Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A visitor here today has been recognized as the Speaker, former MLA and grand chief. I also want to recognize Sam Gargan as a constituent from my riding. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure, also, to recognize the many seniors that we have on hand today and particularly a pair of seniors who happen to be constituents, the Eggenbergers, who are sitting up here. They are seated with some long-time ex-Yellowknifers. I don’t know if they were here a long time or they’ve been gone a long time. Anyway, I’m very happy to recognize the Bendiksons, who have returned for a visit. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you. I’d also like to recognize our former colleague and former Speaker and now grand chief for the Dehcho. It’s good to see that there is life after serving in the territorial Assembly, and Mr. Antoine from Nahendeh and Mr. Gargan adhere to the principle of recycle, reuse.
---Laughter
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to welcome everybody. In particular, I’d like to recognize Mr. Ed Jeske, who taught me how to drive when I was 16, and Vivian Squires, who used to be my constituency assistant. In case nobody else recognizes them, I would also like to recognize Mr. Dave Wind and Mr. Blake Lyons. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Chamber. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a well-respected elder, Charlie Tobac from Fort Good Hope, passed away on July 10, 2010. Charlie was known as a strong believer in the Dene culture and healing traditions, as well as a strong voice for the Dene people on issues such as the proposed Mackenzie Valley Natural Gas Pipeline and, more importantly, learning the traditional values of Dene. On behalf of the Sahtu region constituents, we send our thoughts and our prayers to the Tobac family. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about this one small line in this recruitment ad that has caused such a stir in Hay River. I really can’t overstate that, Mr. Speaker. I know it may not seem like a big thing, because one extra executive or CEO in Yellowknife may not be a big thing, but in Hay River, in a small community, this is a large thing. As our government, we say that we’re committed to vibrant, sustainable communities, and there’s good air service between Hay River and Yellowknife, there are certainly good communication systems in place and, like I said, this one small line here. It said that as a result, the selected individual may reside in either Yellowknife or Hay River.
I would like to ask the Premier today if he could tell us why, and tell the people of Hay River, I guess, why it was necessary to offer the alternative of living in Hay River or Yellowknife to this person. I’m wondering perhaps if they thought they couldn’t recruit somebody if it was to live in Hay River, because I think we could certainly prove that not to be the case, but I’d like to know what the rationale was for that option. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The ad that was put out by the board on the recruitment process for the CEO was out. I was informed about it as the ad had gone out. I met with the acting chair of the board as well as their recruitment committee for that position. They have informed me that there has been no designation as to whether it be Hay River or Yellowknife, but they included that, and partly due to the fact of the review that was done that talked about some restructuring of the executive part of the headquarters. There is no commitment from that piece that we are not planning to do any moves out of Hay River to Yellowknife. That one position, though, was advertised as the potential incumbent could choose either location. That is what I was informed of. Thank you.
The day-to-day operations of an organization, whether or not the leader is there every day or not is largely -- and the Premier knows this as a leader of this organization -- the leadership is a huge piece of the good working and productivity and contentment of the folks who work in the headquarters in Hay River.
Mr. Speaker, the NWT hydro piece, which is a subsidiary of the NWT Power Corporation, having to come here to do that work when the Taltson is located in the South Slave. Hay River is in the South Slave. We as a government have got to look for ways of sustaining the smaller communities, which can’t be putting everything into Yellowknife. Nothing against Yellowknife, but we can’t be doing that. Is it too late to remove the option of the president and CEO of NTPC residing in Hay River? Is it too late at this juncture to remove that option from this recruitment exercise? Thank you.
The board has hired a recruitment firm over the last number of months, and has now in fact, I believe, made a recommendation as to who they would select. So during that process that ad was a part of it, and I just recently had a meeting again with the acting chair as well as the selection committee for that position. They reiterated to me that there was no preference given to either location, but I will commit to speaking with the board on this issue. Once again, thank you.
If I can get the Premier to agree, concur that the morale of the headquarters staff in Hay River would be enhanced by having the president and CEO also be a resident of that community to interact with those folks in the very many things you do in a small community, that that would be a valuable asset and would enhance the morale of the folks who work in the headquarters in NTPC. Thank you.
I know that the Power Corporation headquarter staff as well as the staff within that community of Hay River and across the North has in fact faced many challenges over the last number of years from motions of this Assembly to motions of the Association of Communities. They have dedicated to continue providing the best level of service they can. We have had our challenges. I know that the issue of morale is one of those that get discussed by the board, as well, when they talk about the future operations going forward with the Power Corporation. Yes, I believe that morale is important. With the hiring process that having someone new come on board and it would make sense then that they become very familiar with the staff that are called headquarters in Hay River. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would still like to have the Premier commit to formally communicating with the acting chair of the board of directors, expressing strongly that the preference of this government would be that the president and CEO of NTPC reside where the headquarters is located in Hay River. Thank you.
