Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like my other colleague today, I’d like to speak about the Edmonton airport closure. The closure of the Edmonton City Airport has alarming implications on our medevac patients. Our medevac patients already face a very long flight from the NWT to Edmonton for help, Mr. Speaker. Now their transportation time from the airport to the hospital is getting much longer. To be frank, Mr. Speaker, access to timely health care emergency services is the single most important priority I have; as well it’s of great concern to many northern residents.
In the context of the changing of the airport, the Health Quality Council of Alberta has put the facts down on the table that need to be addressed. Medevacs are now adding additional travel time. For example, a 40-minute drive to the Royal Alex Hospital from the International Airport instead of the old five-minute drive from the Muni. Mr. Speaker, as well, a 31-minute drive to the U of A Hospital instead of the previous 13 minute drive. Simply put, Mr. Speaker, driving times from the airport will be longer for seven of the eight hospitals in the Edmonton area. As we all know, defining a hypothetical outcome may be unrealistic, but, Mr. Speaker, the fact is, common sense will tell you delays mean risk. Simply put, this could mean the difference between life and death.
Mr. Speaker, the issues before us are quite simple. How is this government dealing with the potential risks and what is their involvement on dealing with these problems? The Health Quality Council studied the impacts and they came up with a 75 page report with 18 clear recommendations. My issue is this: is the government going to ensure that it takes northern input and continues to advocate our position? What will be northern input and involvement from the Minister’s point of view, because northern input is critical for a long-term solution.
Mr. Speaker, recommendation number one was to establish a transition advisory committee. Mr. Speaker, I will hope that the Minister of Health and Social Services will tell us today that he is fully committed to being involved in this process and he will clearly designate someone we know, understand and respect, to be involved in that process. Mr. Speaker, I urge the Health Minister also to see this as an opportunity because, Mr. Speaker, change is inevitable, but let’s see this as an opportunity to examine the medevac travel protocols that we use now.
Mr. Speaker, we can’t put all the blame on the change that’s happening. It’s now our chance to look at how we issue emergencies, what type of aircraft we send to these types of emergencies, and how we make the final call to have a medevac.
Mr. Speaker, let’s see this as an opportunity and do something about it by putting northern health care first. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Ms. Jillian Huber who is a University of Regina social work practicum student who is doing her spring/summer project in the community justice division of the Department of Justice. I’d like to welcome her. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to acknowledge Ms. Maud Robinson-Spence. She’s my summer student and she’ll be working with me here at the Legislative Assembly and helping me do my duties as a Member for Yellowknife Centre. I’d like to thank her for joining the team and acknowledge her here today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Ed Jeske, who came to work at East Three in the 1950s and we’re fortunate that he stopped to stay behind in Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to recognize, as I said earlier, an old -- but not old in age -- colleague, Mr. Jeske. I’d like to recognize with Mr. Jeske is Vivian Squires, the executive director for the Yellowknife Seniors’ Society, and way up in the back behind me is Ms. Marty Brown, who is returning to Yellowknife after a long absence. So, welcome back. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a constituent of the Great Slave riding, Mr. Mark Bogan.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Chamber, I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve got questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services related to my statement that I made previously. The former Minister of Health and Social Services, for whatever reason, didn’t want to get politically involved in the decision to close the airport in the centre of Edmonton, and for whatever reason she lacked an interest in getting politically involved. So I’d like to ask the Minister, she -- in questions I had to her previously -- had mentioned that the interests of residents in the Northwest Territories were going to be protected because we had people who were part of this Health Quality Council review that took place recently and was just released. I’d like to ask the Minister how we were involved in the development of that report and who exactly was involved in that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Michael Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The involvement of the government and Health and Social Services was coordinated through the deputy minister’s office, who, as a former employee out of Alberta with extensive experience in the health system there, has sort of marshalled and coordinated all of our efforts. Thank you.
Thank you. Going forward I think it’s very important that the concerns of residents here in the Northwest Territories and of this government are fully addressed by the transition with these recommendations into a new way of doing business out at the Edmonton International Airport. I’d like to ask the Minister who exactly from the Department of Health and Social Services is going to be representing the interests of the residents here in the Northwest Territories in that transition. Thank you.
