We’re breaking trail in a lot of different areas and as we’ve discovered with this whole initiative, we’re moving ahead in many places but there is often some slippage.
Once again, I will commit to the Member that I will look at what the proposal is -- I have yet to see it -- and then I’ll talk to the deputy minister and we’ll see what’s possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke earlier about the elders and the passing of them. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, I know it’s been a wish of the elders prior to them passing, that a lot of them want to stay in their own communities and be laid to rest there. However, sometimes that’s not possible. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of helping with the families with the elders’ wishes, what type of palliative care do they have in the Sahtu region in terms of helping with the elders and their last days in their communities.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, the palliative care or support for elders or those who are suffering from other medical conditions in small communities are supported by local health staff and home care staff. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the support that is there, sometimes it is not meeting the needs of these elders and their families. What can be done to increase the support so that families do have time to rest and take a break to take care of their families?
Right now we have six families, possibly, in Deline who are going to need support for the families. What can the Minister do and what can this government do in terms of supporting these families, in terms of the needs for these elders?
Enhancing home care service and community support is one of the goals of the department. We appreciate that extra resources are needed to expand those services, but for now we deliver those services with the staff and resources we have in the communities. Thank you.
Certainly we want to enhance the resources and the support in the communities and certainly that is one of our goals. However, I want to ask the Minister: When can we reach that goal? What is it that she needs us to do in terms of going into the communities in the Sahtu, going into Deline and saying we have these dollars, here, we are going to help these families in need?
Right now there are six families that do need palliative care support. Right now we are not meeting them and soon we’re going to have these families make some tough decisions as to sending their families into Inuvik or Yellowknife and that’s where they’re going to die. I want to ask the Minister what is she going to do to help these families in the Sahtu region.
That’s the first time that I’ve heard of the six clients that the Member is mentioning. I will be happy to undertake to get those names and get information from the authority as to what work we are providing for them. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, I will certainly be happy to give those six names to the Minister. Also, there are other elders in the Sahtu who have already passed away and should have had support by this department to know that they can die an honourable death in their communities rather than come to Yellowknife and...(inaudible)...other facilities that passed away. This has put a lot of stress on the people in the Sahtu. I want to ask the Minister what is it that she needs to do to put extra support within her department, extra support within the communities to have palliative care support in the communities right now. Right now, it’s not adequate. What does she need to do?
For the immediate future, right now I need to get more information on the situation with the families and to talk with the authority to make sure that the resources needed are supported for those families. In the long-term and mid-term, the MLA knows that this is what we want to do more of. It’s part of our Foundation for Change action plan. We want to be able to change our system so that we strengthen our local and community delivery and find more resources so that we can support our elders, and chronically ill, and persons with disabilities in our local communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve got questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services getting back to my Member’s statement from earlier today and the one I had previously during this sitting of the House. It gets back to the respite care program and the decision to cut $250,000 out of that program.
Now, the Minister, and I find it really hard to believe, who was so supportive of this program coming into existence… I worked alongside of her here with other Members in this House on getting this program established. It’s been running now for four years, and somebody made a decision to cut the $250,000 from the program. I’d like to begin by asking the Minister whose decision it was to cut the $250,000. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member knows he’s asked me lots of questions about the deficit of our department. I’ve indicated many a time that we have a health and social services deficit. It’s in the multi-millions. We are not able to expand any programs. The respite care program was a pilot project and it was time limited. Thank you.
The Minister didn’t really answer my questions. She can stand up in the House, but, obviously, I’m talking about some responsibility and accountability. Somebody made the decision to cut the $250,000. I want to know who it was so we can direct our questions to them. If it’s not the Minister, can the Minister please tell me who it was? Thank you.
We can speak about responsibility and accountability, and the Member, on the same discussion, speaks about lack of accountability in balancing the budget, dealing with the deficit, how are we going to deal with it, and in the same breath he brings me all kinds of additional program money that I need to approve.
Mr. Speaker, everybody here knows the Department of Health and Social Services has a multi-million dollar system deficit. I have to work with the budget we have. We are making foundational changes to deal with the system, and the respite program was time specific. It was a three-year pilot project. We have no money to enhance that program.
