As we move forward, we are taking into consideration all the recommendations from the Auditor General, because the Auditor General made the exact comments that the Member is talking about. When it comes to lack of clinical standards, right now, with eight authorities, we have eight different sets of clinical standards and they’re not always the same, which actually makes it incredible difficult to have one system and guarantee that all of our residents have the same level and access to care. So, as one authority, the regional wellness council chairs will come together, form the board, and that board will provide direction to the development of territorial clinical standards to ensure that all of our residents are getting the same.
There’s also huge opportunity here to get rid of some of the duplication of services or some of the areas we overlap, important functions such as purchasing, coordinate their purchasing so that we can purchase at a territorial level. It’s giant economies of scale and allows us to re-profile dollars where we really need them, which is the front line.
So there’s lots of opportunity here. We are still working on many of the details and I will be continuing to come to committee with those details as we move forward. First step is to get the legislation through the House. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. The Minister anticipated my next question. The department obviously has the largest O and M budget in our government, and most residents consider it the most important department when it comes to quality of life. So any savings that can be made in the efficient delivery of health programs will result, presumably, in increased health delivery.
Will the shift to the leadership council result in significant savings in the delivery of health care programs? I think the Minister has indicated probably. How much can we anticipate? Has the Minister identified any sorts of connotative estimates on the sorts of savings we can realize here?
I’ve been very careful not to say that this will save us a significant amount of money. This is about improving the services and the results for the people of the Northwest Territories and removing the barriers to care that exist, which are obviously bad for the patients. We anticipate an opportunity to control future spending through shared services like working together on things like purchasing and other functions, but it’s difficult to quantify what those savings will be. We are putting together a project team now to start working through some of these details, and as I’ve indicated, as these details work themselves out, I will be coming to committee with that information.
I just want to be clear; this isn’t about saving a whole lot of money. This is about improving the results for our people, which will ultimately save money but it will allow us to focus in and provide the care that our people truly need and expect. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my original question, I’ve been following the events leading to the creation of this council. It is, I believe, a very positive development, or will be when implemented, and the sooner the better. But recognizing the need to do this carefully and well, can the Minister give me an idea as to how much progress has been made and when he hopes to implement the health leadership council? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, this is a significant undertaking that’s going to take some time. We could rush it but I would be worried that we wouldn’t get it right, so we need to take the time in order to make sure we dot all of our i’s and cross all of our t’s and do all the work that is necessary.
Right now, as I have indicated, the first step is to bring forward the legislation that will allow us to create this entity. I plan to bring forward that legislation in the winter session. I hope it passes in the life of this Assembly. That’s my expectation. As soon as that legislation passes, my next step is to re-establish the wellness councils on an interim basis, because we don’t plan on having the legislation go live until April 1, 2016, which gives us between now and then, over a year to do much of the planning, much of the work to make sure that we roll this out as smoothly as possible. It’s going to take changed management; it’s going to take a lot of education; we are going to make sure that staff are aware and involved.
We want to do it right, so we want to make sure that we take the appropriate time, and the legislation will be in front of committee in the winter session. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in the day I spoke about federal housing that was owned by the federal government that was not transferred to our territorial government.
I would like to ask the Minister of Housing, in his capacity does he know why we didn’t have access to that available housing? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The initial discussions on devolution, the transfer of the federal houses over to the GNWT was not included in those initial discussions. Thank you.
It was brought to my attention that this is a huge opportunity to alleviate housing needs in Fort Simpson. I understand there are other communities that do have some federal housing that’s still maintained by the federal government. I think it’s Hay River, Inuvik, there might even be some in Yellowknife, but it’s huge opportunities.
I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, what process would our government undertake to see if we can get these houses from the federal government? Thank you.
The NWT Housing Corporation met with Public Works Canada officials in September to discuss their plans on disposing of these units in the regional centres. I’m not quite sure of the actual discussions yet or what the outcome of that was, but if there is opportunity for us to get those units and turn them into housing units or use them for homeownership in the communities, then I think it is one that we would have to look at. It would have to make sense from our point of view. They would have to meet all the proper codes that we require and they have to be ones that have to be pretty well move in ready. Thank you.
Perhaps I can ask the Minister if he can initiate the next set of discussions with Public Works and Services of the federal government and see what can be done about these units in these communities, because they can help our residents I am sure.