I would say I’ve been apprised the Member of this Legislative Assembly question Ministers of the past about where they put their key staff. I have heard many Members of the Assembly talk about, for example, if we were to put in new positions, that we diversify and go throughout our Territory. I will express the concern to the board as we go through these stages of hiring a new CEO. I will share that with the board. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I talked about the equality and inequality of residents of the Northwest Territories under the public government system. Sometimes we come to a point in our discussions where we have the have and have-nots, especially in larger centres and smaller communities, in terms of access to health care or education or just the cost of living.
I want to ask the Premier how we can in this government, in our last year, bring some of this equality up so that all people in the Northwest Territories will be treated fairly under our system in terms of programs, services and the equality of living in our communities.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the very early days of this Legislative Assembly through our Strategic Initiatives committees, we also established the Rural and Remote committee to look at the level of programs and services offered in our communities and how we can look towards enhancing those, considering our existing environment is one of the key factors.
As I stated in my comments earlier on today that, for example, the RCMP and the backup policy and reaching out to smaller communities is one of those ways. The work of our electricity rate review project and team will probably be one of the biggest areas where we will see those of the highest cost areas be affected by that change that we are making. The other piece would be during our business plans, the many programs and services we have tried to enhance through that Rural and Remote committee and normal planning of departments.
When we do look at our facilities and we do look at the changing landscape of the Northwest Territories, we try to address those shortfalls that we do have in our communities. The unfortunate reality is in some cases it will take a number of years to create that levelling off. As well, it could be decades, as Members have seen, to make the change. For example, the Sahtu used to be within the... There were three regions, Inuvik, Yellowknife and South Slave, I believe. Now we have seven regions and the Sahtu has been starting to grow on that basis of being a regional centre. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, certainly the Premier is correct in terms of some of the history of the Sahtu becoming its own region in terms of wanting independence in terms of coming into the realm of the system of government here. I want to ask the Premier in terms of the programs and services in the NWT.
We know that the Northwest Territories has 10 communities without RCMP services, just the access to that type of safety in our communities. Is his Cabinet and government going to allocate or look at simple, basic safety enforcement in our communities such as Colville Lake and other communities that do not have RCMP in their communities? That is the type of equality I am looking for in terms of services for all residents and the people in the North. Is he looking at issues such as that?
Mr. Speaker, as I know, the Minister of Justice has worked with the community and with, for example, the RCMP and the Department of Justice to support their plan for the backup policy that they have initiated and we have had to implement, which costs us more money through our contract, as well as expand services into those communities that don’t have coverage and work with the RCMP on that initiative as well, because they are in charge of, for example, the capital side. Our contract covers the O and M side. That is something that continues to be something we work with them on to try to expand the coverage of RCMP within our Territory. Thank you.
The Premier in his sessional statement talked about security resources from Ottawa, which future government leaders will shape and continue to realize our future in terms of the equality in our region. Is the Premier looking at resources where the Sahtu will come to a level of the same type of services that we see in Yellowknife or Hay River, or that type of services? Right now in our regions we are not seeing this and we want to know when this will come to reality in terms of these types of programs.
Thank you. As Members that have been around this Assembly for a number of terms, as well as know the history of our Territory as it has developed, we used to have a level of services set out in the government standards, depending on your size of population and community. We have worked with that and in fact expanded that beyond those initial guidelines to look at the level of programs and services. One of the things that happens now is it’s broken down into our tax-based communities and the general taxation area. When we talk about the services in larger communities, there’s a higher tax burden on the individuals living within the large communities to pay for those enhanced services.
As the Government of the Northwest Territories, we can show that in fact when it comes to trying to balance that field at least on a per capita basis fund to a higher level to try to bring those communities if they’re still lacking, and we know that, and we continue to try to work with changing the way we deliver our programs so we’ll see that enhancement. With our discretions, we’ve heard throughout the life of this Assembly and many Assemblies, devolution and resource revenue sharing. With the new revenues that would come our way, that would help us deliver a higher level of programs and services with the communities, as well as sharing some of those resources with the aboriginal governments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I’ll get onto the other issue later on, the devolution and resource revenue sharing, but I want to talk about protection from this government in terms of the equality of services in our smaller communities. For example, Mr. Speaker, some of the communities do not have banking services. They only have the Northern Store or the Co-op store and when communities want to cash cheques, they’re charged an enormous fee to cash a cheque, which I don’t think they have those fees in Yellowknife or any other larger centres where there are banking services.
