Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be working with the Sahtu people through the various meetings between now and the deadline for submission to the Yukon Environmental Assessment Board? Would the Minister work closely with the Sahtu people?
We will be working in a collaborative fashion, as we do in many circumstances like with the caribou and other related issues to water, to make sure that we coordinate our efforts, that while we put forward the GNWT position, it is in conjunction with the collaboration with the people of the Sahtu and the aboriginal governments so that we have as coordinated a response as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about an initiative called Angel Street and it is about naming, as I said earlier, streets in recognition of violence. My question will be to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister responsible for the Status of Women be able to work in collaboration with the Minister responsible for Community Affairs about trying to raise the profile of this initiative to a territorial level in the Northwest Territories here and see if we can get more uptake from our municipalities in recognition of this problem out there? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the Status of Women, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for bringing this issue to the attention of the House. I would be happy to consult with my colleagues in Cabinet as well as on the other side, as well as municipal leaders and the Status of Women and the Native Women’s Association of the NWT to learn more about this initiative and see how we could implement it. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every night up to 23 women find shelter from violent and abusive homes. If there were no Centre for Northern Families, these victims would have nowhere to go. We can imagine the financial and human cost of their being trapped in dangerous situations.
Just putting these people in a $100 per night hotel room would cost the GNWT more than twice the $409,000 in annual funding provided by the GNWT. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if she can tell me what contingency plan and at what cost is being put in place to replace the programs and services lost if the centre closes its doors. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I am well aware of the fact that the Centre for Northern Families provides a very valuable service to marginalized and vulnerable homeless women living in Yellowknife. I am also aware that the centre has experienced cash flows and debt issues and that it is having a difficult financial time. Our department and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment have been working with the Centre for Northern Families. We will continue to work to look at what the financial challenges are and look for some solutions as to how we could go about working on debt reduction and increasing capacity. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate that support from the Minister. Hopefully it came from the department. I am certain that if it didn’t, it came from the centre in making sure the government has been involved. Again, I don’t know what support is being offered there. I don’t know what assurance there is. Is the Minister committing to assure us that the centre will not be closed and its programs will continue? I will leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the financial difficulties of the centre has been an issue that has been ongoing for many, many years. The government has provided funding to the centre under different programs. We very much value the services that they provide. What we need to do is to work with them. We are working with them to find out more of the details about their financial difficulties and then to see how we could…We need to determine what is being underfunded and what options we have to secure their financial stability. Right now we don’t have all of the details on their financial situation in terms of exactly what is leading to the deficit situation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would ask why the Minister isn’t on top of the details, but I’m sure we would hear nothing and use up a lot of time in response. I would like to know, Mr. Speaker -- the increase in the budget for the centre that has happened over the years is pitiful compared to the forced growth increases in this government over the last five years alone -- what is the Minister doing to address this shortfall and to start providing real support in terms of real costs that are being dealt with in dealing with real human lives? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I don’t think it is helpful for us to go through all of the financial details. I think there is some disagreement about what should be funded and such, but I just want to say I am proud of the work that the centre does. I recognize the important work that the centre does. It is an integral part of a spectrum of services that we need to provide not only in Yellowknife, but also for a lot of people that use their service all across the Territories.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud, actually, of the level of funding that we have provided to the centre too, so it is not always about how much money you receive. I could give you the details of how much government has funded over the years. The fact is, we agreed that this centre is under financial difficulty. We are saying, along with the Education, Culture and Employment staff who are our senior management and have been meeting with the centre to get to more clear and precise answers as to why we are where we are in terms of their financial difficulty and what options we have to resolve those. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
The Minister seems to insist on talking about details, and thinking that I am asking for details, and insisting she needs more details, and insisting on meeting about more details. What is needed here is decisive action to support this centre that provides a very important service. For example, this centre is paying $40,000 per year for rent on the building that they are in to the Housing Corporation. Is the Minister acting to work to get that forgiven or to provide funding specifically for that?
The Centre for Northern Families has an option to provide important advice to the child and family services review. Will the Minister provide support so that the centre can provide that important advice? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in the fiscal year 2007-08, we have government departments combined, between Health and Social Services, Education, Culture and Employment, the Housing Corporation and MACA, about $940,000 to the organization. I understand and I appreciate; I am not going to challenge that. I have too much respect for the work that this centre does to argue about details of the money here, because I want to respect their privacy rights and such.
What I am saying is we value the work that they do. We are committed to working with them to support them, and that, in order for us to ensure financial stability of this organization in the long run, we need to get at what is causing the shortfall.
I believe that most of their debt is with Revenue Canada and it is not something that we could deal with by just writing the cheque. We need to get to the bottom of how do we work together and how do we get the long-term solution. I am committed as a Minister to have our officials meet and work together on that. They have met a number of times with the board and we will continue to do so.
With respect to funding for the standing committee process, I believe that is a separate budget item in this House that has to be dealt with by the committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Justice. In my Member’s statement I spoke to a particular situation which, unfortunately, transpired over the last eight to nine months, and I wonder if the Minister could explain to me why this particular individual had to endure an eight-month wait before he could get out for an assessment. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I do believe this certain circumstance is before the courts. Really, the case is before the court currently and I cannot, therefore, comment any further on this particular case. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro, did you have another question that is not pertaining to the...Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question was addressed to the process, not to the individual. I wonder if the Minister could explain to me, and to the House, what our current situation is with regard to agreements that we have for providers of...who we have who provides psychiatric assessments for us in the NWT, who they’re with and what our situation is with that. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to the assessment, we deal with the Alberta hospital and Alberta jurisdiction. Those are the agreements that we have to deal with these inmates that are going through the process. But, certainly, we can gather more information for the Member on the numbers of agreements that we have in place with other jurisdictions, as the Member alluded to earlier. Mahsi.
