The concerns of small communities are legitimate ones. Yellowknife has the good fortune as the capital and the largest community to have by far the best services in just about every area. So we cannot diminish those concerns of the small communities when they are often struggling for basic services. The plan and timeline for this particular review, it will be there for the 17th Assembly to consider as they move into their business planning process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice and I want to follow up on some questions I had to the Minister of Health and Social Services last week regarding youth at risk in our communities across the Northwest Territories. I get very disturbed when I hear stories from parents who are having a very difficult time with their sons or daughters and they run into trouble with the RCMP -- in this instance got caught drinking alcohol -- and no charges are laid or no consequence to the young people; their alcohol is poured out.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice what action he can take in trying to address these opportunities to perhaps turn a young person’s life around instead of looking the other way. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular incident, along with others in the Northwest Territories, is under RCMP “G” Division. They have their own federal jurisdiction laws that they have to follow, and what I can do as the Minister of Justice is to sit down and meet with the chief superintendent to highlight the concerns that are being addressed here today. I’m sure it’s been addressed within “G” Division already and I’m sure that there are processes being undertaken.
With that, I can pass on the concern that the Members have risen to the chief superintendent and discuss what action needs to be taken. Mahsi.
I thank the Minister for that. Having alcohol open in a public place is against the law, Mr. Speaker, and it’s even worse if you’re a 16-year-old young person in a public place that has open liquor. The other side of this, too, is the RCMP encounter these young people and they don’t even hold them until their parents get there. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could look into situations like that as well where obviously young people are breaking the law, why aren’t they held by the RCMP until their parents can show up. Thank you.
Mahsi. That can certainly be added to our discussion. Again, it’s under the direction of the “G” Division through their federal legislation laws that they have to follow in dealing with 16-year-old, 15-year-old or 14-year-old individuals that may be drinking with an open bottle. But I can seriously take those into consideration during our discussion with the chief superintendent of the RCMP “G” Division. Mahsi.
Thank you. In that one instance it was public drinking, open liquor in public, and the same young woman has even admitted to stealing close to $1,000 from family to the RCMP and no charges are laid.
Again, I want to ask the Minister if he can sit down, perhaps himself and his officials, that the Department of Justice can sit down with the RCMP and have a look at the entire picture and see where it is along the line that the RCMP can have a positive impact on trying to make sure that young people’s lives don’t continue to be put at risk. Thank you.
Mahsi. Part of our overall objectives and action plan is to deal with preventative measures, not just our department, also GNWT wide, and the RCMP “G” Division as well. So those are issues we need to take at hand where a concern is being raised.
The individual may or may not be stealing money or materials and we need to prevent those things from happening, what can we do now to deal with those issues. I think formally we can deal with the top guy, the chief superintendent of the RCMP “G” Division and along with the Member and my Department of Justice to deal with this matter at hand and how we can find a solution. There’s always a solution to existing challenges. So I’m willing to take that on with the chief superintendent.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s offer to talk to the superintendent of the RCMP “G” Division, but the Minister is the top guy in the Department of Justice and these issues are real issues that are facing young people around the territory. The reluctance to take action by the RCMP -- and that’s why I’m speaking about it here again today -- to hopefully intervene in a young person’s destructive behaviour has to be at the forefront.
You know, we can’t afford to look the other way. Again, we need to ensure that we’re sitting down with the RCMP and discussing these items. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could commit to doing this sooner rather than later, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Mahsi. I agree that we are not looking away at that particular issue. Again, it’s a preventive measurement that we need to deal with, myself as the Justice Minister along with the federal law that’s before us. The RCMP “G” Division follows the federal law, as well. So we have to respect the Youth Criminal Justice Act as well that’s before us. Yes, the sooner the better. If we can have a meeting, by all means, let’s do that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The population of the Sahtu is about 2,645. Of that population there’s about 270 elders; 45 percent of our population is under the age of 24 years old. I wanted to ask the Premier, responsible for the Department of the Executive, if his department has ever done a study or analysis of what type of dollars would it mean for this government if you were to put in some of the essential, basic services in Colville, Good Hope, Deline, Tulita, in terms of bringing up some of the services that we have in other communities that have government programs that people take for granted.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the Executive, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work that we have done has been by line departments. For example, I know we’ve looked at the growing seniors population in our communities and the fact that we will need to address those through program reviews. When there are requests from Members of this House to look at extending our home care, for example, or our seniors facilities, as well as increasing our health services or expanding education programs. Each department then does a bit of work to look at what it would require to step up and make decisions on a yearly basis of what we could afford. We haven’t done, through Executive, a study to look at overall impacts across the North. We do use, for example, our geographic tracking costs to look at the level of services we have and the cost of doing business in our communities.
