Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Whether or not somebody can be called a doctor, that is not the question that I asked the Minister. I am not sure why she had to say that again.
Anyway, getting back to the question about correspondence back to the naturopathic doctors who have inquired about licensing in the Northwest Territories, I’d like to ask the Minister, has the Minister signed any letter going back to the naturopathic doctors in terms of licensing in the Northwest Territories. If she hasn’t, when will she? Thank you.
Thank you. I can tell you right now he’s not going to like this answer, but perhaps he might understand if I tell him that I can’t necessarily write to everybody who writes to my office. There are some people who write to my office that has to do with operational and administrative issues. When it has to do with the regulating practice, often on many issues I write personally to all the MLAs that write to me, I respond to constituents, but there are issues where it’s operational and it is within my responsibility to assign staff to meet with them. So in this situation I assigned the staff to meet with her and that meeting took place in December, whereby she was given technical background about the state of affairs, which I believe was the right thing to do. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement was on the high price of the Food Mail Program and the high cost of food in the communities. It is a huge problem. Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Premier. Will the Premier work with the federal government to help ensure that the food mail subsidies are visible to the consumers of the Northwest Territories and effective in bringing down the food prices in the remote communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The food mail issue has indeed been raised here a number of times in past sessions and during this session. We worked and supported the work of many groups in the North to have that program reviewed by the federal government. It’s our understanding, through Minister Lee’s office, that they are going to delay implementation of the new program for a year, is my understanding. Thank you.
Thank you. Will the Premier contact the advisory board with the federal program to help him improve the Food Subsidy Program in regard to the costing and showing the prices right in the stores? Thank you.
Thank you. From our understanding, the review has been done. They were working to implement the new program that would see retailers dealing with the subsidy instead of through Canada Post and what we were informed was it’s October 2012 that they will implement this revised Food Mail Program and we will, of course, correspond with the appropriate authorities in this area around that implementation and delays on that. Thank you.
Thank you. Once it’s given to the retailers, we have to have something in place that’s going to police them in regard to the pricing and making sure the subsidy is getting to the people, especially in the small communities because it’s the highest cost of food in the Northwest Territories.
What else can the government do directly to help bring down the price of basic foods in the remote communities? Thank you.
Thank you. The area of the Food Mail Program, again, as a government department we’ve handled it through a number of departments in the past. At this point, through Minister Lee’s office she has the charge of working with the groups on this and any information or concerns that people have, or Members have on that and communities, we can pool that together and through her office make the connection and raise those concerns. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a good program, the Food Mail Program. The federal government is trying to help people in the small, remote communities and I have nothing but good to say about the program. Will the Premier commit today to working with the federal government in making sure that this program helps all fly-in communities in the Northwest Territories to make sure that the cost is being passed on to the people? Thank you.
Thank you. There are a number of other communities as well that benefit from the Food Mail Program. Of course, we will look at the implementation of this program and ensure that the appropriate people benefit from this program, and many times it’s been raised in here that it’s the cost of food in the communities that needs to be affected. We’ve shared those concerns in the past and we’ll, again, follow up with more communications in that area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier and I’d like to follow up with him on some questions that I asked last week in regard to the Auditor General’s report on the Deh Cho Bridge.
We’ve received a lot of information since last week and I am not asking questions to point fingers and assign blame at this point; I’m trying to clarify a couple of things, which I don’t believe I got answers to last week.
In February of 2008, the government changed regulations to provide what is a standard indemnity for the bridge project lenders and a by-product of that was the removal of the requirement to provide notice of that change to Members. There was a 14-day notice period, apparently. I’d like to ask the Premier again, why were Members not advised, even if we had to be advised after the fact, that this regulation change had occurred. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The indemnification that occurred is a normal part of business and part of that is the requirement to notify Members 14 days in advance, I think is the crux of the matter here, but that is a normal part of the process. There wasn’t an extra decision to not provide that. So it was just a part of normal process and through our many briefings to committee, Members were aware that this indemnification occurred. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier. I am not suggesting that this was not a standard indemnity. I think I mentioned that in my preamble. My concern is that there was obviously in the regulations an indication that notice was required and by changing the regulations and waiving the advanced notice that’s fine, but communication has been a problem in the four years or three and a half years since I’ve been here and I would have thought the Premier would have considered that communication of such a change to Members was a good thing.
