how many people are slipping through the cracks in the Northwest Territories. When I read the document it raised a lot of questions and I tried to get some of those addressed in my written questions yesterday.
Some of the questions that came across to me that I wanted to make sure that our government knew and the people of the Northwest Territories knew about were protocols. What are our protocols in the small communities in the health centres when nurses, lay dispensers, RCMP, peace officers what they have to deal with when they deal with somebody who has a mental disorder in a small community. Specifically, somebody in an isolated community where it takes a lot of time to get into that community to get it addressed.
Another couple questions were in terms of psychiatrists. We heard yesterday that we have two full-time psychiatrists, one full-time psychiatrist who made up of a group of locums that come from down south, and do these locums understand what our protocols are in the emergency rooms, in the hospitals, in the health centres?
Under the Mental Health Act, when we talk about the interpretations of what a psychiatrist is, another question that came to me was whether or not the Minister had approved any qualifications of anybody that can become a psychiatrist and has he made any of those appointments to date or approved them.
Other things that I was really concerned about was the time in which a written report was to be sent to the Minister’s office for the detention of anybody that would be going to the emergency, to the jails, to the health centres; that a written report on the detention of certain individuals that would be under the Mental Health or that might be showing mental disorders and that they can be detained; and whether a written report within that 24-hour time frame was sufficient enough to detain that individual; and whether or not these psychiatric assessments could be completed within a 24-hour period, at the same time writing that report, and whether that needs to be looked at and amended in the Mental Health Act so that we are providing the best services and programs. I will have questions later today for the Minister of Health and Social Services on those issues. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It’s been well documented, and I’ll repeat it again, I certainly support the Inuvik-Tuk Highway Project as a project and I believe very strongly in the aspirations of the people of the Beau-Del region. I think they deserve their project in their own way and, in time, I have great confidence this project will come.
So when I talk about the Inuvik-Tuk highway I only talk about it as in the context of the work that still needs to be done. There are many details and many questions that still are outstanding, and no matter how we try to poke away and get to the facts or to the bottom of these issues, the threads keep unwinding and we still are not given the true story of the risk of this project.
I call the government to lay before the House and the people of the Northwest Territories a plain language document, one that discusses the risks, one that talks about the government’s plan to mitigate the risks. This is not a hypothetical situation. These are realities before any large, major project. These are jobs that they would do anyway. The people of the Northwest Territories need to know and understand what deal has the Government of the Northwest Territories brokered with the federal government.
We have to understand what happens if cost overruns do not meet the expectation of the $299 million on sale highway for the Inuvik-Tuk highway. This is not a deal held firm and held strong by targets, this is a deal where the Government of Canada will leave the people of the Northwest Territories hanging if cost overruns skyrocket.
I want to use the opportunity to harken the Members of this Assembly back to January 20, 1985. I received some documents from the Minister of Transportation that reflect this next point. If things are missing, I point the finger at the department for missed gaps. So I’m working, simply, with the information before me. It says, “DIAND shall be responsible for approving and providing funding for…,” and if you go to one of the clauses, it says, “the construction of a new bridge at the Yellowknife River,” and we’re referring at Fort Providence, so we’d be referring to the Deh Cho Bridge.
Well, if I go back to the first statement, “DIAND shall be responsible for providing funding for…,” you can see how well that deal worked out for us. We have a $202 million project that even they said in their transfer agreement that they would be behind.
There are many, many questions before this project. It’s not a question do we like the project, we just want to make sure it gets off in the right way. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to welcome a former resident of Inuvik, Mr. Dez Loreen. Welcome to the gallery, Dez.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also would like to welcome a former resident of Inuvik, Mr. Dez Loreen, who also was a student youth councillor when I was on town council at one time, and a very good advocate for Inuvik in terms of reporting the news as well as other information that’s happening around Inuvik, Northwest Territories. Welcome, Dez, to the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize today, probably no stranger to anyone, Mr. Kevin Wallington from Hay River, former town councillor now the big push on the Polar Egg initiative here in the North and a close family friend. You know he’s a close family friend when he’s a groomsman in both my sons’ weddings. I’d like to welcome him here today.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Today I would like to welcome, too, Dez Loreen. Welcome to the House, Dez. It’s always good to see people from back home. Also, Mr. Colin Eade, our good friend from New Zealand, our counterpart from New Zealand. This is his last day here today in the House. Safe travels back home. I’d like to welcome all visitors in our public gallery here. Thank you for taking an interest in our proceedings.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Quite frankly, I’d just like to ask the Minister how the Mental Health Act is being enforced in small communities where there is no psychiatrist and, in some cases, no nurses to complete a psychiatric evaluation or assessment, specifically in the isolated communities.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Mental Health Act is something that we, in the Department of Health, recognize we need to have a lot more resources to be able to address every single issue that can be covered under the Mental Health Act. The act allows us to do a few things within the act. Some with the assistance of a nurse, if there is a nurse in the community, with the assistance of a peace officer, RCMP. Individuals who are reported to have some mental health issues could be apprehended by the RCMP, evaluated by a nurse, if that is what is available. In the small communities we use the resources that are available to try to follow the Mental Health Act if there are mental health issues.
The Minister flowed perfectly into my second question in terms of evaluation put on by the nurses. In the Northwest Territories we have eight communities that do not have a resident nurse. When we come up with these issues dealing with someone with a mental disorder, what is put in place for those eight communities where there is no resident nurse readily available to do that assessment? What is the protocol for the communities that do not have a nurse, that can’t provide that type of assessment?
Previously, in the small communities, we had used lay dispensers to assist us in all of the physical health and mental health aspects. Those positions have been converted into community health workers. In those communities where we don’t have nurses, we have community health workers. Community health workers are used to try to address as many of the mental health issues that may arise in those small communities where there are no nurses.
Can I get a confirmation from the Minister that all the lay dispensers underneath the Mental Health Act were actually transferred to the new job term health workers, and whether these health workers are covered under the Mental Health Act to provide those types of services, and whether they’re going to amend that changing and add health workers to the Mental Health Act so that they understand they’re covered for any type of liability to provide any type of emergency services?
The main function of the community health worker definitely is physical health and the addressing of physical health. Mental health is an issue that sometimes the mental health worker would have limited knowledge of what to do in a situation and would have to draw on regional resources. In some of these communities, however, we have community wellness workers that can also be used to try to address people that are suffering from mental health issues in the communities. It’s very difficult to have all the right resources and all of the right communities to be able to address mental health issues.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
