Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems policy is the problem here. Will the Minister and the department work to change the policy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We will work on the policy. As I indicated, Tsiigehtchic is one of at least six communities across the North that don’t have nursing units, therefore don’t have nurses living in the community. We are trying to work on the model that will allow that to happen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my questions on the Lafferty ferry operations to the Minister of Transportation. Given that there is an increased demand for opening up the ferry sooner, like a 6 a.m. start, how can the Minister facilitate this by working with the community and work towards an earlier ferry start? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would be more than happy to look into the request that the Member brings to the House today. We haven’t had that request presented to us in a formal way, at least in the last five years, so we would like to look at this a little bit further and see what it would cost and how it would work. We would be more than happy to sit down with the community leaders there, and the MLA, to discuss options that we could have. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m glad that the Minister is open to discussing that with the community. Without pressing the matter further, I certainly would like to invite the Minister. Probably before Christmas we could arrange a meeting like that, if the Minister could commit to coming to Fort Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, any time that can improve our service, that is something that we would like to consider. Certainly, I would like to take the Member up on his offer, if our schedules permit, to get down to Fort Simpson to have this meeting sometime before Christmas. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke on the willingness of the people of the Sahtu who want to work. I spoke specifically to the high percentage of single parents of children. I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what type of infrastructure is going to be considered in the Sahtu to help single parents who want to work and want to contribute to their families.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There are tons of opportunities that are happening in the Sahtu region. We are closely monitoring that and working closely with the regional training committee that is established, consisting of Aboriginal governments and other stakeholders, in partnership with industry as well. We need to identify what the needs of the community are, and based on that, we need to develop plans to move forward. We will be working closely with the MLA and also the community organizations to move that forward. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to those plans being developed. However, I want to ask the Minister, we know for sure that there are high percentages of single parents in the small communities and we know that the unemployment rate is fairly high. I want to ask the Minister in regards to putting in infrastructure such as daycare centres that will allow single parents to have a place where their children can be watched over as they seek employment. What are the plans for those in the Sahtu to have that type of infrastructure in the communities?
Mr. Speaker, the daycare establishment and other facilities will be required down the road because there will be a boom in the Sahtu region with all the employment opportunities, training and business opportunities. Those factors will be taken into account when we talk about the overall training plan and what it will entail. It would have a rippling effect in the community.
At the same time, when we talk about the daycares and the workers, obviously they will be busy at their work and the kids will need to be looked after. Similar to what we did in Inuvik with the Children First Society, those are areas where we need to look at options. When we talk about partnerships, those are the areas that we continue to stress and we continue to work. Obviously, with the Sahtu region, we can make that an area that we can focus on.
What is happening now is we need to develop a plan of action consisting of the community needs. Based on that, we will have areas of interest that the Member has alluded to. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the action now is happening in the Sahtu. People want to work. Single parents want to provide. They want to invest into their children and into their education, and they want to make a contribution to their families.
If the Minister can speed up the planning process, people right now want to work in communities such as Colville Lake, Deline, Tulita, Fort Good Hope and Norman Wells, looking at infrastructure that will put people to work. Right now there is not much support for them.
Can the Minister look at, within this time frame, within a couple of years of this government, to put in infrastructure to support the single parents such as putting in daycare centres immediately rather than down the road?
Mr. Speaker, I totally agree with the Member that we must encourage the individuals to be employed, either to be trained or part of business contracts. Based on that, what the Member is referring to is having a plan in place where it would be capturing the daycare establishment. Again, those are areas that we need to push forward.
With our government here, we have been talking about the Sahtu region and other regions that are actively exploring opportunities. The Sahtu region is one of the prime examples, along with the Deh Cho and Gwich’in areas. We will expedite this process. We are hoping that we can see some products in the next upcoming capital planning process. Those are just some of the areas that we can push forward. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to coming to the Sahtu to see for himself the needs to have these kinds of infrastructures in place such as what I’m talking about, the daycare centres?
Mr. Speaker, by all means, we need to visit the communities, especially in the Sahtu region. I believe we are working with the Member’s office to find a date that is suitable for all of us. We need to have our staff go in there. I would like to meet with the committee, as well, the regional training committee, what they’ve been working on, the training plans and so forth. I am looking forward to the trip. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services, focused on early childhood development, questions of midwifery, and child and family services centres. In March of this year the Assembly provided a specific, clear direction and allocated an additional $330,000 to Health and Social Services to ensure that a midwifery program would be established in Hay River this year. That was six months ago.
Can the Minister confirm that the Midwifery Program in Hay River is now operational or will be within the next few months? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not able to confirm that. I don’t believe that the Midwifery Program will be operational within the next few months In Hay River. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m disappointed to hear that, obviously. The House provided clear direction here as a result of several years of previous discussions. When we directed the Midwifery Program be accelerated for Hay River, we envisioned and stipulated that this would also accelerate the midwifery programs for the Beaufort-Delta, Behchoko and Yellowknife.
Can the Minister please explain how the department is planning to get the midwifery expansion back on schedule, and confirm that the delays in Hay River will not be allowed to delay implementation in other communities as well? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, one of the main components to expansion of the Midwifery Program was to have the Midwifery Program that is currently operational in Fort Smith be the main supports to developing a Midwifery Program in Hay River and then expansion to Beaufort-Delta and ultimately into a territorial Midwifery Program.
One of the midwives resigned just at the point when we were launching into our plan to expand the Midwifery Program, so the first action became the replacement of that midwife. That has been done. A new midwife has been hired. A team has been put together.
In addition to that, another issue was that we had a change in the CEO. The CEO for Hay River had moved to another position. Then we are working on that as well. However, we are proceeding forward with a plan and we put a team together. We are working on expanding midwifery into Hay River now that we have the second midwife back in place in Fort Smith.
