Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Consumer Affairs has received a few complaints regarding some of the telephone services across the Northwest Territories and they were told that they had no regulatory role in this area. However, we will follow up on that and maybe communicate to the CRTC our concern with how the phone cards and the charges are made. Thank you.
I think if there’s one company charging a 25 cent surcharge on any call originating in the Northwest Territories, to me that’s called a monopoly. I don’t know what other word to use. Doesn’t our government have an obligation to go to bat for our residents when it comes to one company charging 25 cents a minute for people to call their loved ones overseas? I’d like to ask the Minister -- I know he said his officials are looking into this -- when might we be able to hear back from consumer protection on what the government’s next move might be? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will follow up with the department immediately and I’ll look to have some kind of response back to the Member and Members by the end of session. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve got no reason to believe that this isn’t happening. I’ve used these cards myself and there is a discrepancy between the minutes you get in the Northwest Territories when you dial the supposed toll-free number and what you get when you’re in southern Canada. I’d like to ask the Minister if the government, I guess it would depend on the findings of consumer protection, but would the government or can the government write a letter to the CRTC suggesting that the CRTC have a look at the ongoing issue with the surcharge to calling cards here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as a government we would be willing to communicate to the CRTC our concerns with how the charges are made against the people of the Northwest Territories. So I’ll commit to the Member that we will follow through with that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are addressed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Some years ago, Volunteer NWT was established. It’s, unfortunately, an organization which is now defunct. When the federal funding which we received to establish the organization went the way of the dodo birds, so, unfortunately, did the organization because GNWT did not follow through and replace the funding.
The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs held a Volunteer Summit last March and published a report in September of 2009. The intent of that report apparently was to gather input for use in revising the Volunteer Support Initiative Action Plan. We received correspondence in September of 2009 that indicated that a revised action plan would be out for consultation in the winter of 2010. Well, I believe, Mr. Speaker, that winter is over and I would like to ask the Minister when we can expect a revised volunteer support initiative action plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we were out consulting on a new initiative. I can assure the Member that the new Volunteer Support Initiative will be completed by this fall. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister for that information. I guess better late than never. I feel, and I think many Members on this side of the House agree, that volunteers are the backbone of our communities and, in our view, the government should be providing strong support, both moral support and financial support, to enable our volunteers. In the last couple of years that I have been here, we have talked about multi-year funding for NGOs, non-government organizations, to ensure better treatment with them, better communications and operations between government and NGOs. I know a program manager guide has been done, but I know there was also another document that was presumably being worked on that wasn’t just for GNWT employees but was for NGOs to put some parameters in place. I would like to ask the Minister how close to a usable workable document are we, one that is comprehensive and guides the dealings of NGOs with government and government with NGOs. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will consult with the appropriate department and get a timeline as to the concerns that the Member is raising and communicate those back to her. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I will look forward to that. I would ask the Minister to copy other Members because I believe that everybody is interested in this document which is presumably coming.
The Minister talked about a report being available in the fall. I know in May of this year we received another letter from the Minister which talked about Volunteer Support Initiative consultations which apparently are going to be ongoing in the next couple of months, I guess. The letter talked about some of the focus of the questions for these consultations as being promotion of volunteers, recognition of volunteers. I found the questions quite superficial. I don’t feel that they are going to get to the real needs of our volunteers and the support that they need. I would like to know if the Minister can advise in terms of these consultations. We are supposed to have a revised plan, but what is the focus? What is the goal of these consultations coming up? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we are hoping to develop an updated NWT Volunteer Support Initiative and use this as an opportunity to listen to the organizations out there and see what is the best way that we can support our volunteer sector. We do provide some support right now to some of the volunteer groups, but we are hoping to enhance or expand on this program through questions there. We are looking at this as an opportunity as we did with the Volunteer Summit using that as an opportunity to listen to those that are most affected by this. We took some of that information and took the next step. We are hoping to use this as a document to expand on the funding if the need is there, which I think we all believe the need is there, so that is our plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am really glad to hear the Minister say that we are going to expand the funding. That is great. I take that commitment. I look forward to that in the 2011-12 Business Plans. In order to effect any real change, I think that we have to go beyond sort of the questions that are out in this round of consultations. We have to get deeper into sort of the meat of the matter. I would like to know from the Minister whether or not there will be consideration within the government to reorganize it so that all the volunteer initiatives, all the volunteer programs fall under one department; preferably, in my view, the Executive. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we will have that discussion with the Executive. If Members and the public feel that this is the proper place to have the volunteer initiative, then that is a discussion that we will have to have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in regards to my Member’s statement, but also this issue I have raised in the last setting of this Legislature but it looks like nothing has been done with it. Again, these contracts that are being let in our communities are not being taken advantage of by local contractors. If anything, it is benefitting the regional contractors who have an opportunity because the way the contracts are being let, which are basically supply, ship and erect contracts, are an advantage to the larger regional contractors in regards to having to bid in multiple contracts versus the local contractors in most cases bid only at the local level.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Housing in regards to the tendering process. I gave the Minister a copy of the e-mail that I am talking about and he is aware of the issue. There are other avenues to be able to meet the same objective by way of invitational tenders in affected communities where those contracts are going to be let, have a negotiating contracting policy and also consider labour-only contracts which was the practice in the past which was helpful to communities. I would like to ask the Minister, why has this government not changed the practice that is being used today and knowing that this was raised in the House previously and that committee members have raised and have looked at those other options that would benefit small communities?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a concern that we heard and a particular example was a material contract for supplying material. There was some belief from some of the district suppliers that they were unfairly treated because they were looking for a territorial-wide issue. That has been resolved. A lot of local material supply tenders are going out. As far as the Member is concerned, there was a time when there were a lot of labour-only tenders that were let and it benefitted the small communities. Some of them have built up their capacity and are able to compete on the supply, ship and erect. Obviously, it is still a concern. This is a discussion that I will have to have with the corporation and see if we can find a way to resolve it so the local supplier would benefit from the tenders that are let by the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I think this is all in with the Housing Corporation but other government contracts. I think we have to debundle these contracts in such a way that people have advantages of taking the segments of the contract that meet their particular needs regardless if you are a plumber, carpenter, electrician, and I think that we have to support those local sustainable contractors in the community so that they can remain in our communities. I would like to ask the Minister in regards to the whole idea. I talked to the mayor of Aklavik. He mentioned that they had a meeting with Housing. They talked about the invitational tenders for the community of Aklavik for contracts for that community. Is that something that this government is considering looking at?
Mr. Speaker, we are willing to look at all options. We have to recognize, though, that cost could be a factor. If it proves feasible to do, as the Member suggested, and go to some invitational tenders, that is something we will have to look at. But the bottom line is trying to control costs and trying to do economies of scale so we can put more units into the communities and more maintenance work and repair work in some of the units. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in regards to the contracting processes that I would like to ask the Minister, I know I mentioned negotiating contractors in my statement but also I have supported negotiating contracts for projects in McPherson and Aklavik which were submitted to the regional office which I gave to the Minister. It was supposed to go to Cabinet in April. I would like to ask the Minister what is the status of those contracts. Again, that is another avenue that has to be used but again we are not hearing anything back from Cabinet on that. I would like to get an update from the Minister. Why is that practice not being used?
My understanding is the applications are complete. We have had a few requests from negotiated contracts and that is something that we’re reviewing at the moment. The negotiated contract, we have used quite a few of them over the past few years in some of the communities and negotiated contracts are there to help communities build up capacity, contracted book capacity so they can compete in an open market, understanding that we still have an MOU that we try to follow as closely as possible. So to answer the Member’s question, and I’m just going on here, but we have received the applications, the applications are complete and we’re just reviewing them before we take our next steps. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Also in my statement I talked about sustainable communities and the importance of this government to look at the social and economic benefits of these types of projects in our communities and ensure that the maximum benefit goes to the local communities because we are hurting in our communities with high unemployment, but more importantly we have to find jobs and sustain those jobs. So I’d like to ask the Minister exactly what the government is doing to ensure that we are sustaining communities with these projects and not seeing the money leave the communities and go to the regional centres.
Thank you. The government is making, the Housing Corp in particular is making more investment in the local housing building scene. We have, with the MNIs and the amount of repair work, we’ve got almost $50 million in repair work. I was talking to some of the local contractors in some of the other communities, they’re grateful for work, they’ve been very busy. I think more so now than ever with a lot of the training that the communities have had we’re seeing them start to take advantage and being competitive in the whole process and being able to get all the work that comes to the community, because we do have a lot of folks out in the community who are well qualified now and are starting to take advantage of some of these. So we continue to invest in the communities as far as putting homes on the ground and doing repairs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we all know, summer students have been returning to the Northwest Territories and certainly the summer student hiring window is very short. Many of the summer students strive and work as hard as they can to get an opportunity so they can bank enough money so that when they go back to the school in the fall they’ll have enough funds to get them through the year without any hiccups. But, Mr. Speaker, a parent brought forward a concern to me the other day and they were concerned about how the hiring process goes for summer students. In short, they said that they have found out that summer students are sometimes set aside for casuals. So in other words, the list goes from hiring a P1 summer student over to the casual list and they go to the P1 casuals and back to the summer student list, the P2s, then back to the casual list of P2s, and so on all the way down to P3 from thereon.