Mr. Speaker, with our move toward more multi-unit type configurations, they have a lot of single units that we are not too interested in; however, we would support eligible clients if they were to want to purchase one of those units using one of our homeownership programs, the PATH program for example. If they qualified and the unit was up to standards, then we would support them in their pursuit of trying to buy some of these former federal units. But we will continue to have those discussions and see if there are ways for opportunities for us to inherit those or get those into our inventory. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I think it begins at this point, I am not too sure if there will be another post-mortem with devolution with the federal government, but perhaps the Minister can raise this with his colleagues or else the Minister of Public Works and Services and say there is definitely a need. I know that in Fort Simpson, if we converted them over to the local housing organization, it would certainly alleviate a waiting list that is almost five years long. Thank you.
As I said, we will explore our options and if there are opportunities for us to do something with these units, if they meet the criteria that we have and if the deal is pretty good, then we will look at taking the next step.
I will have discussions with my colleagues, and the Housing Corporation will continue having discussions with Public Works and just see what opportunities are out there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Health and Social Services about his Member’s statement today.
Obviously, my statement today was about Hay River and how special it is, but it is also special in this process of the one territorial board or one management board for health and social services. Hay River is an anomaly. The employees are not territorial employees.
Has the Minister come up with a solution to put these employees into the territorial system? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I was in Hay River earlier this summer, talking about board reform and the governance changes that we are proposing, I did meet with the public and one of the things that came up on regular basis is recognizing that Hay River is outside the public service and how do we bring them in. We are working on that right now. We are quantifying what the cost might be to bring them over into the public service and what other actions may be necessary. Once we have that information, we will be in a better position to figure out what our next steps will be and how and if we can bring those individuals into the public service.
There will certainly be a cost, so we are working on that, and once we have a little bit more information around that, I am absolutely happy to share that with the Member and committee. Thank you.
As the Minister indicated, he was in Hay River a few months ago talking about the same situation. At that time they were going to get us a cost of what it will cost to put these people into the public service.
When can we expect that cost and why is it taking so long? Thank you.
We have to work with the authority; we have to work with their pension provider to figure out what the actual full cost of that is. We didn’t start doing it immediately in the summer. We wanted to move along a couple more steps to make sure that there was any interest in us moving forward to the one authority. If there was no interest, obviously doing that work wouldn’t have been necessary. So there is an interest; we are starting to move forward with the action and the steps necessary to make this happen and we are in the process of quantifying what those costs will be. As I indicated, as soon as we have that, we will be sharing that with the Member and Committee. Thank you.
I know the Minister indicated to Mr. Bromley, talked to him about purchasing and some of the efficiencies there and I guess there was some real concern at the Hay River meeting that that meant Yellowknife purchasing of all goods. I am just wondering if the Minister can alleviate those concerns that Hay River had about a centralized purchasing and the fact that we do a lot of our own purchasing through our own authority right now and how that would work. Thank you.
When I was in Hay River, the concerns I heard were: is this centralization, what about bringing our people in from Hay River into the public service, and the other one was the board and how would we get back to a board or council for Hay River representation. Absolutely, this is not centralization. Even if we work together and partnership purchase to get economies of scale, we are still going to need the individual in the Hay River for Health and Social Services Authority or the regional hospital to coordinate the purchase of the supplies they need. We will still need those individuals at the front line, in the communities, identifying what is needed and ordering the specifics. How we order and who we order from will be done in cooperation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister just talked about the regional wellness councils and the advisory board.
Could the Minister give me a little bit of detail how that would work in the Hay River area and surrounding area, and will that board replace the public administrator that we currently have? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, one of the things that has become incredibly clear as I travel around the Northwest Territories talking about these wellness councils, is that in each of the catchment areas, for lack of a better term, like the Beaufort-Delta or Inuvik or the Sahtu, the way that the particular council will be formed will be definitely tailored to the particular area. In Hay River, as an example, we will obviously have to work with the Hay River town council as well as the other areas that might use Hay River as a catchment area to come up with a reasonable approach to selecting the individuals. Once the individuals are put on the council, once the council is established, there will no longer be a need for a public administrator because the council will have that responsibility. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The North American Indigenous Games brought together some very strong and powerful athletes from the Northwest Territories. More importantly, it was done with a very small group of good people, volunteers. I’m very proud of every athlete that went down there, especially the Sahtu athletes, the coaches, the parents and, of course, our cultural drummers from Fort Good Hope. My questions are for the Minister of MACA.