As the Department of Executive, when they’re looking at taking care of the people in the Northwest Territories and the services in the smaller communities, I want to ask the Premier if it makes sense that this department take the initiative to look at this, or is he quite satisfied by having the departments go line by line to see if it makes sense and if we could actually afford a nurse in Colville Lake or have the RCMP present in Colville Lake.
One of the things we’ve done in the life of this government is a Program Review Office that Executive is a part of. We look at how we are investing in our programs across the North and our communities to see if in fact we are delivering the level of service that is required, or how best to try to meet the demands that are being placed on us overall on program delivery in our communities. We have started that work. There is a fair bit of work that has been done that will help decision-makers coming up as to what areas we should invest in across the North.
I must say that as well as the Government of the Northwest Territories that started this Assembly, we went through an exercise of looking at a re-profile of some of our dollars. We weren’t as successful at shrinking our budgets that would then allow us to reinvest in some of these critical areas. That decision will again remain open and the possibility for future governments to make some key decisions on.
I certainly look forward to some of those discussions also. I want to ask the Premier: wouldn’t it make sense, I guess, coming back and having some of these analyses before we are done this Assembly, to look at does it make sense to put some of these key basic essential services or programs in some of the communities that do not have them versus some of the ones that are already there?
I guess what I’m looking for is, it’s been four years since I’ve been asking for an RCMP presence in Colville Lake. We’re always being told we have to deal with the fiscal constraint. So I want to see how successful the 17th Assembly will be in terms of putting an RCMP there.
All governments that I’ve been a part of, I know the Member as well, Members of this Assembly, we are all going to be challenged in every business plan cycle we go through with the fiscal restraints that we are faced with. The decisions that need to be made on key priority areas, how do we achieve them are going to always be debates as we go forward.
I will say, though, as we look at some of those questions that were asked of us, the Program Review Office has been involved with issues like medical travel, pupil-teacher ratio, inclusive school funding, telecommunications, harvester support programs, and evaluation of travel administration for casual health care staff, this is also being conducted. As we get that information we’ll be able to use that for decisions being made about where we put our key investments, what type of dollars will be required for additional investment, and where we would have to get those, as well. We will ongoing do that kind of work, and with the request being made here, we could put it to the refocusing government process to see if we will do additional work in this area.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Continuing along the same vein as my other colleagues with concerns of the cancellation of the Midwifery Program here in Yellowknife. My question to the Minister of Health and Social Services is built around the fact that why couldn’t we continue the program and do the review and how much the review will cost and why didn’t he talk to Members. To get it out right on the record: how much will this review actually cost to review the actual Midwifery Program that was being done here in Yellowknife?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We anticipate somewhere in the neighbourhood of $100,000 range.
I want to thank the Minister for that particular answer, putting on record that it costs about $100,000. With this particular money potentially being spent -- because I assume it hasn’t been spent yet -- who will be doing this review and when can we see a report done back into this House? Obviously, a report won’t be tabled or presented to this particular House as it expires within a few months, but that said, when is there a true expectation of this report seeing the light of day and by whom?
What is being aimed for is this will be ready for the incoming 17th Assembly to consider, along with all the other work that will be laid out in the transition plan as they look at setting their priorities and doing their own business plans.
Who will be doing this particular work and initiative in order to review the program being offered in the midwifery services that were being run here in Yellowknife?
This is a review of birthing services, midwifery services as it would pertain to a type of territorial system across the North. The RFP has yet to be concluded, as far as I’m aware, so there is no clear proponent that I can speak to or point to.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To date it is my understanding that the Program Review Office does not charge back for full accounting of reviewing of programs. It would then stand to reason to me, and to other Members potentially, that the Program Review Office be tasked to do this review of the midwifery services.
As the Member has offered to this House the cost of $100,000 that would go to an RFP, would it not make sense that we apply this $100,000 for the review back to the person actually doing the services, or I should say who was doing the services for the record, and allow the Program Review Office to do the review at the same time? If there was not money available for that to provide service money to continue the Midwifery Program, then it seems odd that there’s money to review it. We would have been able to save money on one hand and continue the service until we got a good quality program. With that type of comment, would the Minister be willing to reconsider this approach?
