Mr. Speaker, on a recent tour to Tsiigehtchic along with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Justice it came up that there was an individual who is presently working in Holman who does fill in, in Tsiigehtchic during breakup and freeze-up, but the nurse says she’s willing to stay longer. I think that if the nurse is willing to do that, why is that not happening? We have a committed individual who’s willing to stay longer in a community. We should do everything that we can to accommodate that person to stay as long as they can in a community if they’re willing to do so.
Has the Minister looked into that to find a way to accommodate that nurse and the community, who seem like they get along pretty well? She’s there every breakup and freeze-up. She’s willing to stay longer. So I’d like to ask the Minister: has she had an opportunity to look into that and see if that individual can stay for four months or six months in the community of Tsiigehtchic?
Yes, I have looked into that and I am looking to extend her stay in Tsiigehtchic. The only thing is that she fills spots in other areas of the Beaufort-Delta service area because she’s employed by the authority. So if she’s taken away from somewhere else, there’s that whole picture.
I do have a communication going to the Member indicating that I’m looking into that. Hopefully, I’ll have a precise answer before I get back to you.
Thank you, Minister Lee. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister give me a breakdown on exactly how many times these notices have been given in regard to the shortage of nurses in the Beaufort-Delta communities so we can see how often the nurses aren’t available versus being available and also the movement of nurses from one community to the other just because of the fill-in?
I’d just like to ask the Minister: can we get that information as to exactly when the health centres are on emergency watch versus the communities that are functioning versus the communities that aren’t?
It should be noted that all centres in Beaufort-Delta right now are fully functional. We have never had a situation where we have no nurses. We have nurses where there are supposed to be nurses. We have nurses; it’s just that the services are reduced to poor services because they can’t get a backup — they’ve had too many hours working and they need a break — or there is a breakdown in water facilities or something like that.
But I will get back to the Member on maybe over the last six months how many times the services had to be reduced and in which centres.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I spoke about repairs to Highway No. 6. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation why the repairs to at least the worst sections of Highway No. 6 are not being done when $1 million is set aside specifically for this work this summer.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct. There was in the June budget $1 million budgeted for work on Highway No. 6. The work is ongoing. It’s a late start in our season, to have our budget approved in June. We have done the design assessment. We’re working on gravel sources, and we’ll continue to do so.
Mr. Speaker, in speaking with a former long term highway employee and contractor, I was told that it could take as little as three weeks to do the work and repairs, repairing the worst section of the highway once equipment is mobilized. I was wondering if the Minister could take the initiative to try to get the work started as soon as possible.
The Member is correct that work can commence very quickly once all the design, once the drainage, once all the surveys are done — gravel production, everything else is completed. In this case we still are doing the design and we have completed the majority of what we plan to do. We want to go into the community and share that information with the community that the Member represents and move forward. Providing everything is in order, we hope to have the work done by the end of November, Mr. Speaker.
A quick, final question. I was wondering if the Minister could commit to passing information on about the new schedule and scope of work for repairs to Highway No. 6 to me as soon as possible so I can pass the information on to my constituents.
Mr. Speaker, certainly, we can commit to doing that. We’ll share the information with the honourable Member and also give him the time and the dates that we plan to go into the community of Resolute and share that information with the community. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Speaker, I have some questions about the Deh Cho Bridge. I’m not sure who’s handling that file now, whether it’s the Minister of Transportation or not. Having said that, there’s been quite a bit of progress made on the Deh Cho Bridge. I had occasion to drive to Yellowknife once this summer and saw the platform that was built out into the middle of the river from which the work is being conducted, and a significant amount of progress has taken place. However, it was communicated in a media article about a week ago that the bridge is about six weeks behind schedule and that this may have an impact on the work that’s been done to date.
Now, when all the discussion was taking place on the bridge and the concession agreement, there was reference made to cost overruns. I wasn’t very satisfied with the description of cost overruns. Basically, it said anything unforeseen. So I don’t know if the delay in the schedule to date on the Deh Cho Bridge would have been classified as unforeseen cost. This is on the minds of a lot of Northerners. They’re wanting to know, if this delay in the schedule is going to cause the price of the bridge to escalate, who’s going to pay for it?
