Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services and are in follow-up to my Member’s statement from earlier today. As I indicated earlier, it’s been 106 days, almost four months, since the Minister indicated that she would be meeting with the Social Programs committee to provide them with a timeline and outline the framework for the review of the Supplementary Health Program. To date there has been no briefing or no briefing has been conducted. Could the Minister please give me an update on where the Department of Health and Social Services is with respect to reviewing the provision of supplemental health benefit services in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the need for a little bit of drama, but I don’t know where the Member gets this 107 days. The motion was passed on February 8th. I think everybody understands how busy our session was for six weeks. Our session did not finish until March 13th. Everybody went off to a break for two weeks. Now, for the last seven weeks -- that’s 75 days -- the department and officials have been working to see how we do this better than we had done before. I have talked to the Member and said that we won’t go into really getting into the work until the session was over. So now I have written to the standing committee chair this morning. I said, as I’ve always indicated privately, that we will not move ahead without talking to the committee first. What we are proposing to do is we have set up an interdepartmental committee that will look at income security models and other frameworks that we could use to review some health programs. As well, we want to set up a stakeholders group, including all the NGOs and interested groups, to give us input on that. We will be sending out an invitation letter within the next few days. We hope to have our first real substantive meeting with those groups by the end of June. I am happy and available any time to meet with the standing committee.
I think it’s fair to reference the 107 days. It has been four months since the motion passed and nothing has been brought to committee. I think it’s very important that it does come to committee because, as the Minister said, she wanted to get input from the standing committee. I’m happy to hear that a letter has been sent, but still it sounds like the Minister is moving ahead with some of these things and no information has been shared and no input has been gathered. So before the Minister moves forward with these committees and whatnot that she’s making reference to, will she commit to meeting with the standing committee and getting our input on that process before she actually moves forward and implements the process that she’s indicated she’s going to be implementing?
I’ve said that in e-mails to him at least three times, I will meet with standing committee or the Members to discuss input or to get their input and have further discussions. I have asked committee to meet at any time. So, yes, I would be happy to do that. I’ve always said that I will and I’ve e-mailed him at least three times to say that.
As indicated in my statement, there’s a lot of uncertainty out there. People don’t know what’s happening. So my question for the Minister is: How does the Minister intend to relieve some of this continued confusion and uncertainty that continues to exist within the public as residents wait for something to happen?
Everybody here knows that and I have committed. I don’t know if I need to explain more of that. I want to come and meet with the Standing Committee on Social Programs. I understand that we have a very short session, so the committee’s time is always of high value. I think it’s important and we are available to meet at any time to discuss. And we are not, we haven’t moved further, I don’t want that to be out there that we are somehow moving forward because I keep getting e-mails from Members suggesting that.
I want to make it clear that myself, as the Minister, and the government heard loud and clear that there are lots of major elements of that policy change that needed to be reviewed. I wanted to make sure that we took some time to review from the last session what we heard, which is what we’ve been doing for the last seven weeks. Before we do any public meetings I will be happy to sit down with the committee. But it is important also that we hear from NGOs and the general public. We do want to have public meetings as well. Any time next week I think we could get together and talk about it more.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Premier today and it gets back to my Member’s statement from earlier where I was talking about the Northern Development Agency that the federal government has proposed. I’m wondering if the Premier can give us an update on what exactly our government has done in trying to convince the federal government that the Northwest Territories is a good location for this Northern Development Agency.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this concern. The work we’ve done on this comes in a number of layers. First and foremost we had a pan-territorial approach from the three northern Premiers as to making the pitch to Ottawa that the Northern Development Agency needs to be established in the North. Following that and putting that case in, I have worked directly with a number of the federal Ministers to highlight the fact that it makes sense, for a number of the reasons that the Member has raised, that we’re central amongst the territories, that our economic potential is the greatest amongst the territories, and it would make sense to base that here in the Northwest Territories. We’ve put that on the table. My understanding is that it is before the Prime Minister’s office and we are awaiting direction from there.
I’d like to ask the Premier if the federal government has come any closer to announcing a location for the Northern Development Agency. I know it’s at the Prime Minister’s desk now, but when are we expecting a decision on where that office will be located?
