Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Yes, definitely, I’m willing to work with the NWT Housing Minister and also the Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities, if that needs to be the case. With our programming, we do provide subsidies to people with disabilities above and beyond the regular programming that we offer to NWT residents. So we continue to make improvements in those areas and continue to provide subsidies. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, certainly the government does provide support to persons with disabilities; however, somewhere there appears to be a disconnect between the local housing authority and the Income Support Program, because the local housing authority was going to evict this person with disabilities. It wasn’t until the department stepped in and made the arrangements so that person can stay in their unit. However, there is a family right now with children who are not in a public unit, because of some of the housing policies, that this family here is living in a warehouse, have no running water, especially with H1N1 out there, that this is a serious problem.
I ask the Minister again, in terms of strengthening the communication between Housing and the department of income support in terms of these types of situations that we not see any more in our communities. Can the Minister commit to me in terms of providing to me and the people of Deline a strong communication process in terms of not seeing this happen again?
Mr. Speaker, certainly we do what we can to prevent these things from happening. Surely, if we need to improve in our communication dialogue, we’re more than willing to do that between the departments. So those are the areas of improvement that we can certainly discuss at the departmental level. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to me also to work with the Department of Health and Social Services with people with disabilities in terms of them clearly understanding their responsibility when they have a housing unit, that there is support there for people with disabilities in terms of having their living conditions in the communities?
Mr. Speaker, most definitely. The Minister of Health and Social Services is also the Minister of Persons with Disabilities and she’s also taking all kinds of notes sitting beside me, so, definitely, we’ll continue to work in those areas. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I would ask the Minister if he would work closely with the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation in terms of this issue, in terms of the issue with this family here with small children that are living in the warehouses or somewhere else in Deline, that this family here gets the shelter that they need to have.
First of all we need to find out what’s really happening, why they are in the situation they are and how we can assist them. We do have programs that can certainly assist them and, yes, I’m more than willing to work with both departments, the NWT Housing Corporation and the Minister of Health and also Persons with Disabilities. If we need to improve in those areas, I am more than willing to look at it. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs on the issue that I raised in the spring session. It was about land taxes, the local band, the municipality as well as federal lands. There’s been an issue and it still hasn’t been resolved. I’d like to ask the Minister, has the department taken the lead in this process lately and what is the current status? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were some concerns raised by the Member and I think we also heard that concern when we did our tour. I can assure the Member that we are following up on it. I’ll get the progress and the status of it and then I’ll relay that on to the Member. Thank you.
I just want to reiterate that it’s still a priority of the residents of Fort Simpson. There’s a new mayor and council and they would like to press that issue forward. I think part of the strategy of what we heard in Fort Simpson, Mr. Speaker, was there’s got to be federal involvement. Has his department contacted any federal departments with regard to this issue? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’d have to follow up on that and see if there was some contact made. I’m assuming there was, because I know it was an issue and this was quite a while ago that the issue was raised. So I’ll commit to the Member that I will follow up on that and get the information to him and the new council in Fort Simpson as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and it’s in regards to the lack of income support services in communities, especially communities such as Tsiigehtchic where you don’t have an income support worker in the community and you have to depend on people to come in from either Fort McPherson or Inuvik. They usually come in once a month and in most cases it’s at the end of the month, and it’s causing some problems not only for the local housing authority but for the residents of Tsiigehtchic. What we’re finding is they’re one month behind and they run into arrears. The Housing Corporation isn’t being paid on time. More importantly, if you’re not in the community for that one-day visit, you miss out, so you basically have to wait until the next month to be provided with that service of income support.