I’d like to know, again, from the Premier, when the Financial Administration Act was changed in 1998, there was apparently, according to Hansard, quite a discussion about the need to provide this 14-day advance notice. So I’d like to know from the Premier, knowing that the notice was in there, knowing that this advance notice was important to Members, why did he not consider that we ought to be advised. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, there is no requirement through indemnities for providing Members that. The Members are getting hooked up on... I believe there’s a requirement over the $500,000 figure, 14 days’ notice that’s honoured. In the requirement for indemnities, that process has been followed. There wasn’t a change in regulation to make it, so that process was excluded. Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t believe I have yet today indicated that I think anything was circumvented. I’m trying to get from the Premier what the rationale was to not advise us. Yes, I understand that the notice period was waived, but was there not some consideration that maybe we might want to know about that? The Premier advised last week that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure was advised of these changes, and I believe I asked last week if I could see copies of the presentations that have been made to committee. I didn’t hear an answer. I’d like to ask him again if he would commit to get me that documentation from February or March -- I’m not sure -- of 2008. Thank you.
Thank you. As I believe I said, but I will confirm, that in fact when we responded to the standing committee it was a request to Executive to do an overview of this process on the Deh Cho Bridge Project and that was provided to committee and we’ll send it again. In there it referenced the fact that the Financial Administration Act was under review to look at these types of issues as future governments would look towards these types of projects or indemnifications.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for that commitment. I will look forward to receiving that document. I’d like to ask the Premier, he’s referenced that the Financial Administration Act has been under review. I know that I think there’s consideration for changes to the act coming up. I’d like to know from the Premier, considering that this is an issue for Members at least on this side of the House in terms of notification, is this an issue that the Premier would consider might be something that should be discussed between Regular Members and Cabinet in terms of a Caucus protocol to deal with this kind of communication?
Again, in our many communications -- and we have quite a number of letters that have gone back to committee -- this has been raised. This has been committed to look at through the Financial Administration Act. I think that question is mute. We have in fact been looking towards dealing with this subject matter.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement and reading the Negotiated Contracts Policy I again found some startling numbers to indicate the type of negotiated contracts that are happening in other regions versus my region of the Sahtu. I want to ask the Premier on some of the explanation as to why some of the contracts seem more favourable in some of the other regions versus the region that I represent. What are some of the things that take into... I know it’s very complex and that sometimes there are different scenarios for each case, so I want to ask the Premier in terms of the bigger contracts that I’ve indicated in my Member’s statement that were awarded through this process here.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Negotiated Contracts Policy is one that we do use throughout the Northwest Territories, as the Member highlighted. We have a number of other tools that we use, as well, and it was referenced in this House about the memorandums of understanding with a number of the Aboriginal groups around contracting, and negotiated contracts falls in that to help meet some of those targets. Some of the work that we need to do in those areas and in reference to the Sahtu is to get a better understanding of the businesses that would qualify.
I must say that, for example in the Department of Public Works and Services, just in the Sahtu in 2010-2011 to date, 84 percent of those contracts, the value of those contracts, have gone to Sahtu-based contractors.
Certainly I agree with the principles of the Negotiated Contracts Policy. Actually it’s a pretty good piece of work. I want to ask, to help out more in the Sahtu in terms of having this government do a workshop with the regional superintendents -- they’re the ones that sort of implement the policy, they’re the ones that take care of the policies -- to look at the policy of negotiated contracts with themselves and see how they can help the Sahtu businesses. I certainly think DPW has done a good job in terms of awarding the 84 percent of the contracts to the Sahtu businesses. This is awarded, I’m talking about specifically negotiated contracts.
I guess the overall target of the Government of the Northwest Territories, as raised in this House a number of times, is to try to build capacity in the industry in the Northwest Territories amongst our businesspeople, whether Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, birthright corporations and so on. We’ve done that and we use a number of tools. Negotiated contracts is one of those.
Some of the difficulty we have is when in the same community or region there is, in a sense, a competition. When you have two Aboriginal companies requesting negotiated contracts it becomes problematic. We use the tools available to us and tendering in the region is one of those that can be used. In a sense, when you just look at the overall percentage that we’ve achieved, at 84 percent shows that many of the companies in the Sahtu are quite able to compete and be successful in that environment. The Negotiated Contracts Policy itself, my understanding is through the regional office there has been workshops held in the past on that and we’ll look to see when it was last done and if that could be seen again.