Thank you, Ms. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, we’re on schedule. The bridge is anticipated to be built by 2010. There is, as the Member indicated, some slippage in time frames. At the initial start of this project some material didn’t arrive as was expected, and also the high water deferred the initial start-up.
We are behind a little over a month, a month to six weeks. We expect to have all the four piers done over the winter, and we don’t expect any cost overruns.
So more specifically, then, if the contractors who are involved in this incur additional costs because of the six week delay and getting into colder temperatures and so on, just for the benefit of the public who are interested, these additional costs will not be borne by the Government of the Northwest Territories. In fact, the fixed price contract stays.
Mr. Speaker, the contract has, as the Member indicated, been signed under a maximum guaranteed price, and we expect any delays or things of that nature to be borne by the contractor and the corporation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I spoke to the removal of students who are planning to come back to the Northwest Territories to do their return of service — and they do it gladly.
I would like to direct my questions today to the Minister of ECE. I’d like to ask the Minister of ECE: what’s the department’s policy on student removal once they’ve completed university or college?
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Throughout Canada our SFA program is one of the most successful, generous programs that we have, and it continues to be so.
With respect to the students who are returning, it’s always been our goal to have those students return to our Northwest Territories or even to our communities to work for our government or community governments.
For the removal program that the Member is referring to, we do offer trips to the destination of students’ studies or the institution where they are studying. We cover their cost of travelling either by air or by vehicle. Most of the time students travel by vehicle, so they can take all their belongings there and back. So those are the areas that we cover. We also cover the basic, essential needs of the students that are living in the institution, whether it be residence or their household. Mahsi.
I have never been one to question the generosity of our Student Financial Assistance. I have stood up here many times and praised it as being the best in the country, so that’s not the issue here. The issue here is: do we have a policy to pay for students’ removal back to the North?
Mr. Speaker, specific to the policy itself we currently do not have a policy on the removal of the students, but we do cover their travel to their destination and back. So that’s what we offer. We offer other subsidies within our department for students’ needs. That’s what we offer through Student Financial Assistance for the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, when you first go to university, chances are you’re going to be flying out with probably a couple of suitcases. After four years you’re going to have gathered a lot of belongings, and you’re going to want to bring those home. Otherwise, you have to buy them up here. Where are they going to ship them from? They’re going to ship them from the same place they just left, so it just doesn’t make any sense.
Will the Minister commit to having his department implement a policy to pay for student removal beyond the airfare and that? I mean, that is all fine; that’s part of Student Financial Assistance program. But would he commit to developing or implementing a policy that would pay for student removal after their time at the university or college?
Like I said before, most of the students travel down south, and they do find accommodation, apartments or residence. Most of the time it is also furnished, so they don’t really necessarily have to buy furniture. But there are times when students buy furniture, and then they sell after three or four years, after their program of studies. If we look at the number of students that we currently subsidize through the SFA program, we have over 1,400 students. Just doing the mathematics, it will be over several million if we want to implement a policy. So we have to keep that in mind as well.
So, again, we do offer various subsidies, whether it be through the Income Support program or the Student Financial Assistance program. We offer a generous package to the students for them to complete their programs and come back to the North. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just from the tone of the discussion here I get the impression that, no, there is not a policy; no, we are not going to implement a policy. Even though the students could sell their furnishings, there are still a small few, after successful completion of university, who want to bring their belongings back.
That should be my question. Why is the department reluctant — other than quoting millions of dollars, which I don’t think it’s going to cost to begin with — to implement a policy for student removal?