We’re hoping to hear something soon, but I can’t comment on the Prime Minister’s office and their timing of a decision there. At one point we thought it was in a matter of weeks, so we’re waiting to see if they follow through on that. The legwork has been done. I think it’s important for us to keep in contact with the appropriate parties, different Ministers. My letter went in to Minister Strahl and I’ve also spoken with the Minister who has involvement in northern development, and that would be Ms. Aglukkaq.
In keeping with the theme of jobs and federal jobs, I want to...We’ve talked about this before, about the fact that there are a number of jobs -- in the hundreds -- located in Gatineau and Ottawa, that belong in the three northern territories. There has been much work done in the past on identifying these jobs, finding out where they’re located, and we’ve asked the federal government in the past to relocate these positions north of 60. I’d like to ask the Premier today if his government, our government here in the Northwest Territories, will push this forward again and give it some renewed effort to try to identify those jobs and try to get those jobs north of 60 where they belong.
The Member is right in the sense that there’s been quite a bit of work done in the past governments and work with the federal government to identify positions that were in southern Canada, in Ottawa, that had a direct impact and relationship to the Northwest Territories and the three territories overall. We’ve done that work and it came down to identifying a number of positions that we felt could be moved north, and that initiative was pushed along.
I must say that this government hasn’t taken that information and moved it. Our focus has been the establishment of new positions and office that should be here and that is why we are putting a fair bit of focus on the Northern Development Agency. As well, we could use this avenue to further expand the discussions to look at those types of positions and having them moved north.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
I’m wondering if we can get a commitment from the Premier today to in fact inject some new life into the effort to deal with these jobs that are located in Ottawa and Gatineau and southern Canada, and working with our colleagues in Yukon and Nunavut, to make sure that we have a united front to the federal government to again ask them. I know we’ve asked them in the past, but if they’re looking at locating a Northern Development Agency in the Northwest Territories or in one of the other two northern territories, there’s talk of Arctic sovereignty, there’s talk of renewed effort on behalf of the federal government to take an active role in northern Canada. Now is the time, I think, to inject some life into these talks and work with our colleagues to ensure that the federal government is paying attention when it comes to these jobs. Again, I’m just looking for a bit of a commitment here or commitment from our government that we will at least start talking with Yukon and Nunavut on a united front to the federal government in terms of these jobs.
We have worked quite well with our northern colleagues on a number of fronts. We’ve worked together on a Northern Strategy, trying to build a vision, trying to get the federal government to look at that vision. We, in fact, will have our next northern Premiers meeting in Iqaluit in early July. I will commit to work with them and put that on the agenda to have some further discussions and try to put some renewed energy in that area as well.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I mentioned that May 26th was the National Day of Healing and Reconciliation, and this government has been the only government on record to recognize May 26th as this day for the residential school survivors. I would ask the Premier of the Northwest Territories, in terms of his leadership of this government here if any type of gesture is going to be made in this Assembly to recognize May 26th as a day that we made a formal motion to recognize this day across the Northwest Territories for all survivors of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member has pointed out, the Assembly of the Northwest Territories has in the past endorsed this, recognized that. We stand by that. Looking at the date and the time, we feel that is a commitment that still stands today. If Members would like to do something, we would be willing to sit down and have a discussion.
I’m not too sure if we’ll have enough time for how quickly we can engage the Members to see if we want to do something. I want to ask the Premier in terms of his leadership, in terms of the leader of this government here, in terms of taking a leadership role to say something on behalf of this government in terms of May 26 being the day that we recognize, in this government here, as the national reconciliation healing day for residential school survivors. Will the Premier do something?
Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to engage Members to see where they’d like to see something done. Being that the day has passed, in the past we’ve recognized the day when we were in session. Again, the fact that previous Assemblies stood by this and, as the Member has pointed out, we’re the only Assembly who has done that, we stand by that. With the short days we do have, as the Member has highlighted, there are quite a number of messages that we have to get out, but I’d be prepared to engage Members to see if we make any adjustments to what we’re prepared to make statements on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Premier, if he would give that some serious consideration in engaging the Members of the House here. I understand, also, Mr. Speaker, that other days of territorial significance or national recognition of different events or activities, that this government here does make a statement here. This being one that affects all the people in the Northwest Territories, would the Premier take on the consideration if he would come forward with a statement from the Premier’s office in terms of this specific day? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, if the Member had approached me sooner, we probably could have started a discussion to see if we could make some adjustments to our planning scheduled around the sitting days. As I have committed, I am prepared to sit down and engage Members to see if there’s a willingness to do that. I believe, again, the motion was an Assembly one. If we could, even myself, as a statement, or through that, we could look at doing something of that nature. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, these significant days in our people’s lives, sometimes I think it would be a wonderful consideration if the government could take it on its onus to advance these types of issues forward in terms of a motion like this in the House here. So I would appreciate if the Premier could take it on in his leadership to engage the Members to see if something can be done within this short life of this Assembly here, to recognize this important day for the survivors of the residential schools.
As I had said earlier, yes, I am prepared to sit down with Members. If it’s a polling, one on one, to sit down and find out where we can move on this area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Speaker, the Premier of the Northwest Territories represents our government in many different forums and the mandate to represent us comes from the Members of this Assembly. Recently, I know when I was gone after session, I was surprised to hear of this organization that was putting forward something called the NWT Declaration. I understand that their mandate was to craft a new vision for the Territory.
Mr. Speaker, it hasn’t been abundantly transparent or clear to me exactly what the parameters of this new organization is to craft a new vision for the Northwest Territories. I’ve heard some names of some people who are participating but I have some questions. You know, specifically, I suppose people can get together and do whatever they want, but specifically relevant to our Premier’s involvement in an organization, I do have a few questions. I’d like to know who’s financing the organization. I’d like to know what role our Premier played in the development of the principles of the NWT Declaration. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. A couple of questions there. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ll thank the Member for raising that question because it is a good one. It is an area of discussion that’s been held a number of places across our Territory, from youth to seniors to businesses. This is not an organization. There is no company. There is no mandate established. What it was, was an invite to participate that went out to quite a number of people that were invited and those that accepted showed up. I was invited. I originally wasn’t going to go but thought, well, if there’s a discussion about what might happen or what the possibilities are in the Territory, I thought I might as well see what’s being said and who’s attending. So I attended that event, and the discussion that occurred looked at the possibilities of a Territory in the future, in 20 years or more, of what we could be. That’s how that came forward and ideas were put back and forth as to how do we get a discussion going amongst people in the Territory. A number of them decided to launch a Declaration for the NWT.com, and a number have decided to, as well, put ads out there in papers to get discussion going about those seven principle areas. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we all know that it isn’t free to put full-page colour ads in the inside cover of News North, and it isn’t free for a whole bunch of people to get together at Blachford Lake Lodge to launch some new organization to set a new vision and direction for the Northwest Territories. I would like to know who is financing this new forum. How does this differ, in terms of a vision, from our vision as the 16th Assembly for the future of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, again, there is no organization. My involvement was through the Executive. As I told them there, there are no methods that I could bring from a Cabinet or the Assembly because we had not had that discussion. The area of involvement from other companies, I’m not sure if the other people who participated paid their own way to the meeting as well. I didn’t ask about that. I just ensured that from our part that it was as if there’s any discussion happening across the Northwest Territories around matters of what we could be or what our possibilities are, I’d like to be involved and I would, from the Executive side, ensure that we paid our ticket and not be held accountable to anybody else outside of our environment.
The issue of where they get their mandate from or those issues, again, it was a group of individuals who came together -- some had business, some youth, some had previous government experience -- to discuss the possibilities of the North. In a sense, there is no mandate that this goes to, because it is something for discussion.