As Minister responsible, I will be overseeing it at this level and we will continue to use the good offices of the deputy minister of Health and Social Services. We are one of a number of stakeholders. We want to make sure that collectively we have the input necessary to ensure the best service possible and we will continue to do that. Thank you.
Thank you. In the interim, and I talked earlier about the closure of the runway that has instrumentation and flights, medevac flights, having to be diverted out to the International Airport. There have been 44 of them that I know of. Obviously, these recommendations haven’t been put into place. There are gaps in the provision of services for medevac flights that are diverted to the International Airport today. I’d like to ask the Minister is the government concerned about this and how are we acting upon the fact that these flights that are diverted out there, patients are arriving on the ground in Edmonton without those provisions in place. Thank you.
Thank you. We continue to be as proactive as we can be, recognizing decisions have been made. That report has just come out and there are 18 recommendations. Seven of them seem to be critical and to be acted on immediately. The remainder are seen to be that should be acted on prior to the final closure at the Edmonton International Airport. So we’ve had a long and storied history with what used to be the Capital Health Authority but now is Alberta Health Services. We have a good relationship with the services in Edmonton, but we have to recognize, as well, that there are changes. There are changes both in terms of this particular process; there are also changes in terms of access and ability of Alberta to meet our needs, and we are now having to plan for other locations such as Calgary or Grande Prairie. But throughout all this we are going to be working hard to make sure these 18 recommendations are implemented as soon as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that. Again, I think it’s important that the recommendations are acted upon in a timely manner and that the Government of the Northwest Territories is there in a meaningful way as a stakeholder in that.
I’d like to ask the Minister maybe just for a commitment to bring back to Regular Members of this House updates maybe five or six months from now on some progress on these recommendations, where things are at, to the Standing Committee on Social Programs. I know there’s an election coming up in October, but if there is any progress, I’d like to get a commitment from the government that they’re going to let Regular Members know about it. Thank you.
This is a critical issue and I share the Member’s concern and the need to keep everybody fully apprised. We will do that. We’ll ensure that before this Legislature is dissolved in August that we have an update provided to the Regular Members through the Social Programs committee. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Finance. I would like to thank the Minister at the outset for the fiscal and economic update that he provided us today, but I have a few questions with regard to some of the statements in his statement.
Initially, my first question goes to the announcement that BHP Billiton made recently that they plan to invest, along with partners, some $323 million in the NWT in the Ekati Diamond Mine as they go to expanding one of their pipes. I think that’s great news. Initially, I thought that was wonderful, we’re spending an awful lot of money here. I’d like to ask the Finance Minister if I could get an expression or an indication from him for the bottom line, because we know very well that once a mine spends money, that they then can claim it back and get 100 percent reduction on their taxes. So what kind of an impact is this investment by Ekati going to have on our revenues? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We believe this is good news for the Northwest Territories. Yes, there is the ability for corporations to write off capital investments within a specified period of time, but it also indicates that there’s going to be more diamond production, that there’s going to be, in all probability, possibly more staff hired. I don’t have a specific number at this early date what we anticipate the benefit will be to the bottom line, but this type of investment, this type of expansion will add, we think, somewhat to the mine life, but it will also increase and have a good impact on our bottom line. When we have that information, I would be happy to share that with committee. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister and I look forward to the information that he’s committed to provide. The Minister further on in his statement talked about the fact that we as a government and they as the Executive Council have set a cap of 3 percent spending on our future spending growth and we’ve managed to reasonably stay within that, I think, in the last little while. However, every year it seems we have supplementary appropriations, extra funding requests made by various departments. I’d like to know from the Minister what percentage of growth on an annual basis have we had over this past four years when we factor in all the supplementary appropriation requests which have come forward and have been approved. Thank you.
Those budget numbers are contained and we stay within the 3 percent cap that we set overall. Thank you.
I guess I need to ask the Minister a written question, perhaps, to show me exactly how we reach 3 percent when we started something just under 3 percent and ask for millions and millions of dollars. I wonder why we don’t go over the 3 percent cap.
I’d like to ask the Minister as well, he talked about finding critical investments, sorry, financing critical investments by finding partners in the private sector to assist us with certain large projects. It’s well known that our last effort with private partners was rather controversial and it’s unfortunately still ongoing. I’d like to know from the Minister what will be done to ensure that we won’t enter into an agreement with partners in the private sector that will lead us down the same path that we’re currently on. Thank you.