I don’t think that would be an appropriate use of the skill set of the Program Review Office. This RFP is going to be asking for folks with a background that can also not only look at what’s there but look across the North and be able to offer up some knowledgeable skill-based and experience-based suggestions and options of an expansion of services across the Northwest Territories. That is definitely not the role of the Program Review Office.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in follow-up to my Member’s statement, also about midwifery services in the Northwest Territories. It’s going to be slightly different. I’ll try really hard not to ask the same questions. I’m wondering if the Minister could give me a quick, Coles Notes description of the intended purpose and scope of the review that will be done on the Midwifery Program in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a petition tabled in this House a number of months ago in a previous session. The Minister of Health and Social Services of the day indicated that there was a need to take a more comprehensive look on a territorial basis at midwifery services across the Northwest Territories, and should resources be available, what would be some of the options for rolling out any potential expansion of those services.
I’m glad the Minister said that. I think obviously the review should be focused on an implementation plan or a roll-out plan. I’m not at all interested in having another report done talking about the value of midwifery services in the Northwest Territories. We already know that. In fact, the Minister’s department had a Midwifery Implementation Committee that was put in place in 2004-2005 which went through all the value of having midwifery services in the Northwest Territories. Quite frankly, we know the value. It’s a matter of trying to get them into the communities or regional centres. In fact, back then they actually identified positions and money. There were two positions identified in Hay River for midwifery services. There were two positions identified in Inuvik for midwifery services. I believe there were also positions in Fort Smith and Yellowknife identified for midwifery services. The problem is that we never did it. What I need from the Minister is a commitment that this will be an implementation plan on how to roll out midwifery services in the Northwest Territories as opposed to just another report saying yes, these are valuable. We know that.
The Member and I share something of a common history in this process. I was involved as well in the development of the legislation and the bringing forward of the resources and the plan to try to roll this out. The key is going to be to see, given all the demographics, birthrates, and all the other technical things you have to look at in terms of services and where they should be located, and are they justifiable in terms of economics and the service levels, to see how we do that. Contingent upon, as I pointed out last week, the fiscal constraints that we are working under as a government.
The intent is to have a plan that is ready, that stands the test, that is clear, comprehensive, then as we plan for the day, as we’ve done in other program areas, when there’s going to be some resources and that becomes a priority, then we’ll be ready to see how we put funds to that.
I thank the Minister for that. I think it’s important that its analysis is about implementation as opposed to whether the program has value. We already know that.
My question is still on this topic, and it’s specific. We know that there’s value in putting these positions in regional centres. We also know that there is significant fiscal restraint. This is something that the Minister has talked about over and over again. I’m not sure that I fully understand why, when we have competent professionals in our public service, people with lots of education and lots of skills, why we’re going to go out and ask somebody to do an RFP on this as opposed to getting some of our internal staff who are more than qualified and already have experience through involvement on things like the old Midwifery Implementation Committee. Why are we once again going out and getting contractors to do something that our staff are competent, qualified, and probably interested in doing?
The assumption is that the staff that we do have, skilled as they are, are fully engaged in doing the work that’s before them. This is going to be a very specific, time-sensitive, compressed process that we want to get ready for the 17th Assembly. It’s going to be difficult to take other key personnel away from the work that they’re already doing. The resources have been found to bring in some folks to provide that skill set and get this thing done in a timely way.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that response once again, but I am still concerned, like the Minister has said over and over again, about our significant financial restraints and limitations. During one of the fiscal updates in this House, the Minister did indicate that we were going to try and restrain and control expenditures from within. Once again, this seems like we’re going once again outside to have somebody else do a report for us when we have people to do it inside. I’m worried that this is going to end up being another report on a shelf as opposed to an action plan. If we have our staff involved, and committed and working, and it’s their plan, I see greater chances of success and rollout as opposed to having another contractor come in and go, you should do this, and it ends up on a shelf. To the Minister: can we have some guarantees that this is going to be a plan of action and how do we get our staff involved so that they’re committed to the project, as well?
The staff will be involved. There will be a whole number of people and groups involved as we pull together the information. The task will be for ourselves as legislators, those that are going to be here in the 17th Assembly, to look at the work as they consider the business plan as a government, their first business plan to see where this ranks on the to-do list.
I would also suggest that as we look at the next contracts document at the end of this coming year, that I would think you’d see a diminishment of use of those services, just given some of the financial constraints and the concerns that have been raised in this House about the reliance on outside contractors. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the need for a new school over in Trout Lake. I know that the needs are mainly in our small and remote communities; however, we’ve been spending lots of our capital dollars over the last four years building super schools and super bridges, and I believe it should be time for the priority of this government to start concentrating on the schools in our small and remote communities.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Education -- he’s heard the needs of Trout Lake, he’s heard me raise it in the Assembly over the past years -- what steps has he taken lately to ensure that the needs of Trout Lake and planning for a new school will begin. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