Mr. Speaker, I understand this is a program that is near and dear to everybody. We are doing everything we can to see how we could assist YACL. But, Mr. Speaker, the Members here have to...they are speaking about accountability and responsibility. We get the money from the same pot. We cannot keep increasing spending when at the same time they criticize for not dealing with the deficit. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that funding was supposed to extend until 2012. There was funding. This government had the funding to see the respite program continue to 2012, Mr. Speaker. That is the bottom line. We shouldn’t have been talking about this program and in the next year we should have been coming up with a plan to fund that program. However, Mr. Speaker, the Minister and this government has decided to cut the program, take the $250,000 and put it somewhere else. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to know is where is that $250,000 going. The Minister didn’t know it the other day. Does she know it today, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is quite incorrect in saying $250,000 is there for 2011-12. The budget for THSSI for 2011-12 has not been decided, so I don’t understand where he is getting that information from. The supplementary appropriation we approved yesterday is for 2010-11, because even though we have the funding from the federal government, as a government we are dealing with it as a supplementary appropriation. We have a budget in the books for respite care, but that is not, and $250,000 that we approved is for 2010-11. We don’t have a budget for 2011-12. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for the lesson in semantics. Listen. The bottom line is the money was there. It is not there. The Minister didn’t answer my question again, Mr. Speaker. Where is the $250,000? If it is not being spent in respite care, where is the Minister proposing that that $250,000 be spent? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it is not semantics. It is not semantics. I am not changing the wording there. Mr. Speaker, I hear the Member and I tell the Member now, there is no money for respite care for 2011-12. The money we approved yesterday for $250,000 is for 2010-11. Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority was proactive in approaching YACL to say that there is no money there up to March 2011 and can we work together to come up with a plan.
Mr. Speaker, having said that, I am willing to work with YACL to see how we can transition. They were given six months’ notice to tell them that we do not have money to fund additionally. The money we received from the federal government is to change the way we deliver our programming and to fund our nurses in small communities, nurse practitioners and midwives in Fort Smith, and physicians. Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with limited resources. We need to work together on how we spend our money. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and follow along with my Member’s statement today. I talked about red tape and the existence of red tape. We know we can’t eliminate red tape and I’m not talking about the red tape as a result of legislative requirements, but there is lots of extra red tape that comes out of policies and procedures. It is not all GNWT, but I think we have an opportunity here to work with NABA and the NWT Chamber of Commerce to identify what the real burden is. I am asking the Minister today if he can work with NABA and the NWT Chamber of Commerce or possibly some other organization -- maybe not them -- to help us identify what the true burden is. Once we know the burden, we might be able to find some solutions to reduce some of that red tape. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly agree with the Member that small businesses in the Northwest Territories are the backbone of the Northwest Territories economy. Not only do they provide a value-added, they also provide employment and growth.
Two of the things that we have to guard against in the Northwest Territories are the high cost of doing business and leakages. One of the best ways to reduce the high cost of doing business is to reduce red tape. The Member quoted CFIB, and CFIB also said that 60 percent of the Members felt that we could reduce red tape by 10 to 15 percent without sacrificing any personal safety requirements. I would be quite pleased to work with all of the organizations that you mentioned. I do have a ministerial advisory panel in which NABA and the Chamber of Commerce are members of. Some of the things that we have done as a government, for example, under the SEED program, our application form we reviewed and reduced it to one page. We also have BizPaL, which will help us identify the permitting and licensing requirements. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, it is awfully nice when we are in agreement so easily. The Minister mentioned BizPaL. I think BizPaL is a great program, but I understand that the City of Yellowknife isn’t partnering with us on that. Right now, the City of Yellowknife has a lot of requirements for permits and whatnot. Has there been any work done with the City of Yellowknife to see if we can get them on side with us to help the businesses overall and reduce the amount of red tape? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as part of our Business Incentive Policy review, we identified that there are currently 1,350 businesses that are BIP under the Business Incentive Policy, and 75 percent of those businesses are in Yellowknife and the five larger regional centres. Currently, we have BizPaL in Hay River and Fort Smith. We are working with the City of Yellowknife and the City of Yellowknife is in the process of developing BizPaL as well. I think that they will bring us a long ways forward if we can concentrate on the other regional centres. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am really happy to hear that. I would like to go back to the Minister’s first response, where he was talking about reducing some of the red tape. I appreciate everything he was saying, but we are in that reality today. The red tape exists today and every day that it continues to exist, businesses continue to struggle. Frankly, I want small and medium-sized businesses to succeed in Yellowknife. I want them in small communities. I want them to offer employment in small communities. Every second counts. When can we expect to see some progress on this? When can the Minister commit to having his department maybe go out with an RFP or something to help have somebody help us identify the burden so we can eliminate the burden? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I think we are fortunate. We also have the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that does regular surveys of all the businesses in the Northwest Territories. We can undertake to work on this so that we can have something by the end of this 16th Legislative Assembly. Also, I think it is very important for us to also look at reducing leakages. We have a number of government programs that go a long ways to doing so, so we will be focusing on those as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is one thing I haven’t touched on but it is related. Right now, that federal legislation, we have federal permits. We have federal forms that people have to fill out. We have territorial, we have city, we have everything. In looking at some of the forms, I often see what appears to be some level of duplication. In the review, if I can get the Minister to commit that they will look at where all the requirements for business are coming from and hopefully by working with our partners, the federal government communities and other organizations, we can identify some of that overlap. Can I get the Minister to commit that they will try to identify that overlap and work with those partners to eliminate it as well? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. We do recognize that red tape exists at all levels of government. It exists at the federal, territorial and local level, and through our different partnerships we will work to reduce it at all three levels. We’ll have to rely on businesses to tell us what some of the more significant red tape is at the federal level, but certainly we can work within the Government of the Northwest Territories, and also with the municipal governments to find ways to reduce this red tape. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement was on shoreline erosion in the community of Tuktoyaktuk. Over the past summer when I was home I was picked up by my uncle, John Steen, and then we went down and I looked at the shoreline embankment. It’s probably about 75 feet total, but the total from top of the soil to the lake, to the Pokiak Lake, is almost 50 feet. So one bad west wind, Mr. Speaker, where the rock ends, it’s going to open up that whole backend of the community where we have 31 units, including the RCMP, and all the units are going to be opened up to the ocean.
So, Mr. Speaker, where do we start with the Minister on getting extraordinary funding for the community of Tuk and making sure they’re not going to come at me and say use your gas tax money? I want extraordinary funding for the community to see where we start in getting this project for this upcoming season. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won’t tell him to use their gas tax money, but I will say you can use your capital infrastructure money that we provide to the community each year and they identify projects as a priority. I do know for a fact that in the latest capital plan from the community, they have identified some funds to put towards shoreline erosion. There’s no scope of work that’s been determined yet, nor have we had any requests for technical assistance, which we would be more than happy to provide to them. Thank you.
That was on my list, I just didn’t read it on capital infrastructure. It’s not enough, we don’t get enough. But with that being said, I’m asking the Minister now for his assistance in the Department of MACA in Inuvik to go into the community and to meet with the mayor and myself sooner rather than later, because of the rock hauling that’s going to be done. Hopefully it could be in this year coming. So what are the chances of that? Thank you.
Thank you. I could commit to the Member that if it’s the request of the community, we’d be happy to go in there and provide them some technical assistance. I did say before that they have identified some funds in their capital plan to go towards the shoreline erosion, but we’d be more than happy to meet with the Member and the leadership in the community to see what we can do to assist them. Thank you.
Thank you. Today, from the department’s work from the federal agency of Geological Survey of Canada, how long does the Minister think that it will take to claim that area, to think is the centre of town? Thank you.
I’m not quite sure how to respond to that, other than saying I would have to follow up and see what some of the recommendations were, but I will follow up and see what kind of information I can gather. Again, I’ll commit to the Member that we will work with the community to come up with some kind of a plan to deal with the shoreline erosion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister for that and just remind the Minister that I want extraordinary funding and I don’t want it taken out of the gas tax, I don’t want it taken out of the capital infrastructure, because the community has a big task in itself to keep all the buildings going. But I look forward to his department making sure it gets a hold of the community and myself to do this project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We do provide, through the capital infrastructure acquisition or plan, we provide all the money to the communities and this has allowed a lot of communities to deal with some of their infrastructure deficits and some of the infrastructure needs a lot sooner than they would have been able to had it been still part of the corporate plan, and this is just another example of that. You know, as a department, I mean, if we’re aware or we know of any other possible sources of funding out there that could assist the community, then I will commit to the Member that we usually follow any pots of money that we may be able to access on behalf for supporting the community. So we’ll continue to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