Mr. Speaker, that sounds kind of weak to me. Governments have to be able to chew gum and think at the same time and, in fact, in multiple ways, so I wouldn’t expect this sort of thing would allow a delay.
On the area of a related issue – child and family resource centres in Tulita and Ndilo – could the Minister please provide an update on the status of these centres that are long overdue? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The child and family services centres essentially, I guess, would be the Healthy Family Program that we have been expanding. This Healthy Family Program is expanding across the territory. We do believe that we have programs or satellite programs operating in 21 communities. It is a fair expansion. I think that all of the Sahtu now is involving themselves in the Healthy Family Program, then there will be further expansion into the South Slave.
At this point I think that once we have the two expansions in the South Slave, most of the communities where there is any significant amount of births will have a Healthy Family Program. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to hear about the Healthy Family Program. I have been aware of that and I think that is an excellent program.
My question was on the commitment to get in place new child and family resource centres. I know those were attempted in the previous fiscal year and they failed to be established. I assume the Minister is working with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to get those up and operational. Hopefully they are by now. We have been at this now for a year and a half. I wonder if the Minister, if he’s not aware of not being able to provide an update, if he could commit to providing me that update very soon. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I recognize that we were dealing with the child and family service resource centres that are now under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, but the plan to consolidate programs along with our Healthy Family Program is in the works. It is something that we are doing under the work that we are doing under the Early Childhood Development Framework. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just going to follow up to my Member’s statement. I will have questions for the Minister of Housing in regard to how we can mitigate the use of our gas consumption in the Inuvik region. We are throwing money at this problem, which we should be looking at how we can do some prevention, promotion and increase that wealth if we are also keeping the cost low for our residents.
My first question is to the Minister of Housing. How many of our housing units are currently on natural gas or the synthetic gas system? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have 240 public housing units in Inuvik and all 240 of them are all on natural gas or SNG. That would include the boilers and the hot water heaters. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that is a high number of residents that are consuming the synthetic gas at the moment at a very high cost. Any residents that are private or in a market rent area, they are paying a pretty high cost right now, which I think in turn puts a high cost on this government when we talk about deferred maintenance and other projects where other dollars could go.
Can the Minister confirm that there has been an increase in the costs from when Inuvik went from natural gas to synthetic gas last year over the period of two or three months? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I do know that for the month of January of 2012 the local housing authority spent approximately $84,000 for natural gas. A year later, January 2013, that cost went up to $181,000 and that is just for the month of January, and you multiply that over 12 months, we spent over $1 million. I think it is $572,000 more than we would normally spend because of the conversion to SNG. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that is a significant increase that the government is paying to subsidize these housing units. I just want to ask the Minister if there is a way to mitigate that. Would the Minister look at possibly… Well, even before that, the road was shut down recently due to some weather conditions. I know we did put money into the ferry system to prolong the opening of the road. Should the road close down again or the ferry system, something happens to it and we do run out, we don’t have storage for synthetic gas or the natural gas well runs out, what would the cost be to convert all of these houses back to either diesel or to a biomass product? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation has committed to trying to keep the ferry crossing at Tsiigehtchic opened for as long as possible, where there is no interruption in service, so that would be a huge help.
However, in the event that something does happen, we have to deal with it then. I do know that it will cost the NWT Housing Corporation and this government approximately $5 million to convert all our units back to diesel in the event that we have to. It’s not something that we would like to do. We would like to work with, obviously, the community and the suppliers to keep a continuous flow going so we don’t have to convert back over.
As far as the biomass part of it, we are exploring all options for biomass. I do know that in some of the new projects we have coming on stream, not particularly in Inuvik, but we are putting biomass systems into those units so we will see how they work. If there are opportunities in Inuvik to convert some of our multi-unit type buildings to biomass, obviously we have to look at that, especially with the concern with the supply of gas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know there is a lot of work being done on this situation. I think this government should also take a lead role, not only by supplying funding dollars but look at ways we can regulate or mitigate the consumption that some of our housing units are using in the synthetic gas. It would decrease the costs and that can go into deferred maintenance or even housing repairs.
Does the Minister have any kind of campaign in place that might be able to tell the residents in the housing units on their energy consumption so that we can prolong that well until we find a longer solution? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I know, through the LHO, they put out a newsletter every so often. I have been advised that they are going to put a campaign in there as to the consumption of gas. However, that is a hard one to regulate, to tell people that they need to reduce their consumption. I think they all realize, especially those in the private homes. They’re probably all turning their thermostats down a bit to conserve.
As I’ve seen and as the Member is aware, we were dealing with a situation where a senior who owned their own home went from $700 a month to $1,400 a month and they’ve taken every step they could to try and mitigate some of the usage.
So it’s a difficult situation the community of Inuvik is in right now. All the agencies are working together to try to find a solution, and hopefully we can find a solution soon.
But as far as Housing goes, we’ll do what we can to make sure that our tenants are informed, advised and ready. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Justice. I talked in my Member’s statement about my community, and my community looking for ways to tackle the issues of safety that have come to the fore in the last several months.
Some years ago there was a dedicated group of residents, in conjunction with the RCMP, who began a citizen's watch type program. It was a program called Citizens On Patrol, or COPs. It was a really effective program for a number of years. But as with many programs, when the people who start the program either tire of it or move away, then the program falters, and that’s what happened here; it’s no longer around. It has been mentioned in the last number of weeks, in conversations about safety, that maybe we should start this program again and that it should be revived and that it could be a benefit to us in Yellowknife.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice whether or not he’s aware of this program, has he heard of the Citizens On Patrol program, what his view of that program is, it’s potential for Yellowknife, and if he thinks it will address some of our issues. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Justice, Mr. Abernethy.