The other issue is there’s no consistency with regards to the people who come into the community. Every time an income support worker comes to the community it’s a different person, so you have to explain yourself all over again on exactly how many people who live with you, how much money you make, how many kids you have and how many cats you feed. I think it’s that type of information that people are getting tired of. So I’d just like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, what is this government doing to ensure that communities have people based in their communities providing these type of services rather than having to depend on outsiders to come in and provide a service for them? Perhaps through a service agreement with the band operations or privatize it so somebody locally can provide that service, rather than having this system which basically is having an effect on the service in the communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. To deal with the clientele of income support service, we do have client service officers in the communities; maybe not all communities, but those communities without client service officers we do have on-duty individuals that travel from the region. As the Member indicated, there are client service officers that travel to the communities and those individuals should be familiar with the files. There might be a case where...because usually it’s a regular client, clientele, and those are the services that we provide to the communities. Every time we do an assessment in the income support service area, there’s always improvement in the working relations with the communities, and we’ll continue to do that. But certainly we have client service officers that are responsible for all the clientele that we have. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, that’s why I opened up with the lack of income support services, because there is no service. How can you have service when you have somebody come to a community for four hours a month? That’s not service. I think it’s important that this government puts the money into providing that service. There was over a million dollars given to the Department of Education when they transferred that responsibility from the Housing Corporation, and the whole idea was because we have local housing authority officers in the community. We won’t allow them to do the job of accessing people. Why couldn’t you work with the local housing authority and give them that responsibility to provide the housing component of income support to do the assessment at the local community level and do a pilot project in communities that don’t have income support workers, such as the community of Tsiigehtchic?
Mr. Speaker, we do provide services to the communities. If we have an income support worker, client service officer in a community, they provide the service. If they’re not there, that means we don’t provide services. So we do provide services in all communities, Mr. Speaker. Client services officers are established in the communities. If they’re not established in the community, they travel to the communities. There is a regular scheduled visit by income security officers, client service officers. So certainly those are the areas that we continue to improve on.
There’s also a review on the way, Mr. Speaker, that we will get some response by the end of this month or early next month, and that goes to show how our program is doing overall. So definitely we’ll be looking forward to that and we’ll be discussing further on that. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, this time I’ll be pleading with the Minister, can he seriously consider doing pilot projects in communities to improve the services to the residents of those communities who are only receiving four hours a month of services, and offer those dollars, instead of having people fly in and fly out, show up, say hello, good bye, fill out a piece of paper and leave, have those dollars stay in the community, provide an opportunity for people by way of employment, but, more importantly, have the service delivered by the community by way of community empowerment? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I think that is one of our goals, whether it be a pilot project or we’ve increased some client service officers in the small communities just over the last couple of years. So we continue to improve our programs. Based on a pilot project, most likely we can look at that and see where we can go with it. If it’s required, then it has to go through the business planning process again. But definitely those are the areas that we can certainly look at in the Member’s riding and in other ridings as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again I’d like to ask the Minister, I know my colleague from Nunakput is very frustrated in regards to people getting evicted. Now, a lot of evictions have to do with arrears, yes, but a lot of those arrears are occurring because people are not getting the attention they should be by way of these service client providers, because the consistency with their visits or with the consistency of time they spend in the community is not there. It’s an inconsistent process. So what is this government going to do to improve the services to our communities and give us more hours or more days a month than what’s presently being provided?
Mr. Speaker, the eviction process deals with a lot of issues. With arrears there’s a lot of attachment to it and, sure, it’s not the only one area but that’s the area that we are focussing on with the two departments, our department and also the NWT Housing Corporation, how we can improve in those communication dialogues we have, whether it be the LHO or client service officers at the community level. Yes, we hear there’s a lack of communication happening from one community to another community. Those are areas that we continuously improve in those areas. So, Mr. Speaker, we’ll continue to monitor the program and, like I said, there’s a review that’s coming at the end of this month or early next month and that will go to show how our program overall is doing. And if we need to make some changes, we’ll be discussing that with the standing committee. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to refer to an e-mail tabled yesterday from Mr. Lovatt, who bravely provides a painful description of how he and his mother suffered a loss of his younger brother and struggled to call emergency services without knowing the proper numbers. My question is for the Minister of MACA. What does this Minister have to say in response to this young man’s call for the GNWT to play an important role in establishing 911 service here? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I received the same e-mail and I’m sorry for their loss. We’ve all lost, at one time or another, and a lot of them were accidents. Whether 911 would have helped is a different question.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve said on numerous occasions that 911 is a service that some communities have identified as one that they want, and they do have the means within the monies that we’ve forwarded to them to implement 911 services. Mr. Speaker, there are some communities that have decided that it’s not a priority at this particular moment and they are looking to enhance their ability to respond to emergencies before even considering 911, because what’s the point of having it if you can’t respond to it properly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Indeed, I have heard those comments from the Minister. Of course, we have our neighbouring capital city of Whitehorse, which the territorial government set up 911 service just for the city of Whitehorse. I had a meeting with NorthwesTel here this week. I found out the cost of establishing a service in Yellowknife and indeed in all communities, but starting with Yellowknife and our larger communities, 70-some percent of our population is indeed affordable, with participation of this government and municipal governments, and then could be maintained thereafter by municipal governments. So does this Minister not consider that this call and this opportunity is something that this government should play a role in directly?
