Mr. Speaker, on a national level, as the Minister of Transportation I have yet to attend an FPT on road safety or get together with my counterparts from across the country on that, but certainly, when you have zero fatalities on your roads and waterways in 15 months, other jurisdictions will pay attention to that and the public awareness campaigns the GNWT have had have been first rate.
Certainly it is a message we are proud of. It is a story that we are proud of and we continue to get that message out there. We need to ensure that it is summer and people are using lifejackets. If you look in the past 21 out of 23 drowning fatalities here, 21 of them were not wearing a lifejacket. Again, that is a message that has to get out there. When you are in a boat or on the waterways, wear a lifejacket this summer. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the future, thinking forward and creating some territorial potential on this national campaign, has his department ever looked at a day that they could all celebrate Buckle Up, water prevention day? They do that. They have national days to recognize. Would his department look at something like that? Would a campaign like this be kicked off in the Territories?
Mr. Speaker, that is something that we could look at doing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and will have to deal regarding the emergency preparedness action plans for communities as well as the National Alert System.
The first question to the Minister is obviously to set the stage here for the questions I have today. It is basically setting a standard in terms of content here. Can the Minister inform this House of how many communities have a current emergency action plan and how many do we have that do not have a plan in place? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently we have 21 communities that have community emergency plans. We have four communities that have updated plans. We have four communities that don’t have community emergency plans. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Minister for this response. Again, out of the 21 communities that do have a plan, some of those plans were not looked at for at least a two-year period, so obviously opportunities. So if you add those 21 with the four, we have a large proportion of our communities out there that require updates to emergency action plans. I think the national leaders or community leaders are making that known.
With that in mind, recently our Community Affairs department and our Minister refused to sign the NWT on the National Alert System that deals with emergency preparedness. Some of the reasoning behind so is the lack of cell phone coverage and some issues of communication or infrastructure which was holding our territory back from doing so. Can the Minister indicate to the Members of the House why he and his department feel not joining the rest of Canada is not a priority for protecting the people of the NWT in the wake of a possible emergency?
Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question because knowing a few of the media reports that were out there said we did not refuse to sign the deal and in no way did we say it is reliant on cell phone service across the Northwest Territories. That got some good play a few years ago, so I thought they played the same card again, but we did say, and I clarified in the second interview, that they did and thankfully they played it, was that we are going to sign on.
We are in discussions right now with the company. We are having some discussions with the providers in the Northwest Territories, so it is our intent to sign on but we wanted to make sure that we did our due diligence first and be able to provide the alert in case something happens, because there is no point in having a public alerting system when you have nothing to alert the public with. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, I do appreciate the honesty of the Minister and by no means is this an issue about cell phone coverage, because obviously there was mention of other infrastructure design. Quite frankly, obviously cell phones could be used, but that as it may, cell phone service or lack thereof, is not really I think the major concern here. Nunavut, for example, has very similar concerns to us. They signed on; they felt that television and radio were the proper tools that they could use in a lack of cell service as well. Because they felt the need to do so, why does the Minister feel that cell phones or mobile services really need to be upgraded in order to sign on?
Thank you. Again, this is not all contingent on cell phone service, but we need to improve our communication across the Northwest Territories and that’s one of the things that I had said. One of the things we discussed in the FPT Ministers meeting in Victoria was the fact that some of the information now they want to send out via Twitter and Facebook and that’s not available to a lot of communities.
Again, I go back to it is our intent to sign on to this. We’re in discussions with the service provider and the providers in the Northwest Territories. So we’re in that process right now and we should hopefully be signed on fairly soon. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I do appreciate the angle we’re going here, and again mention the fact that we’re waiting for communication capability to be as good as the department feels it should be and we’ve got to go through this due diligence process here before joining really the rest of Canada.
Again, we’re the only community or territory or province that has not signed on to the National Alert System. Can we have more specifics from the Minister when he feels and when the department feels that we are ready to sign on board? Thank you.
