Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize former colleagues. I won’t name them, as they’ve been mentioned here before. I’d also like to recognize a little girl, Mikayla Jacobson. When we had a retreat up in Tuktoyaktuk one time, I met her before I met our Speaker. We attended a child care centre there, and Mr. Ramsay and I were both quite smitten with this beautiful little girl that was sitting there. She was so engaging in talking to us, and when she arrived here last night at the Assembly, she wanted to go immediately down to Mr. Ramsay’s office to say hello. What a delightful young lady she is, and I want to welcome her here today.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to introduce to you and through you, as we heard earlier from the Minister, the Northern Safety Association. We have Mr. Chris Robb. We have Mr. Chris Johnston and, of course, Sarah Johnson here with us. We’ve got a lot of dignitaries here in the room, and I’d just like to welcome you back. And of course, as always, to have the Jacobson family in the House is always a pleasure.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Minister’s statement I talked about the partnership between the Northern Safety Association and the Department of Human Resources. I would like to recognize the people from the Northern Safety Association: Chris Johnston, Chris Robb, and Sarah Johnson. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. I, too, would like to welcome my wife to the gallery, and Mr. Aaron Kowikchusk, and my daughter and my little baby girl, Mikayla. You can see my wife is holding our newest addition to the Jacobson family…
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Joseph Hayden Avik Jacobson. I also would like to thank his mom and dad. We had custom adopted Joseph about three and a half weeks ago, so he’s my boy now. It’s good to see him here. Thank you, colleagues.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement. I have some questions for the Premier today about the lack of a policy for infrastructure contributions to a non-government organization. I mentioned in my statement, the Standing Committee on Social Programs has tried unsuccessfully, several times, to get the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to take on this task and to bring it forward and we have been rebuffed at least twice. Committee believes really strongly, as I do, that we need a policy.
I would like to first ask the Premier whether or not the Premier and/or the Executive Council have been made aware of this request and what action is he taking to address it. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are aware of this request in response to the opposition of previous funding, as the Member indicated in her Member’s statement. We do have a capital planning policy and we have previously responded to the committee that it’s very simple: we will not be entertaining those requests anymore. Any requests will go through the capital planning process. There will be no queue jumping, and any requests that come from the public, we will share with the committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I’m struggling to understand this process. I know we have a capital planning process and it works very well, but this is a situation that has not occurred before.
I’d like to know from the Premier what is in the policy that he referred to. He said there is a policy. I don’t think it has come to committee. I would like to know what’s in that policy that references infrastructure contributions to non-government organizations. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, what I said was we have a capital planning process. Any requests will go through that process.
In the past we have contributed approximately $2 million to Betty House. We provided $60,000 per year for Rockhill Apartments. We provided funds for repairs to NGO facilities through the CAEP budget. We recently reduced the rent charged to the Centre for Northern Families housing. We provided operating funding for North Slave Housing and we provided capital and operating funding for Avens. The policy, as I indicated, any requests for funding we will say no. We will also share it with the committee, and if committee feels we should deal with it, then we will put it through the capital planning process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Premier, but I don’t feel that we’re going to have something which Members and/or the public is going to agree with. The Premier said that this is not going to happen again. Well, I have to say that one organization gets lucky and everybody else, too bad, it’s not ever going to happen again.
I need to know from the Premier… He mentioned a number of funds that we give to non-government organizations. What I heard was that these are organizations providing government services. The example that I referenced is an organization that is not providing any government services; it’s not operating on behalf of the GNWT. So when a non-government organization puts a request through to the Cabinet through committee or through a particular MLA, what is the government going to use to justify awarding that money? There’s no criteria, no policy. So I need to know from the Premier how a decision is going to be made to fund an infrastructure contribution, not operations, to a non-government organization. Thank you.
Thank you. With regard to infrastructure, we have a capital planning process. If there are any requests, they will go into the capital planning process. The capital planning process that we just finished is a process where we involve committees, and in developing our capital plan, projects are ranked in order of importance. There are five criteria: the protection of people, protection of assets, protection of environment, financial investments, program needs or requirements. So that’s the process and that way there’s no queue jumping. All projects are ranked on the basis of the five criteria. Then the Legislative Assembly votes on it or approves it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for itemizing those priorities. I agree with those priorities, but I have to again ask, when an NGO comes forward and is looking for infrastructure, construction money, what are we going to do? The Premier mentions that there’s a process. I’d like to know if he would put that on paper and provide it to me and to committee. Thank you.
Thank you. So I guess my understanding is that the Member is not offended by the fact that we have provided such funding in the past, but would like to see a process where we can continue to do so. We’re quite prepared to discuss this with committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the new Minister of Transportation. In this House I have talked about dredging and the dredging requirements in Hay River. I’m looking to see what the new Minister of Transportation is going to do to complete the dredging in the Hay River area.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The dredging of any rivers or ports is the responsibility of the federal government. However, we have, in the past, participated and I believe in 2012-13 we got some money from the federal government and we did some dredging right at the port. So we continue to work with the federal government to see if there’s money that can be had to continue the dredging.
