Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier as Minister responsible for the Executive. My questions to the Premier follow up on yesterday’s statement and questions regarding the need for common sense approaches to inconsistencies or even absurdities in program delivery.
The notion of an ombudsman has been raised frequently over the years, most recently yesterday. Many jurisdictions have established these positions as a court of higher appeal when horse sense doesn’t seem to prevail. Can the Premier tell me what knowledge he has of the consideration of creating an ombudsman and what the current view of the Executive is regarding the need for such an office? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we go through our process of budgeting and business plan development throughout departments and we go through a process of receiving feedback, we try to address the concerns that come up on areas of shortfall or requests for change in that planning, and we’d be prepared to do the same if Members and committees were to recommend some changes or development of new initiatives within our processes. The area of the ombudsman has not been a part of Executive’s business plan. I know it’s come up in discussion with a number of departments but, again, we haven’t had a formal response from committees in that area. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier for those comments. I don’t think committee will be shy on bringing this forward when it’s due here, and that may be soon. But on the larger issue of program improvement, we need to determine what formal mechanisms exist for capturing our citizens’ or, in many cases, our clients’ suggestions and experiences for improved program delivery. An ombudsman is certainly one option to go. When citizens bring these instances to our attention, we are really being given a gift in terms of program evaluation.
The case of medical travel for students yesterday certainly demonstrated how sometimes program policies fly in the face of reason. The example also pointed out that although this lack of reason was brought forward in a case last year, another patient hit the same brick wall this year because no action was taken to learn from and fix the problem.
Can the Premier tell me what mechanisms are in place to collect information on instances of complaint and to capitalize on that information through straightforward analysis to identify problem areas and possible policy solutions? This information just seems too good to go to waste. Thank you.
We do, indeed, want to receive feedback from the constituents of the Northwest Territories on our program delivery, whether it be medical travel, student financial assistance, transportation, licensing and so on. There are so many areas we are involved in that, it is difficult to keep the pulse on all of it all the time. That’s why it’s important that we look at how we deliver that program or the many programs we’re involved with, and that is why, through our Strategic Initiative committee Refocusing Government, we’ve started a program so far, as well as Public Works and the Minister of Education’s office. I’d just like to ask again, for the review office to look at those areas where we see large growth in expenditures by government to see what type of results that that type of investment is producing. So there’s that side of it.
When it comes to reviewing complaints, that’s another side where we know that Members many times bring the… You’re the voice of the constituents when it comes to dealing with some of those issues up front and, of course, there are different times when we’re challenged in trying to come up with the appropriate response that sometimes doesn’t fit one case but fits in the general class. But in this area I think it is time, again, I say, with support from committee members on areas of addition and changes, that we could look into this area. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, everyone in this Assembly knows that health services and housing are probably the great majority of where these complaints are. But in my mind, an ombudsman is a good way to go. But it’s clear from the volume of policy-related complaints that we need to do something to fix this problem. So can the Premier commit to dealing with the volume of complaints in the health services and housing areas with explicit policy review and revision? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, as I have mentioned earlier during our process, the program review office, we have begun that task of looking at specific program areas. As we get through the initial work of that group, we will go to committee and ask for additional information where we can target certain areas as well. That is one of the avenues we could do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now that the issue has been extensively raised in this Assembly, can the Premier say what steps he will take to report to the Members on options for an ombudsman or some other formal mechanism for capturing complaints and learning from them? I know that the Premier mentioned hearing from committee, so that is an option to wait for that, but I am interested whether he will go forward without waiting. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, at the chance of being chastised by Members for going ahead without putting the plan before them and coming up with a funding source, that would be difficult. My preference is to wait for committees to respond and give us suggestions on our business plan process and we can go forward on that basis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement today was on economic development programs in the Nunakput. Mr. Speaker, my colleague Mr. Beaulieu has lack of jobs in our small, remote communities and people having to leave home to find work to feed their families. Mr. Speaker, will this government place more attention and resources in small, remote communities regarding community-based economic development programs to assist small businesses? These resources should assist areas such as providing community-based training and financial assistance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member for Nunakput raises a very good point. I know that I had the opportunity to meet with Senator Eggleton. We talked about how to deal with adding poverty and he had three recommendations. He said to deal with it, you had to have an anti-poverty strategy. You had to create jobs. For people that are disabled, he would have some sort of guaranteed income.
In my view, the best way to deal with anti-poverty is to create jobs. I think that, as a government, we are well on our way to creating jobs. We have to work in partnership with industry and also other levels of government. In Nunakput itself, we have worked at this for some time. Our objective as a government is to have development in every community of the Northwest Territories. In Nunakput, we created a subsidiary in Sachs Harbour, for the harvesting of musk-ox. In Ulukhaktok, we created a subsidiary for arts and crafts. We set up a business and also in Paulatuk, we expect a mining development to Darnley Bay. In Tuk, there has been work done on roads. So there have been some significant government investments, but we need to do more. We are prepared to work with the people of Nunakput to create more jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Minister for highlighting all of those, but we want more. There are no jobs going on with the offshore oil and gas being up in the air for... The holdback on drilling for the offshore and the pipeline, we are still waiting for that. Delay, delay, delay. Hopefully we can get something done there.
Again, Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my Member’s statement, I challenge the Minister of the government to develop options in a concrete plan so we can deliver these opportunities to the residents before this Assembly is over.
Mr. Speaker, we have done a lot of work in this area already but we are prepared to do even more. We committed at the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council that we would host a regional workshop with the members of the community in which we would look at opportunities. We would even look at setting out a plan as what we would need to go forward. We would even go as far as look at creating an inventory of possible jobs or opportunities that could be moved to some of the communities. I don’t know if we have call centres that could be moved or not, but we’re prepared to look at those types of opportunities. Thank you.