Thank you. We did provide a letter of support to CRTC to support the application that was going in there. We felt that we should do that because we wanted to look at our capabilities here in the Northwest Territories. So we’ve done that and that was done right away so the application could go in and we need to do our due diligence and not just sign on because everybody else has done it. We wanted to make sure we’re ready. We feel that now we’re in a fairly good position in taking advantage of the technology we do have with the hope that technology across the Northwest Territories will improve in the future so we can use some of the other devices such as the mobile devices that we discussed in Victoria. So the short answer is we wanted to make sure we did our due diligence before we signed on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Housing. I know he’s fielding a lot of questions here today. It’s just in regard to the address that we heard last week in the House and there was mention of the $1.2 million rent supplement for private rentals, and as some of my colleagues mentioned today, the increased costs of living in our communities, and they’re only going to go higher. Some of my colleagues in the past have talked about the working poor. My question today is with this rent supplement of $1.2 million, when will this program become available to residents of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister responsible for NWT Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our discussions across the Northwest Territories during the very extensive consultation process, it was pointed out that there was need to assist, as the Member pointed out, the working poor. We have a lot of people that are just starting in the workforce; we have a lot of people coming out of school going into the workforce. So we felt that they needed a bit of help for the first couple of years and then after that they would either graduate into home ownership or be able to afford private market housing. So we designed a program called the Rent Supplement Program and the launch date is expected to be September 1st of this year. Thank you.
Thank you. My second question on this is pending the applications that the department receives for assistance in this area, is he willing to amend the policy to increase more funding across the Northwest Territories in future years? Thank you.
Thank you. This is very early in the process, so we’re not sure what kind of uptake we’re going to have on this. We’re looking at possibly 175 across the Northwest Territories initially, graduating them into quarterly sections. So there will be a continuous intake instead of doing all of them the first quarter and then having nothing left over for the rest of the year. So the initial plan is to try and assist at least 175 by quarterly installments. Thank you.
Thank you. In terms of getting this information out to the general public, does the Minister or the department have a marketing strategy to let people in the communities know that this program is available for them to access, and what is that marketing strategy? We only have pretty well the summer to get that done. So over the next three months does he have a marketing strategy to let the public know? Thank you.
Thank you. There have been a lot of changes in the Housing Corporation with the shelter policy review, a lot of proposed changes. We have a very extensive communication plan that we’re planning on rolling out very soon here to make the public out there aware of all of the programs and some of the changes that are going on within the NWT Housing Corp. So we’re hoping to roll that out fairly soon, and get the information out, and be on the website and a fairly extensive communication plan. I’d be willing to sit down with the Member or Members and share that with them. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One final question in regard to this new funding. In some of the communities what we are seeing is much like public housing. We do have a lot of people staying in the same house. With some of our professionals and young professionals out there that are trying to take care of their debts from school, we do see multiple people living in the same house to decrease their debts. With this program coming out, there’s a possibility that they might take advantage of this program where they can get supplemented for their rent, which will even decrease their lower costs. How is the Minister going to regulate those kinds of applications so that the people who really need them get this program for them and not people who are looking to take advantage of the program? How is he going to regulate this? Thank you.
Thank you. There is always a danger that there are going to be some people that try to take advantage of some of the programs we have to offer. We have to do our part to ensure that this is distributed fairly and to those that are most in need. I think in such small jurisdictions in the Northwest Territories, working with the communities we all know the people in the communities that are in most need, those that are trying to get a good start in life. We feel that this is going to give them that good start, and like I said before, they can either graduate into regular market housing or they can graduate into home ownership, which we are intent. But we feel this is an excellent program that’s geared towards giving these people a good start and not have to be so dependent on the government right off the bat. So this is a very good program and the Member makes a good point. We have to monitor this very closely to ensure that those that need it are the ones that are using it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be directed to the Deputy Premier of the House, the Honourable Jackson Lafferty. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the concerns about lack of response and, in some cases, timely response. It’s funny, as I’m sitting here I got a print-off of something from Mr. Ramsay’s office regarding information I asked in February, but actually that started off the discussion where the commitments were actually all made in the House, which I will table later today.
So to draw some sort of comparison here, this is the same problem we had in the last Assembly and we tried to take steps with this. So that’s why I’m asking the question directly to the Deputy Premier, like at the time I’d asked the Premier.
So my question to Jackson Lafferty is: What is he prepared to do to take to the Cabinet table to encourage his colleagues at that Cabinet table to ensure that they act and certainly respond appropriately when Members ask questions, whether it’s through e-mail or in the House, that we get a timely response? Because we’re acting for our constituents and we’re working for them.
This particular issue does come to the Cabinet table. We do have a standard rule that any information or concerns that are brought forward by Regular Members are responded to within five days. It all varies on if there are organizations that we have to reach out to to get more clarification. It will take some time in some areas, but our overall goal and objective is to get back to Regular Members within five days. Either to respond back saying we’re looking into it or at least respond back to them. As I’ve stated before, some areas will take some time as well.