I wanted to ask the Premier what type of protection do you have for residents in the communities that do not have banking services, such as CIBC or TD in their communities, when they cash cheques or deal with financial services.
Thank you. The issue of banking in our communities, we have quite a number of communities across the North that have no formal banking services. So those services are provided by, for example, a community store, a grocery store, an institution within the community. The program we would have is if there are complaints lodged, we would have to look through our consumer affairs part of our government. So that’s the only thing I can offer at this time without further detail and getting the appropriate Minister to respond. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about the condition of Highway No. 7. That’s the highway that runs from B.C. over to Fort Simpson, and of course the proximity community is Fort Liard. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation, can you please provide me an update about the status of the repairs to Highway No. 7 for this construction year? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recently visited the communities in the Member’s riding and the concerns he’s raising today were brought forward by a number of residents of Nahendeh. Of course, the condition of Highway No. 7 has been a concern for this government and all the people that travel it. It’s a piece of infrastructure that we inherited some time ago from the federal government. It was constructed during the Hire North days and the construction code for roads were a little different than they are today.
We recognize that it needs some attention. It is a concern. It’s an aging piece of infrastructure at this point and we’ve made some serious commitment in terms of investment for that road. We’ve committed money on a three-year basis. We’ve, this year, done some work on gravel resurfacing and that work is completed. We’ve also done a considerable amount of gravel crushing, quarry development for Highway No. 7, and that work is also done. There is other work that is ongoing that needs to be done. We also have undertaken to do a further function review and engineering assessment for that road so we can develop a long-term strategy. We’re also doing strength testing on different portions of the road to help us guide what we need to do. There’s a contract that’s been awarded to one of the local companies in the Member’s riding. That work is ongoing.
So there are about six different areas that we can report on. I certainly would be glad to provide a more detailed report, if the Member would require. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The Minister did raise something and I would like to thank him, yes, for being responsive and coming to Fort Liard immediately after I had a constituency meeting, to hear those concerns from residents. Can the Minister explain how will he ensure that the repairs to the highway are undertaken and completed so that next summer the highway is not labelled as “War Zone Road,” Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
I have no control on what the Member is going to label his road...
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The reality is, Mr. Speaker, this road is going to require probably a complete reconstruction. We’ve been really focused on trying to develop a plan that will do that. However, the challenge is that there has been excessive rainfall in that area. It has contributed to eroding, it has contributed to culvert failures, flooding, things of that nature and it has forced us to redirect our efforts from reconstruction on a portion of the road that has been targeted, to trying to deal with some of the crisis situations that are developing and it’s taken away from our investment that had hoped we would see in terms of reconstruction. But that’s something that’s going to happen in the long-term and it’s going to need a number of governments to continue to dedicate resources to change that situation. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I think that’s a strategy, I think there’s got to be federal involvement. Can I ask the Minister when is his next opportunity that he would be meeting with his federal counterpart or federal-provincial meeting of Transportation Ministers, because I think that’s the point that it’s important to raise the condition of Highway No. 7, especially in light that we want Canadians and tourists to visit our new Nahanni National Park Reserve and get them there and make it easier for them, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you. I just returned from a federal/provincial/territorial conference in Halifax and we did discuss a number of issues related to Transportation, including a strategic plan for all of Canada, including the Northwest Territories. We have a number of our officials that are leading the research and development of planning in this area and we certainly have all agreed that the future is going to be a lot different from the environment that we’ve dealt with in the past and our infrastructure is going to have to adapt to that. We had agreement from the new federal infrastructure Minister to have a meeting during this session. However, I’ve had to ask for a deferral on that to when this session is not sitting and he’s agreed. We’ve also got commitment from Leona Aglukkaq to sit in on a meeting with us, and we’re looking forward to doing that sometime in November as soon as session is done here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Residents of Fort Liard often travel to Fort Nelson, like how Fort Simpson travels to Hay River for their shopping. Is there any way that the Minister can dedicate some resources to fixing the kilometre zero to kilometre 38, which is to Fort Liard, to a reasonable standard for next year? Up to and including chipseal.
The strategy that we have used to determine which roads need attention has been developed by our engineers. We certainly can ask them if they want to relocate some investment. However, that would be asking us to move away from areas that we think have issues with safety and vision and they may have some difficulty doing that without increased funding in this area. We would have to be relocating dollars that are targeted for specific areas. We can certainly discuss that and see what possibilities there are, but I would say it’s unlikely.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