Thank you. The Minister talked about some of the, I think they call it dock maintenance that the GNWT did this year.
Does the Minister know how much money we’ve spent on dock maintenance this year and last year, and dredging in the Hay River area?
Thank you. We spent $30,000 in 2012-13 and $30,000 this summer of ’13-14. Thank you.
Thank you. I’m looking to see if the Minister will commit to assisting with the preparations and the assessment of what it’s going to take to complete the dredging in the Hay River area. I know it’s a federal responsibility, but I know the Department of Transportation has spent some money in this area, and I’m just looking for the Minister to commit to whether it has to be outsourced or in-house assessments of what the needs are to complete the dredging and what those costs are so we can take it to the federal government.
Thank you. The best thing the Department of Transportation could probably do is continue to work with the local industry and lobby the federal government for more money to do the dredging. The federal government recognizes that there are areas that have to be dredged, so it’s not like they don’t think it’s necessary. Everybody agrees that it’s completely necessary. We would be happy, as a department, to continue to work with industry. I would also be happy to facilitate a meeting between the federal government and industry in order to complete some dredging. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That was my last question. Is the Minister committed to talking with the federal government, talking with the Prime Minister to get federal funding to complete this project?
Mr. Speaker, we are aware that the Canadian Coast Guard is currently working on a place, so we will continue to engage them at that level.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From my statement earlier today, I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing what is being done to address the need for housing for staff in the Mackenzie Delta communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This was an issue that we had a discussion with the NWT Teachers’ Association about, and we had committed to them that we were going to do some work and see what we could do to provide houses in some of the communities where they face the most challenges, one of the communities being actually in the Member’s riding.
We have approximately 102 units right now that we are renting out. I believe 41 of those are taken up by teachers. We’ve converted many of our vacant units into units that could be available to teachers, and we are planning, in the future, to work in each community that has the most need and possibly put some more units into those communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That actually answers the rest of my questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Granted the issue of power rates and how those rates are arrived at are a complicated matter, but I’d like to quote from unedited Hansard from yesterday in the House. I’m quoting Minister Miltenberger. “One of the big factors in Yellowknife and Hay River, plus a couple of small communities, is that there is another power distributor, NUL. While we provide and sell power at wholesale rates, the provider in these communities adds their own costs on top of that, which is why there is such a distinct difference...”
Mr. Miltenberger’s comments imply that there is a different rate structure in Hay River and in Yellowknife, when in fact the cost of power is arrived at on a cost-to-service basis. That’s the type of industry this is and all rates are developed and approved by the Public Utilities Board. All communities in the Northwest Territories are rate-based on the cost of service, and these costs are highly scrutinized to ensure that they’re eligible and these rates are approved by the PUB.
Could the Minister please clarify or confirm that this is in fact the case? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Power Corporation puts in general rate applications based on thermal zone and hydro zone. They generate and distribute. Northland Utilities operates and distributes, they don’t generate, and they look at their business on a community-by-community basis. Thank you.
On this community-by-community basis, the rates are set and the Public Utilities Board examines the cost of delivering that service and approves those rates. Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, another issue that seems to have been brought into this is the issue of the franchise fee. I just happen to have my Yellowknife power bill here. It clearly states in here what the franchise fee is about. Franchise fee is a flow-through fee that is approved by the Public Utilities Board that allows, in tax-based municipalities, the service provider to avoid paying a tax on the land or the infrastructure where transmission is located and then this cost is paid directly to the community by the service provider.
I will quote Mr. Miltenberger again, he said, “I will indicate clearly right now one of the big costs that Yellowknife has, that Hay River has and Fort Smith doesn’t have, is the franchise arrangements and the costs that flow from that arrangement that communities make on their own call, because of their franchise fee...”
Again, these franchise fees, I’d like the Minister to confirm, are agreed to between the service provider and the community and approved by the Public Utilities Board. Thank you.
The NTPC rate zone cost for residential for all communities is 18.73 cents. The wholesale rate to NUL in Hay River is 9.66 cents. The Northland Utilities power rate in Hay River is 31.26 cents. But, yes, those are all agreed to by the communities. The communities make their decision and it’s all approved through the regulatory process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the point I’m trying to make here today – and I guess I’ll just ask the Minister this one last question – is that it’s not really fair to imply that there is something untoward or unregulated about the rates that Northland Utilities… It’s like yesterday in the House there was, to me, an unfair comparison made between communities serviced by NTPC versus NUL.
I would just like the Minister to confirm, for the record, that these rates are fairly set, based on the cost of service, and regulated by the Public Utilities Board which this government oversees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we’re going to provide the information to the Members. It lays out some of the information I quoted here and the different rates by community. But, yes, there is a process by which they’re arrived at. Yes, some communities have chosen to deal with Northland Utilities versus NTPC. They negotiate their arrangement with the franchise fee. All that is done through due process. There’s nothing untoward about it. But we will lay out the information and the rates so that we can respond to the request from the Member and Mr. Hawkins, and we will provide that to the House and to the committee. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