Now, how it links to our vision is up to us here in this Assembly. If we would like to see what this declaration can mean for us or, in fact, I think we could look at our vision and goals and almost parallel them with that of what came out in the seven principles and have that discussion about what could be and how do we align ourselves or position ourselves to enhance what we could be as a Territory. I think that’s the important one, is how do we take it up, how do the governing bodies of this Territory take this and make this work. That piece of work that was done is one for just discussion. Now I think it is up to us and I think here’s an opportunity for us to say and look at let’s take this energy and let’s tap into it and see where we can go with it as a Legislative Assembly and move forward on that basis if we’re willing. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m still not entirely clear what our Premier’s role was in this. This was an exclusive meeting. It wasn’t open to the public. I wasn’t invited. No aboriginal organizations were invited. At a remote location that people couldn’t get to, behind closed doors. I’m just trying to sort of get to, you know, the bottom of our involvement in this organization. Like I said, people can do what they want, but to the question again: Very high price tag on setting up a website like that and doing all that expensive advertising -- who’s paying for this? It’s a bit seemingly secretive. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we’ve lost the message in the sense of what it was all about. It was getting a discussion about what we could be in the Northwest Territories. Could we have a diversified economy? Could we have respect for our cultures across the Territories? Should we have the best education system across this country? Can we have a clean, affordable, abundant energy to help reduce the cost of living in the Territories? Things of that nature. Things that I think we can look at and say almost every government, whether a municipal government, to a certain degree, to the territorial governments, whether it’s this government or past governments, have wrestled with these subject matters. Again, there was a press conference that was held from the group, those that could attend. BHP was there. There were a number of other businesspeople there and individuals who are part of the ones that could make it and spoke to the issue. We were involved in some of our own work so I wasn’t able to attend there.
The issue, though, is one of my involvement was there, as I heard them, to listen to what they were saying, well, as a GNWT we’ve done our work and this is where we focused our work in those areas, but that’s to the extent. They don’t have a mandate to go and send somebody else off to do any kind of work. It is the matter of having the discussion happening and I think this is where we plugged in, is where do we want to see this, or should we just let people continue to talk about. But I think it’s incumbent on us, as we look at our vision and goals, to see how we’re doing the work. I think, as I said earlier, we could almost take every one of our goals as the 16th Assembly, and line them up with the discussion that happened there. I think we’re already showing that we are doing a lot of the work that was discussed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Speaker, I understand that Mayor Gord Van Tighem was in attendance, as well, and has reported subsequently back to his council as to his involvement and so on. So I hope that the Premier has a good and solid understanding of the fact that when he goes out and attends a forum like this as the Premier, his mandate comes from us and that we need to be in the loop as to what’s going on. I can only assume time hasn’t really permitted yet that he might have actually told us what had happened, but I was a bit surprised about it and to read it in the paper. But does the Premier concur that his mandate to participate in forums such as this comes from this House and we should be fully apprised of what’s going on and have appropriate input? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, myself and the Minister, we get our mandate from this Assembly, our vision and goals. I must say, when these opportunities exist and there’s an invite, I will take that invite. As I have, for example, I was invited to the Akaitcho leaders to talk at a workshop. The first time a Premier of the Northwest Territories was invited. I took that opportunity because that directly aligns with some of the work we’re doing around regional leaders and so on. But with this group, yes, I had opportunity to address it shortly for a small amount of time when we had our Caucus meeting when we met at Blachford Lake and was hoping to have further discussions on that piece, but again, time permitting wasn’t long enough. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we learned that the Europeans are very progressive in the area of energy. They bundle heat and power and even broadband and combine them in their utilidor systems emanating from their heating and power plants. Municipal and regional governments provide this service and so does some private enterprise and, really, we’re overdue to recognize that our NWT Power Corporation, our arm’s-length fully owned corporation, needs to be thinking of things like this.
My question is, again, for Minister Roland. We’ll keep him busy today. Basically, will the NWT Power Corporation review include a review of their mandate so we can actually bring in some of these things that we’re learning and some of these things that have been frustrating us for a long time, such as the potential for the Power Corporation to play a role in implementing biomass? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for that question because that gives me the opportunity to say that the Power Corp is involved, to a large degree, on a number of fronts to try to bring best efficiencies forward from going from diesel to gas turbines, for example, in a number of areas. The biomass work and the work that the Members have done and will be coming back to that committee with their work and the report will help us as we move forward on some of our initiatives that Minister Miltenberger spoke of earlier.
As the Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, I just recently had a discussion with the chair and the president of the Power Corp in this area and looking at how we would engage ourselves and become part of the renewed energy, in a sense, and focus to where we could go with these initiatives. I think there’s opportunity there that we definitely have to tap into and plug into. That is an area that we’re starting to have our discussions. As we formulate the response and the work that was done, going through that committee, to Minister Miltenberger and our Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee as well, we’ll be able to tap into there and figure out how we’ll be able to deliver on some of these alternatives that have been mentioned. Thank you.