We are going through a process here, of course, the business planning and certainly those ongoing discussions. There are always changes that happen. There have been some recent changes to benefit the community for students’ needs. I will certainly take the Member’s comments into consideration when we are drafting changes to our policies. We will work with what’s presented to us, so we will certainly take that into consideration. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are for the Minister of Finance. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, solutions to our financial challenges are both complicated and difficult. Just for the record, I don’t support, with the exception of possibly taxes on cigarettes and booze, any increases in taxes that affect our residents or taxes on our residents. I do support resource taxes, and I do support initiatives that will be focused on increasing our population.
So keeping that in mind, my question is to the Minister of Finance, and it is: has the Minister of Finance met with the diamond mines to ensure that they are meeting their obligations under the socio-economic agreements with respect to northern employment? Specifically, have you met with the diamond mines to ensure that they are finding ways of encouraging their employees to stay and live in the North?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, ITI regularly meets with the diamond mines. There is a meeting set up here in the next number of weeks with Minister Bob McLeod and Minister Lafferty, as well as myself, to talk to their president. They have indicated an interest to us to talk about the revenue options paper. So we do meet on a regular basis, but there is clearly going to be some special attention paid to the work that is currently going on in terms of the consultation process.
Mr. Speaker, are the diamond mines meeting the conditions of their socio-economic agreements with respect to fly in/fly out employees and employing Northerners?
Mr. Speaker, we estimate there are over 2,000 workers that are in the business of flying in and flying out. With the work we are undertaking, we’d hopefully capture at least 300 of those over the next number of years. Clearly, we believe that we have to do a better job working with the mines with the bilateral arrangements, socio-economic agreements, to realize those numbers.
So will the Minister commit to working with the diamond mines to ensure that they do meet the terms and conditions of their socio-economic agreements, thus encouraging more employees to live in the Northwest Territories, which will help us with our financial situation?
Mr. Speaker, the government is committed to working with the diamond mines; we do it as a matter of course. We are putting special attention and emphasis on this because of the revenue options that we see dealing with the fly in/fly out workers. Being able to get more of them located in the North, as has been raised in this House repeatedly by the Member for Kam Lake — he has pushed us to do that — is a key part of the possible revenue options that we see would add to our economic pace and help us grow the population of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 8, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Finance Minister for his creative way of describing my oral question back in June. Quite interestingly enough, I don’t think Michael Moore could have painted it more creatively. The fact is that I was asking about what we are doing to make up that $15 million loss in corporate taxes and how come we are not considering raising the sin taxes in balancing the fact that we are cutting and firing employees.
So to put it in context — my question to the Finance Minister is again almost similar to the question in June: what are we doing to expand the growth of our economy and encourage businesses to file corporate taxes here in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, the corporate income tax is one of the options that is listed in the revenue options document. That has been looked at over the years. We have raised it in the past; we have lowered it in the past. We have the challenge of living immediately north of Alberta, which has, I believe at this point, the lowest corporate income tax in the land and a huge budget surplus and revenue stream that allows them to do that. Clearly that is one of the options that’s out there for consideration as we look at the discussions ahead.
Mr. Speaker, there seems to be little effort to go and attract new investment. It talks about playing with the tax numbers, but it wasn’t that long ago that we had people go out and look for businesses to file their taxes in the North. That has actually led to problems because we haven’t created a stable tax base. So what is this Finance Minister doing to attract big tax filers to come to the North and file their taxes in the North, and will we be the beneficiary of those corporate taxes that they pay?
If the Member were to check over the past number of years, there has been a fair adjustment up and down to the corporate tax, firstly, and to the amount of money made through corporate taxes or taxes filed in the Northwest Territories. This whole process that we’re engaged in with revenue options is set up to get that kind of feedback to make sure we explore every opportunity, consult with Northerners and come forward with recommendations here in the next number of weeks.
I’ve read those numbers very closely in the five years I’ve been here, and I notice the one thing that sticks out very evidently is that there’s no tax stabilization policy that levelizes our taxes, sets some aside for the rainy day and certainly is there on the good days. What is this Minister doing to help levelize and stabilize our tax policies that will help so that when big business decides to file somewhere else, it doesn’t cause a crumble like it did in our last budget?