Part of the other issue is I know Minister Bob McLeod through his shop and on the MOU has been working with the Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated to look at finalizing the work around the MOU as one of the tools as well.
I certainly agree with the Negotiated Contracts Policy and principles. I believe that the regional superintendents through the ITI shop, hopefully they will again have another follow-up workshop to look at the negotiated contracts.
I want to ask the Minister in terms of two examples here: a negotiated contract that was awarded here in Yellowknife and one that was awarded in the Beaufort-Delta. Certainly we have competitive businesses that were available in the region or in the city here. How did that process happen? Now he’s telling me the same thing in the Sahtu. What’s the answer as to how do we deal with this kind of stuff that the Minister is talking about? Can he justify these two contracts?
The issue of negotiated contracts is one that does come up right across the Northwest Territories. The challenge we have is when there are competing interests and when there is capacity to be able to bid the work. My understanding is there’s some work coming up, there’s opportunity and there’s some work in progress on a couple of potential negotiated contracts during the life of this government, if not already been dealt with. For example, the demolition of one of the schools is one of those areas, so some success in that area. But we will look at the Negotiated Contracts Policy, its application in the Sahtu area. Again, the difficulty becomes where you have more than one Aboriginal company trying to bid on the work. One of the other areas that we use is when we know that the end result, a public tender, for example, will not achieve a better result is another area that is looked at from time to time. We look at all of those areas in making a decision of Cabinet.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the negotiated contracts, like I said, benefit the local people. It builds capacity and helps the local economy. I’m all for that. I want to ask the Minister, when the negotiated contracts are in place, the work has been done, the work has been carried out, does the Minister receive a reporting list of all the benefits that this contract has provided to the local community and the region?
The departments that request a negotiated contract and those contracts that are agreed to, there is a reporting process by the departments back to Cabinet. So there is a report that’s required.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Justice in the area of family violence prevention and intervention programs. The Minister made a statement on Friday on the Victim Notification Program. Feedback from interest groups indicates the program could be “fantastic,” was the word they used, but they say no one knows about it. The Minister’s statement said only three applications had been received since May 2010, its launch. That’s pretty modest. The Minister’s statement said information is on the Justice website and that individuals interested in the program can ask for information. The problem is you have to know about it to ask or be a regular visitor to the Justice website; again, pretty unlikely. To start, can the Minister tell us what efforts have been made to market the program?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Within our Justice department we’ve developed some communication tools so that we can reach out to the communities. We’ve also, of course, highlighted here in the Legislative Assembly and want to broadcast throughout the Northwest Territories as well. People are aware that this Victim Notification Program is out there. As the Member indicated and I stated in the House, there have been three applicants to date. I’m sure we’ll see more once we roll out the program as well as the communication plan.
I think the Minister knows that the committee is highly supportive of this program but we sort of assume the basics are being covered. The one obvious target for information on this program is the Coalition Against Family Violence. That’s the starting point. I’m told the coalition was not informed of the existence of this program. That would be a key part of their strategy development. I’m asking this Minister how this could occur. Is there not a mechanism in place to ensure that your obvious partners are part of it?
If those partners that have been identified have not been involved, then we should involve them. We need to start reaching out to the communities, the organizations, the NGOs, those individuals that can relay the messaging to those victims that have been impacted so they can be notified. We’re doing what we can as a department to work with those communities, the 33 communities that we service. Through telephone or radio announcement, newspaper and so forth, those are the ongoing initiatives that we’ll continue to pursue.
I hope doing what they can do includes involving their partners. I’m told as well that the Coalition Against Family Violence was not informed or consulted on the development of the Domestic Family Violence Treatment Option Court Program. This in spite of the fact that the same GNWT Justice officials who participate in the coalition meetings are part of the separate team that came up with the court program. Two different programs, some of the same individuals, spending resources possibly at cross purposes with no cross consultation by the same people who are members of both groups. This is incomprehensible to me. Is it indeed true? Does this Minister know if this is true?
I think we’re at a point where there have been identified partnerships in the communities. We need to involve those partners, the potential partners that are out there. We need to work together. We need to have this as an effective tool so we can reach out to those victims as well. So those are the initiatives through the Justice department that we’ll continue to pursue to reach out to the 33 communities.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Short question. I appreciate the Minister’s recognition of the need to act. Will the Minister act quickly to meet with the Coalition Against Family Violence, receive and incorporate their input, and report back to Social Programs on the results obtained quickly?