Will the government explore all current technologies in the needs of the Northwest Territories and try to find ways for small, remote communities all across the Territory that can assist and benefit? Thank you.
In a Territory like ours where we have a large expanse and we have few people, I think we have to take advantage of technologies if we’re going to be able to reduce the cost of living and to create meaningful employment. We’re very prepared to do that as part of our meeting in holding a workshop with the Nunakput people. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The cost of living the Minister brings up, I mean that’s where as a government we should be pushing our all-weather road from Wrigley to Tuk, especially the part from Tuk to Inuvik off of 177. There’s a lot of good opportunities there, training programs that we could get from that and as a whole government we should be working toward getting the all-weather highway. Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t know if I heard a question there, but I’ll refer it to Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier and all of the Ministers on this side, we’ve said that the North has never received as much attention as we’re getting now and certainly we’ve always said that the best way to promote Arctic sovereignty is to have healthy sustainable communities, and that includes building highways and so on, and developing all the business opportunities such as oil and gas. So we are going to be working very hard as a government to ensure that we do create jobs for remote communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been noted that the draft AIP has been posted on CBC for the whole public to take their own view and to have their own interpretation of the AIP. Mr. Speaker, I was meeting with the K’asho leadership in Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope and, Mr. Speaker, much to my surprise, they were in shock and awe in terms of the agreement. So I wanted to ask the Premier if he can advise the House as to who and when the decision was made to exclude the K’asho Gotine in the process of entering into bilateral negotiations with Canada.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There has been no decision on our part to exclude anyone. In fact, the process that we’ve entered into through the regional leaders table is to set up a regional leaders table specifically. So the Sahtu has been included. We don’t go to the Sahtu to say how they then work from the region down to their community levels, like we don’t do with the Gwich’in or the Inuvialuit or the Dehcho or any of the groups. We worked at that table to have the regional leaders bring their issues to the table.
This agreement that is out there has been worked on since 2001. We realize that much of the leadership changes from time to time. In this case, a letter has gone out by the chief negotiators to the regional leaders to seek their continued involvement in the next phase of discussions. Thank you.
Thank you. In terms of the participation in the negotiations, well, we could certainly have a long debate on that on the definition of participating and negotiating. What we see from this point is that Canada and the GNWT are excluding the aboriginal governments. I want to ask the Premier, can he advise how the GNWT has met its obligations to consult, as defined in the Sahtu claim under section 2.(a)(b)(c) that the Sahtu aboriginal governments in determining the fiscal formula in the AIP.
The process that we’ve gone down, in fact, on the basis of the AIP started off fundamentally in 2001, has worked through, in fact, in the 15th Assembly, four groups signed on with the government-of-the-day to forward that draft on to Canada and the Sahtu was included in that signing at that time. We, in the 16th Assembly, had halted the process to start the regional leaders table to try to build a more common approach, and when the re-engagement happened with the federal government, there was a number of technical sessions and negotiations that were involved at the regional level process and the staff they had brought to the table.
So we’re, again, waiting for a response to the chief negotiators’ letters to the regional leaders seeking their continued involvement in this process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Time for question period has expired; however, I’ll allow the Member a supplementary question. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently the Sahtu Secretariat and Canada resolved a legal matter involving Canada’s obligations to consult with landowners when issuing prospecting permits in the Sahtu Settlement Area. Can the Premier advise if the GNWT has assessed the risk of single legal actions if the GNWT continues with the execution of the draft AIP?
Once again, we are awaiting the response from the chief negotiators’ letter to the regional governments, aboriginal governments and organizations to seek their continued involvement in the final phase of negotiations. At that point there will be a decision as to whether there’s a go forward. So this is all hypothetical about what may or may not happen. We’re waiting and we’re honouring the process and waiting for the response of the regional organizations and governments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier is correct in terms of how he’s waiting for the leadership from the Northwest Territories to determine a go or no go, or a deal or no deal. I want to ask the Premier about what I’ve been hearing from our leadership that doesn’t seem to have much support. What can we do in terms of making sure that we do have a strong, northern aboriginal leadership? We know we want this deal, but right now it seems like there’s not much support, from where I’m standing, about proceeding any further with this draft AIP.
The draft AIP that’s been sent out to the aboriginal governments and organizations for their input has been done because the mandates of the chief negotiators have breached. It is up to the governments to decide what the next steps are and we’re in that process of making those decisions, waiting for the input of the aboriginal organizations and governments for their response to the chief negotiators’ letters. We’ll have to decide what the process is going forward from there, and when it comes to some of the issues that I believe are outstanding are ones that I believe would be identified through the bilateral that would occur between the aboriginal governments and the GNWT. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 8, written questions. The honourable member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to return back on the orders of the day to item 5.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize the diamond in my eye, my beautiful wife, Cheryl. She’s up in the gallery and visiting us today. I love you, babe.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table two documents. One is the letter to the Premier from Richard Nerysoo, president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council; and the media release by the Gwich’in Tribal Council.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, October 21, 2010, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on Thursday, October 21, 2010, it shall be adjourned until Monday, October 25, 2010;
And further, that any time prior to October 25, 2010, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice and shall transact its business as it has been duly adjourned to that time.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Liquor Act, be read for the second time.
This bill amends the Liquor Act to add a provision authorizing an inspector or a peace officer to seize and remove anything referred to in a warrant for the search of a dwelling-house. The use of force will not be permitted in searching a dwelling-house unless specifically authorized in the warrant. Minor amendments are also made to ensure consistency of terminology.
