Mr. Speaker, there is already a Frog Creek development and reclamation plan that has been done between the Department of Transportation and the Gwich’in Land and Water Board. I believe this policy directs the government to do that. They’ve already developed this. It’s a heavy document.
I’d like to ask the Minister, in light of the time limit that is coming close here where the government’s free access will be lapsed and where they’re going to start having to pay to use that pit, I’d like to ask the Minister, can you ensure that you are following the pit management plan, but more importantly, ensure that this government sets aside dollars for the reclamation of that pit prior to leaving that pit in regards to the free accommodation that you had for a number of years?
Mr. Speaker, obviously we have a plan, since the Member is holding it in his hand. Mr. Speaker, I’m not familiar and I can’t say with any certainty what the actual plan for investment in this pit will be. I’d have to look at the situation, talk to my officials, and see where and when reclamation will be looked into and provided for for this pit. If that falls under our responsibility, then that will be part of our plan. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons I also raise this issue is because the residents of the communities are concerned that a lot of material is leaving the pit with no monitoring and also a lot of these are government contracts. Again, there has to be a better job of monitoring this site and, more importantly, the possibility of having some gates or something in place. I know that the government doesn’t like that, but I think we have to do something to protect the remaining gravel resources that are there. So I’d like to ask the Minister, in light of the pit management plan which identifies certain obligations that people have when they go in there, and to ensure that this government is upholding those obligations in the plan, I’d like to ask the Minister if he would also look into that to ensure that they are abiding by the plan and, more importantly, stop the people from basically misusing that pit. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will certainly commit to doing that.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke earlier about the statement by the Premier. You caught me off guard; I have to find my notes. I wanted to follow up with the Premier on the intent of the advisory committee and the work that is going to be done relative to an anti-poverty strategy. I guess I was remiss in my initial remarks in not congratulating the Premier for his statement and for actually bringing forward that we are going to finally be doing something. I would like to express my appreciation and I think the appreciation of the Anti-Poverty Alliance for that. I would like to put a bit more of a box around this particular project. If the Premier could advise me if it is a goal of he and the Executive and of this Assembly, I hope that we would have an anti-poverty strategy by the end of this Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated in the opening comments with this advisory group, we want to look at developing a discussion paper that would address the issues of defining and measuring the progress on poverty and also look at pulling together our current programs in developing strategic direction to reducing poverty and identify areas for further action. We are hoping to have that done within the life of this Assembly. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, that is good to hear. I am really pleased. The goal is to have something by the end of this Assembly. That is great. I do want to reiterate that I feel we have, particularly through the Anti-Poverty Alliance partners, a group of volunteers that are ready to work. I am a little concerned by sort of the process that the Premier is describing that we are going to be advising. We are going to be developing a paper. We are going to be consulting. We are going to be measuring, providing direction and then maybe implementing. It seems to be a very long process and I think we are making things too bureaucratic. I would like to know from the Minister whether or not we can kind of shorten this process and basically make a working group instead of a bureaucratic advising and developing and measuring group. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, we need to come up with a paper that this Assembly could look at and direct as to what could be implemented as we go forward, looking at this initiative and what then could be undertaken for implementation and then get down to work in that area once the Assembly has agreed that it would be wise to move in these areas. There have been times before in previous Assemblies, as well, where a working group was established and some great work done, but when it comes back to this Assembly, there aren’t the resources to do the implementation. It is important that we don’t get too far ahead of that side of the fiscal equation as well. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I do agree that we definitely will need resources to probably do some of this work, but I would hope that we are not going to not do the work because we are worried about getting the money. One of the things that the Anti-Poverty Alliance group suggested was that the very first thing we needed to do was to develop a definition of poverty. We do not have one. I guess I would like to ask the Premier how we can develop a discussion paper if we don’t first develop a definition of poverty. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, that is why the discussion paper. That would be one of the first areas that we would look into, is what the definition would be, because there are many different definitions out there used by... Even all the different jurisdictions have different levels of definition when it comes to the anti-poverty strategy that they do have in place if they do. That is one of the first pieces of work that we would have to do once we have pulled this group together. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is my point, that we do not have a definition and there are many across the country. I don’t believe that we can develop a definition by discussion. I would like to ask the Premier again if we could have a working group to identify a definition of poverty first and then develop a discussion paper to try and figure out the strategy. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if splitting hairs on definition of what the working group versus advisory group. We do agree that is one of the first pieces of work that needs to happen. Once we have that, then we can set about to doing the rest of the work that is required to pull this together and present something to Members of the Assembly. The advisory group, as we established it, would be able to look at that initially and then we could put the rest of the resources and pull in the work together. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, a single mother had been evicted from a property in one of the residences in Yellowknife Centre. They were evicted by the landlord. I guess it was under the support of the local Yellowknife Housing Authority. When you delve into this situation a little further, you find out that this single mom was evicted without any due process or official notice. Mr. Speaker, in essence, normally when you evict someone, you make sure you go to the rentals office and you get the Supreme Court order and the rental office oversees that process. It is there to help the landlord and it is also there to help the tenant. In this particular case, there was no process followed. My questions specifically will be to the Minister of the Housing Corporation. I would like to know would he, in this particular case -- recognizing that there was no due process fulfilled in this particular case, a woman with a child has been unfairly evicted -- look into and reverse the process by withdrawing the department’s application for eviction to make sure maybe this mom and this child can get home today rightly where they belong? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is not the corporation’s doing. This is something that is the local housing authority. We have delegated the authority for these types of decisions to the housing authority. I will commit to the Member that I will review it. However, we tend to let the housing authorities tend to their business and only will get involved if we feel that there is a need for us to do so. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, just by chance, the woman who has been evicted, her mother happens to be sitting in the gallery here today. The Minister clearly says the Housing Corporation will only get involved if they feel the need to. Mr. Speaker, I want to hear from the Housing Corporation Minister, does his department support illegal evictions, which is exactly what is going on here today? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am not going to give my opinion on that, but I will tell him that there is a process that is in place. The LHOs do follow the process and that is why we are at the stage that we are at today. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, when I spoke to this grandmother, the mother of this person who was evicted, one of the first things I wanted to know was where is the paperwork to have you evicted. Where is the paperwork that supports this business to show up at your door, throw you out on the street and say, but we have a piece of paper that says you have to leave now, and there was none. There wasn’t a single piece of paper to justify that. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of the Housing Corporation not see that as a significant issue to take action on or is he just going to wait and let the local Yellowknife Housing Authority manage through this in a way that they clearly have? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will make some inquiries to be sure, for the Member’s comfort, that all processes were followed. I will commit to the Member that I will follow up on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just curious. By what policy or what ministerial authority can this Housing Minister guarantee every single process was followed? Thank you.
The subject of evictions is one that we’ve been hearing a lot about lately. There is a process that all the LHOs go through to carry out the evictions. They start with termination notices and it goes from there. The LHOs have their policy that they abide by, and for the most part they are the authority. They do have that authority. We do hear from a number of constituents who feel that they’ve been unfairly treated. We’ve followed up with a lot of the LHOs to get some answers for some of the questions that they had. I’ve committed to the Member in this particular case I will follow up and be sure that all the processes were followed as it’s laid out in the LHO’s policy. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
QUESTION 175-16(5):
INITIATIVE TO TRANSITION
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier and I’d like to start by just mentioning that in the early days of this Assembly, Members got together and identified the need to move all of our volunteer initiatives into a single place under the Department of the Executive. I think this was raised by my colleague Ms. Bisaro yesterday. There was considerable emphasis and agreement put on this and the Premier did respond, but unfortunately it was only done in part. Will the Premier commit to completing this move to get all our volunteer initiatives into a single office in the Executive, to complete this move so we can prevent the divided and ineffective effort that we’ve had so far to date on volunteer initiatives? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We did do the work as highlighted by the Member and looked at the funding pieces in trying to strategize on how we could better work with the NGOs throughout the Northwest Territories. We haven’t gone to a central office because a lot of the supports that would be required we’d have to go back to the departments anyway to get a particular support. So I’d either have to build up my office staff so that they could go directly to other Ministers to get that information. We haven’t gone forward on that step. Of course, every year that we do review our business plans, recommendations made by Members will be taken into consideration if in fact we should re-initiate that piece of it and see how that would work and what resources would be required to help implement it. Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t disagree with really much of what the Premier said. The difficulty is that there are still pipes that are preventing this getting done and this government has been very ineffective at dealing with that. I’m trying to get some effective action out there. Right now there’s a questionnaire that’s been put and being distributed and it is extremely simplistic and highly unfocused. Was this all that came out of our so-called main effort that took us two years to complete the conference on volunteerism? Thank you.
Thank you. No, that’s not the only thing that was done. Our funding situation, working with the department, with the Financial Management Board, to come up with a new program, it touched a number of places. We’ve looked at the volunteer sector versus the NGO sector, because there is a difference there. One gets a contract to do work, one volunteers in their communities. So there is a difference there. Trying to pull it all together is part of what creates some of our problems, is trying to decipher just what role needs to be in place and how it should work within departments. Thank you.