We’ve been doing a lot of work on a P3 policy and that work is coming before us and will be shared with a committee based on the work that’s been done to date, the feedback from committee and it will be that policy that will guide us as we move forward. The Member is correct; the $75 million that we have planned for 2012-13 is very modest, especially when you look at the $1.1 billion that we put on the ground over the last three years. So we’re going to have to use our collective ingenuity and creativity to come up with ways to supplement that. Things like the private/public partnerships are going to be a critical avenue to tap into the federal program that’s there as well as find private partners to help do projects such as the fibreoptic line. We have a hospital renovation that is coming with Stanton that is going to make the bridge look like a very modest investment and we’re going to have to work collectively to make sure we can fund all these particular initiatives. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for that explanation. I look forward to seeing the finalized P3 policy really soon.
The last paragraph of the Minister’s statement talked about NWT residents and businesses engaging in meaningful and frank debate. I was really encouraged to hear the Minister say that. I guess I would like to know from him what is the intent of that statement, what plans are in the works, and can I get a bit of a description of what’s intended. Thank you.
There’s been a lot of work done in the life of this Assembly on where we are going as a Northwest Territories, what people see the future is and in terms of a vision and some of the general directions. What we’re also going to have the much harder discussion as we look at government, the revenues we have, the expenditures that are upon us, the unrelenting requests for program expansions and the other pressures we have on us to try to manage our resources to stay solvent and to not go into long-term debt. So the discussion is going to be what we have talked about as a Legislature, for example, through things like the Program Review Office to look at efficiencies, but more importantly, what are the things government does, what should it do and what shouldn’t it do. We are expected to be, in many cases, all things to all people and just things like capital loans are just not sustainable with the revenues we currently have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services regarding the Edmonton Municipal Airport closure. I have questions of detail regarding the closure and the routing medevac flights through the International. I have been informed that the original deeding of airport lands to the municipality was made with a caveat that the lands could not be used other than as an airport. Since the issue of the municipality’s discretion to make this change is fundamental to this issue, will the Minister direct staff to confirm whether in fact this was the case? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that he does feel the same way as many of our colleagues do about this issue. I’ll look forward to that response. I won’t ask when, but I’m hoping he can do that as soon as possible, given the urgency of this issue.
Timeliness of patient transfer and treatment is obviously the core concern in this issue and I’m sure many Members here have been told of cases where minutes have made the difference in their personal survival and those of their family members. In fact, in the last three hours, Mr. Speaker, I’ve a spoken to two individuals who say they would not be here today if the Municipal Airport had not been available. Can the Minister say what definite information is in hand now regarding the impact transfer of the medevac routing will have on wait times for patient treatment after arrival?
We know that there’s added time to travel, that in some cases now we will need possibly additional fuel. We will have to look at alternate landing sites. We have to look at the recommendations of the report that was just released, to assess some of those recommendations. I’m sure they have potential financial impacts. We’re going to look at those, as well.
The bottom line is, there are decisions that have been made in Alberta by the Government in Alberta, by the City of Edmonton, that are within their jurisdiction and authority. They have made those. Now our responsibility is to collectively work together with them and other stakeholders to make sure that we have the best system that’s possible as a result of those decisions.
I’m certain that nobody here is a stranger to that 30 minute trip into Edmonton from the International Airport. Many of us have probably experienced the fog conditions, the snowstorm conditions, this sort of thing. Can the Minister say whether the report he’s had on this takes into account the impact of those sorts of conditions?
There are recommendations, for example, of specific sites that are going to be dedicated to medevacs being loaded and unloaded, the recommendation that they somehow synchronize all the streetlights going into Edmonton into the hospital so that when a medevac is on the way it can just be green lighted all the way down. There are those type of recommendations that are there, very specific, that have to be looked at once again by the City of Edmonton and by Alberta Health Services. Of course, we will be there to ensure and encourage them to take every effort to implement all those things that are going to make the process as expeditious and timely as possible.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for those comments from the Minister. I’d like to just confirm, I appreciate that the Minister is taking a close look at the report that’s been done, doing an analysis with respect to the NWT specifically. Would the Minister provide the results of his analysis of this report NWT-specific comments to us, to the committee?
We would be happy to share the results of that evaluation. We’ll do it through the Social Programs committee.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