Mr. Speaker, the concern is quite simply this: why aren’t summer students put as a hiring priority by this government to ensure that they have the best opportunity to make some money so when they return to school they’ll be put on the best foot forward as we can certainly hope for them? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Summer students are given that priority. Thank you.
Thank you. Well, I’ve been to the Minister’s office and it’s the process as I described before just earlier here today. So maybe the Minister can clarify for the record that summer students hired in the priority 1, 2 and 3 are priority over casuals whether they’re P1s, P2s or P3s. Thank you.
Thank you. P1 and P2 summer students are a priority. We then go to aboriginal casuals and then we go to P3s. There’s really no issue here because every summer there is less than a 5 percent likelihood of an aboriginal casual employee being hired between the summer because we do give direction that all departments should be hiring summer students. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate the Minister for clearing that up on the record, especially because of the confusion both brought forward to me by the parent as well as the information I received from the department. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister commit to this House that he’ll make sure that all departments are clear on the hiring process to make sure that we follow the priority process he described here today to make sure we give our P1 and P2 summer students the best chance at getting a job? We want to make sure it’s clear to these departments. Thank you.
Thank you. The Department of Human Resources endeavour to make sure exactly that happened. We have Human Resources staff meet with all departmental staff on a regular basis to review their requirements for summer student hiring, and every department is aware of the process and also the priorities for hiring students. We will be continuing to monitor the summer student hiring as we go forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t hear the Minister would make sure that he sent out an e-mail or an information blast to departments who do manage this file. I mean, the point I’m trying to make is the information I got even from his department seems confusing and perhaps wrong, and he’s cleared it up for the record and I appreciate that. I just want to make sure that that information gets out to all the departments to make sure they’re hiring in the same manner the Minister has described today, because if that confusion is out there, people will be missing opportunities that they rightly deserve. Thank you.
Thank you. We have sent an e-mail to every department, we’ve sent it to every Cabinet Minister and we’ve sent it to every MLA. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on some comments and some questions asked by my colleague Mr. Hawkins on the rebate, a possible rebate for oil tanks. Before I do that I just want to applaud the Minister of ENR and his department for putting in the public awareness campaign on oil leaks. I think it’s quite a good campaign and I think they did a wonderful job. I also want to mention that in his response to Mr. Hawkins, the Minister indicated that we are investing a lot of money in alternative energy as a way to get off of oil, which I also think is great, but I think it’s important to remember that a lot of people have bought boilers or furnaces that operate on oil and they all have a lifecycle and the lifecycle for an oil furnace or an oil burner is significantly longer than that for an oil tank and these oil tanks are leaking on a more regular basis. We really want people who haven’t lived through the lifecycle of their furnaces to keep their oil tanks new and fresh so that we don’t experience leaks. So I think it’s important that we follow Mr. Hawkins’ recommendation and put in some rebate, but I’d like to encourage the Minister to consider, in doing that, rather than providing a rebate for replacing a single walled tank with a single walled tank, which is exasperating the problem, to consider looking at rebates for the higher quality tanks, the double walled tanks or the tanks with alarms, those type of things rather than just a rebate for putting in the same problem again and again and again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member that we want people to have the best failsafe products that are out there. I understand in Europe they do things considerably in a more advanced fashion than we do. The issue of double wall tanks, tanks with alarms to me only make good sense. I agree we don’t want to just replace a cheesy single walled tank with a new cheesy single walled tank. Thank you.
Thank you. So I don’t think we heard the Minister say yes, I think we heard the Minister say that he is going to explore the possibilities. I just want to suggest to the Minister that right now if he was to do some pricing to go get a double walled tank or a tank with one of the alarms in it installed, it’s going to cost you over $4,000 to install, whereas if you want to put in one of the bad tanks and replace one of the bad tanks with a bad tank it’s going to cost you about $1,000. So I’d like to encourage the Minister to have his department go out and do some additional research into the costing of these options and, once again, to not only suggest that they look into it, but possibly agree to put in some level of a rebate to encourage those individuals to consider the quality tanks that are going to avoid leaks in the future.
Thank you. I committed to the Member for Yellowknife Centre that we’d look at this and the timeline he suggested we agreed to, which is this coming fall to have something that would lay out and put a frame around this issue. I’d also point out that if we’re going to be spending that many thousands of dollars to replace a tank to keep a boiler going and then the boiler goes but you’ve bought this brand new $4,000 tank so you spend another $10,000 to replace the boiler, that we’ll be in a cycle that we’ll never get out of. We’re going to have to look at the cost comparison across the type of appliances and if we’re serious about looking at alternative energy, that will be part of our consideration so that we’re not just investing money because we’re in a cycle we can’t get out of with diesel equipment. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