Does he have a final report card on any type of commitments that can be given to the NWT team in three years’ time for the next North American Indigenous Games?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of sport, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We were pleased with the results that we had in Regina and I think that’s a good indication of investment that this Legislative Assembly has made to giving our youth in all the communities an opportunity to be active. I think we’re seeing a direct result of that now. I have not received a final report yet. I’m looking forward to that to see if there’s any recommendations on how we can improve our gold medal haul for the next one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When the Minister does receive the final report, that will be shared, obviously, on this side with the Members so we can improve our next participation.
With our athletes going down to the North American Indigenous Games, it was a great experience for the youth to have. It is events like these that have the cultural component that help our youth become leaders of tomorrow. We will need strong and powerful leaders to stand for us.
Can the Minister tell us how the department is helping the Aboriginal Sport Circle and Sport North in creating a coaching program for our smaller communities?
Thank you. As part of the plan they submit to the Sport and Rec Council in their funding, they identify some of the clinics that they want to put on in the communities. I know for a fact that through the Aboriginal Sport Circle, the Parks and Recreation Association and Sport North run a number of camps in the communities to get the youth there not only competing but just to be active, and it’s through some of the programs that we partner with our colleagues, departments, the Active After School Program, the whole idea is to get our children active and we’re seeing a result of some of this as they start competing in some of the more high-caliber games because they’ve had that opportunity.
So there are many sport systems in place and it’s part of their plan when they submit their applications for funding to the Sport and Rec Council. Thank you.
Thank you. Yellowknife has some world-class facilities. It’s great to see sport circles bringing workshops and clinics like snowshoeing into Fort Good Hope, but can the Minister look into hosting a traditional sports tournament in our small communities?
Thank you. That’s something that we would rely on the Aboriginal Sport Circle to help us with. I do know that they have the Middle School Traditional Games Championships here in the capital and I’ve had the opportunity to attend a couple of them. They were well attended and the enthusiasm there was fantastic and the Aboriginal Sport Circle did a fantastic job putting those on. There are opportunities for some of the regional sporting organizations to have maybe a regional one, then they would work with the Aboriginal Sport Circle and our supporting partners to try to help bring that about. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Is the department willing to work with Enterprise to develop a visitors information centre at the site of the old weigh scale? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The quick answer is yes. I really enjoyed the opportunity to travel with the Member to Enterprise earlier this summer and talk to some of the community leaders in Enterprise about the prospect of a visitors centre to be located at the former weigh scale site. We really do need to satisfy the land tenure issue with the weigh scale site, and I’d be happy to try to help the Member. I know there’s an application that the hamlet has currently in play. I’m happy to help and try to get some answers on a time frame on the disposition of that land.
I will say that having a visitors centre located on the highway in Enterprise would be very beneficial not only for the community of Enterprise but also communities like Fort Resolution, Hay River and Fort Smith. Thank you.
The Minister has indicated that he’s willing to help out the community in terms of the land tenure. What else can the community do in terms of trying to at least set the stage for a constructive dialogue between perhaps the community and the department? Is there something that perhaps could be a precondition that the community could consider just to help with the process of advancing the land tenure? Mahsi.
Thank you. I understand the community was and had made application for several large parcels of land in and around the community, and that is something, as I mentioned to the Member in my previous response, that I’d like to help the community and the Member out with in trying to understand better how that former site could go to the community of Enterprise if their intent is to have a visitors centre there. I’ve talked many times in this House about the Economic Opportunities Strategy and the role tourism plays here in the Northwest Territories.
At some point in time, I certainly would like to see a visitors centre in Enterprise. I know while we were there, we also had a look at a large statue of a trapper. Something like that on the highway near a visitors centre or adjacent to a visitors centre would certainly attract people to come and see another story about the Northwest Territories about the impact that trapping has had on our society here in the Northwest Territories. That’s something – and I know I’ve had that discussion with some of the Member’s constituents about that, as well – I feel strongly about seeing happening at some point in time. Thank you.
I’d like to thank the Minister for his reply. Besides the timeliness of replying to the community, can the Minister enlighten this side of the House in terms of what is the issue in terms of the land transfer? Is it because of devolution, or is it just because all of the support mechanisms are not in place? Mahsi.
Thank you. My understanding is that because the application was for a number of large parcels, it’s a complicated process. Of course, that’s something that doesn’t fall under the purview of ITI and my ministership. It would be a question best answered by the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
I will certainly talk to the Minister and we will try to get that land tenure issue sorted out for the community of Enterprise. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of trying to advance the visitors information centre forward and in preparation for the summer, could the Hamlet of Enterprise apply for funding through the department’s Community Tourism Infrastructure Program?