I’ll thank the Deputy Premier for that particular response. I’m glad to hear that they have a bit of a framework. I didn’t think I heard the word “policy” or “procedure” but I certainly heard the sense of a framework, five days.
Would the Deputy Premier find in his understanding of that framework that waiting 103 days for a particular commitment made in the House or 90 days for an information request made to the Housing Minister’s office, would he consider that timely within that five-day framework and if not, what is he going to do?
All the Ministers are here today. They are listening to the concerns and questions that are raised. There are some areas that do take time. We have to work with NGOs as well as department organizations within the communities and Aboriginal organizations. Sometimes we are limited in resources, as well, to dig up some more research analysis and so forth.
The 90 days and 120 days that the Member is referring to, we need to get more information on those areas. The standard rule is to reply within five days as best as we can and at times it will take a longer time.
What I heard was a lot of dancing around the question, which was simply: Does the Deputy Premier find it reasonable if a Member has to wait 90 days or 103 days? Does that reasonably fit into that five-day framework? Respectfully…
---Interjection
No, I’m asking if it fits within the framework, sir. Respectfully, I would say that, you know, I understand people are sick. I’d like to ask that question. Does that fit within the five-day framework, the 90 days or 103 days that I was referring to? What’s he about to do about it?
Again, it is a case-by-case basis. Some cases are very unique. It will take some time. But it is a standard rule of up to five days.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In particular to the 90-day reference, that was the department of Housing regarding the naming of one of their buildings. Does that still fit in the description, the framework, I call it, that the Deputy Premier has referred to? Does that fit into that description and why would or wouldn’t it?
I do believe this information needs to be discussed. There are times when we do discuss these situations within Cabinet as well. At the same time, we’re just down the hallway as well. If there is information that is not reaching the MLAs, please stop by and inquire about those with the specific Ministers or the Premier and then we can follow up instantly. There are times where information takes time to explore and do more research with our community organizations. We’ll do our best as a government to follow up.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I referenced in terms of trying to explain people that are unilingual, just an opportunity for them to understand the complexities of how this government disburses within the year the $1.4 billion it’s proposing to spend. My question is to the Minister of Finance.
I know that we seem to be kind of forecasting how it is that we’re going to spend this amount of money within the year. I would like to know if the Minister could apprise this House in terms of perhaps some consideration of a savings and investment strategy or plan that the Minister perhaps might bring to the floor.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we laid out in the budget, we are in fact going to be focusing a lot of our attention on replenishing our depleted cash reserves to put money aside so that in year three or four we will be able to add additional resources and revenues into increasing our commitment to infrastructure in a lot of the key areas. This is going to be done in a number of ways. We’re going to limit the forced growth; we’re going to continue to work on being efficient and effective; we’re going to continue with the attention to how we spend the money within government to avoid unnecessary expenses.
The key piece for us is we’re $656 million in accumulated debt, most of it long term; about $240-some million in short-term debt. We need to be able to engage those savings. We’re projecting revenues that are going to be contingent on what happens globally. It’s also going to be contingent upon things that are constantly in flux, the main one being corporate income tax. Throughout all that we do have a plan that will in fact make us more fiscally stable and able to invest more greatly in infrastructure and at the same time spend $1.4 billion on programs and services.
My follow-up question is perhaps my last one too. Has the Department of Finance considered perhaps the concept of an investment fund that the government would consider and implement right away? One of the concepts that’s been, already I think people know it, is the idea of a Heritage Fund.
I agree with the Member about the Heritage Fund and its role. We’ve committed to when we do devolution and when we get into year three and four, we’ll be looking at trying to finally put some seed money into that very important fund.
It was also raised in the House today about trying to increase the money for investment in businesses to the Minister of ITI. We had to, in fact as part of our financial restructuring, turn back the Opportunities Fund where we had about $120 million sitting in a bank for investment, but it wasn’t covered by our borrowing limit; it would have gone against our borrowing limit. We do have a number of areas we’re looking at. Some will happen in due course here in year three and four.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my questions about the rate increases to long-term care room and board. It’s something that has been going on for awhile within Health and Social Services. I’d just like to find out a bit more about it and ask the Minister exactly what these charges are for and what they do with the money.