Everything is affordable with some input from the government and, again, it would be quite, is my understanding, an expensive undertaking for the company to provide service throughout the Northwest Territories and how long it would actually take. So, Mr. Speaker, I continue to go back to the fact that -- and I know Members are tired of hearing it – if it’s a priority for the communities, then they do have the funds to help bring this priority about. Thank you.
Indeed, I have heard these comments many times before from this Minister. We are trying to penetrate those comments and get him to consider new comments. The infrastructure deficit is something we have heard many, many times from this Cabinet. We seem willing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into highways, building highways and maintaining them. Does the Minister not see the need to balance that with some much more modest contributions to some of the other needs that our citizens are pointing out are a priority, including Yellowknife, as the Whitehorse citizens did? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. You are kind of leaning towards asking the Minister for his opinion on this, but I will allow the Minister to respond if he would like. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr Speaker, we have as part of the New Deal given money to every community in the Northwest Territories to deal with their infrastructure priorities, and if 911 is an infrastructure priority to the city of Yellowknife or the other six communities that want 911 implemented as a phased-in approach, they have that ability to bring that about. We’ve heard from two communities. I haven’t heard from the rest yet. I am hoping to get their input. I heard from two communities that have said that it’s not a priority with them right now. It may be in the future and when it is in the future, they also understand they are given the money to help bring this about. Thank you.
The time for question period has expired; however, I will allow the Member a final supplementary. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I tried to find out what other provinces in Canada, what practices are followed there. I looked at all 10 provinces. I am able to confirm that one, two, three, four, five of them, the 911 service is provided by the provincial governments. Three I was not able to determine and two they leave to municipalities. So obviously the majority of jurisdictions are provincial 911 services. So again, Mr. Speaker, I am wondering why this Minister won’t consider what most of the country is doing and certainly our neighbours to the west. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would have to confirm those numbers, because my information might be a little different than the Member’s. Again, Mr. Speaker, this government made a conscientious decision to devolve a lot of responsibilities to the communities as something the communities wanted. So if they decided the implementation of 911 is a priority of theirs, then they would have the financial ability to do so. If we start funding infrastructure projects, then we’ve defeated the whole purpose of capital formula funding and then we may as well go back to the old corporate formula funding where we decide what’s best for the communities and I don’t think communities would want that. I would like to hear from all 33 communities to see if they would want to go back to the old corporate plan and then have to wait years for their particular piece of infrastructure. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
In the calendar year 2009, how often have income support workers travelled to Tsiigehtchic to provide income support services?
How many clients did they see on these visits?
How much time, in hours, did they spend in the community on each visit?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
As originators of traditional knowledge, only indigenous peoples, the original stewards of our land, can regulate, make priorities and set standards for traditional knowledge. How will the Government of the Northwest Territories ensure that indigenous peoples are part of research processes?
The government plans to make large investments within the science agenda framework over the coming years. Have any organizations such as universities or institutes made financial commitments to do research in the NWT?
Can the Minister provide a list of research projects already committed to over the next two years, their locations and brief explanations of their purposes?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
What are the true academic levels of students graduating from high school in Sahtu communities, based on Alberta education standards?
What is being done to monitor Sahtu students’ levels of academic achievement, particularly in grades 9 through 12, so that there are no unfortunate surprises when a high school graduate attempts to access post-secondary education?
What is being done to communicate students’ levels of academic achievement to students, parents, teachers and the Sahtu Board of Education?