I appreciate the offer from the Minister to get me the information on who we have agreements with and where they are. I presume most of our agreements are with Edmonton or Calgary organizations. But I wonder, if we have agreements with outside of Alberta, with Saskatchewan, Manitoba, B.C., etcetera, or if we have them with a number of different communities or cities, how is it that as a matter of course it takes an awfully long time for an inmate to get a psychiatric assessment? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, there are psychiatric assessments being done recently with Alberta, but we have to work with the Alberta government, the hospital there. It’s all based on the beds that are available. That’s why it took some time. Then there was a bed available, so that gave us the opportunity to assist the individual. So, certainly, Mr. Speaker, we deal directly with Alberta, but I have to gather more information on outside of Alberta, if there are any agreements. As far as I know, there are agreements particularly with Alberta. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for that. I guess I would reiterate that if we are dealing only with Alberta and that’s not suiting our needs, then we need to look beyond Alberta and look to other jurisdictions and make agreements with other hospitals, other organizations, other provinces.
My final question to the Minister has to do with the suggestion in my Member’s statement. As the Minister responsible for Justice and several other departments, I’d like to ask him to comment on the suggestion whether or not the department has ever considered the possibility of developing our own psychiatric assessment and treatment centre here in the NWT. Thank you.
Certainly I need to get back to my department on what kind of discussions they’ve had in the past or current. If they have discussed options or alternative measures to deal with that assessment tool, then certainly we can discuss those alternatives as the Member discussed earlier, possibly dealing with other jurisdictions. Those are discussions that we need to have. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier and it gets back to some of the questions that I had last week when it comes to devolution and resource revenue sharing. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on that, if I could. I’ve spoken in the past about the approach the Government of the Northwest Territories is taking to devolution and I’m wondering why the Government of the Northwest Territories wouldn’t look at an incremental approach to devolution, specifically in the area of minerals, oil and gas. I’d like to ask the Premier that question. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The process that’s been engaged by previous governments and the process we picked up on was one that included a package combination of devolution and resource revenue sharing. It engaged the aboriginal leadership across the Territories. We started off on that footing, as well, and looked for an additional infrastructure commitment from the federal government attached to that. That’s the process we would go. If we want to change the approach, then we would have to relook at that file to see if, in fact, we wanted to take it down, as we have in the past. For example, when health and social services was transferred to the Northwest Territories, transportation and so on. Thank you.
Yes, with health and transportation, those are areas of our operation that cost us money. When I talk about minerals, oil and gas, those are areas of our operation where, if done properly and we get control over those areas, we could actually benefit, fiscally benefit from the federal government devolving those responsibilities to the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Last week I also mentioned the fact that it’s close to $300 million that the federal government is currently taking in resource revenue from the Northwest Territories. So I’d like to ask the Premier, if it does take us changing gears, how could that happen? Would he engage the aboriginal leaders across the Territory and we could go after minerals, oil and gas with the aboriginal governments’ say in that as well? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, indeed, the approach would be through the regional leaders table that we’ve established. Our next meeting will be later on during this month and the devolution and resource revenue sharing re-engagement with the federal government will be one of the items we’ll be having discussions on. Thank you.
Again, the reason this is becoming important, we’re talking recently about changes to the diamond policy area and the fact that the Government of the Northwest Territories really doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to trying to ensure that the producing mines here in the Territory offer up the value-added industry that we’re trying to support as a government. So, again, I’d like to ask the Premier, will the Premier put that item on the agenda when the regional leaders meet again in November? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would say that, number one, through our socio-economic agreements with the industry, we have secured a supply of rough diamonds potentially for our own secondary industry and that’s why it’s been going on for as long as it has. Secondly, the commitment to sit down at the regional leaders table, I did make that. We are going to be sitting down with them later on this month and re-engagement of devolution and resource revenue sharing will be one of the items that we will have discussion on so we can incorporate just to what level we’d like to see that re-engagement happen on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, my questions last week and questions again today are based on the fact that I just don’t see us making any progress. I’d like to ask the Premier, how are we going to ensure that in the next two years we see some progress on these files, specifically on minerals, oil and gas and the devolution of those responsibilities to the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, number one, there has not been an initiative specifically on minerals, oil and gas. The devolution and resource revenue sharing has been a package put together, and at some point we’ll have to discuss if we even keep those two packages together. But this will take a discussion at the regional leaders table, because as has been shown in the past, without the support of regional leaders, the federal government isn’t too keen on moving forward, either without ourselves as the GNWT at the table or without regional leaders at the table. So the partnership approach is the best one and we’re working on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of the Housing Corporation in regard to the whole area of housing program delivery and also the change the government has made in regard to our capital estimates where we now approve the capital in the fall time so that we can deliver it through the winter months and have the jobs, hopefully, completed within a shorter time frame. I’d just like to ask the Minister of Housing exactly what is his department doing to correlate his programs with the change that we’ve made as government in regard to capital and also to ensure that people who apply on the home repair programs can get the programs, but, more importantly, have those programs completed within a reasonable time frame? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a concern that I’ve had raised to me personally by some contractors on the delivery of the contracting and how he thought if they had the contracts out sooner, they’d get a better delivery time. This is a discussion that I’ll commit to the Member that I will have with the department and we’ll see if we can work it out so it’s all in line with the capital process that we go through in the fall time so the contracts and materials can be let a lot sooner than they are now. Thank you.