Thank you. Volunteer groups are desperate for some real assistance with capacity and liability issues and training. This requires an informed person, an informed person with some funding who recognizes the critical need for the third sector, the volunteer community. Would the Premier commit, or at least look into, perhaps commit to looking into establishing an outreach office within the Executive that puts in place just such a qualified person and funds to serve that desperate need that we’re hearing about? Thank you.
Thank you. If the Members of this Assembly feel that we should put that as an initiative and identify it in our upcoming business plans, I’m prepared to work with the Members of the House on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I very much appreciate that commitment. I’ll look forward to seeing that in the business plans. I think it’s something we did talk about during the very first stages of this Assembly when I think the proposed initiative was $10,000, an extreme embarrassment to the people of the Northwest Territories. I know the department did finally put a slight bit more together, but it’s talking about the issue, it’s not doing. We are coming to the end of our term, so I’ll look forward to seeing that in the business plans. I’d like to understand that Cabinet realizes the role of the third sector and I’d like to hear the Premier’s recognition of the role of the volunteer sector in our society. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. We recognize the volunteer efforts, that’s why within the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs they work with the volunteer sector throughout the Northwest Territories and many of us in this Assembly have done time in a sense of committing ourselves to our communities, whether it’s coaching, whether it is helping at events, activities and sporting events that help drive our communities and keep them alive and well, in a sense. So we recognize that. That is why we do have some efforts within a number of departments that continue to support the volunteer sector, and I’ll put this one back on the Member. He looks forward to seeing it in the business plan, I look forward to a letter from Members of the Assembly to say that they would like to see that actually in the Executive business plan, and then we can go from there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier in follow up to the questions from my colleague Mr. Bromley. I think one of the biggest problems that we have with finding ways to support the voluntary sector is the fact that I don’t think that we have a clear definition of what the voluntary sector is. You hear some people talk about pure volunteerism and I hear people talk about NGOs. Quite frankly, the voluntary sector is a combination of the two. I think that would help us an awful lot. So I was wondering if I could get the Premier to commit to working with some of these volunteer organizations and NGO organizations to come up with a definition of what the voluntary sector is so that when we’re talking about it we can be talking about one thing and, therefore, focus the attention on the voluntary sector as required. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point within the Executive and within the departments, we’ve done what we can at this point. I just responded to a Member to say that if Members of this Assembly want us to do further work in there, let’s put it in writing I guess is one way to do it. Too often we make a commitment and find out that it wasn’t supported by enough of the Members of the Assembly and we end up backing down or it doesn’t get completed. In this area of finding a definition, I’m sure we could look at doing something like that, and again, through the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs that would be the first place to start because that’s where our support for volunteers is placed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Listening to the Minister of Health and Social Services’ answers regarding that tender problem I talked about, she kept talking about the urgency to make sure this goes to the Beau-Del communities and I certainly wouldn’t want to see any significant delay. But, Mr. Speaker, last year we had a delay of a particular project in the community of Inuvik because, of course, we had a group, they wanted to come forward and express not being able to fully participate and yet we have a similar circumstance where we have a group, a business, that would like to fairly compete in an extremely biased situation. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister of Health and Social Services, realizing that it’s not unusual to have a delay in a tendering process, recall this tender and allow everyone to fully participate in a fair and open way that’s clearly unbiased? It’s already leaning towards one particular contract. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in this area and when you’re talking about contracting practices as a government as well as board authority and the Department of Health and Social Services, this government has tried to come forward in the past with board reform initiatives to help streamline that authority and decision-making process, and that was rebutted and we put that back on the shelf. So we have a process in place right now of dealing with authorities and their contracting. Yes, there are contracting practices in place and the appropriate department would follow up with that and the Minister is committed to do some background there. But let’s not muddy the waters in the sense of what is required medically for delivering a service on the ground versus building infrastructure in timelines that would be required with that in this sense. Thank you.
I’m glad the Premier is rolling in on this issue, because I’m glad to see someone’s taking it serious. The fact is, when the Minister says we’ve been contacting -- yes, as of yesterday, the first time they’ve made any effort to get back to this company. They placed repeated calls to the contact on the tender of request to no answer, only until it’s brought to the Minister of Health and Social Services’ attention, when the clock is ticking.
Mr. Speaker, the only honourable thing to do is to pull this contract back, pause it and tender it in a fair way that doesn’t show the competitor’s inventory numbers, product numbers and product descriptions. Anyone else would call this biased, but I don’t know how the Premier feels about it. Will they pull it back?
