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.
