Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are taking all the steps necessary along with all the other departments post-devolution to make sure that we comply with all the appropriate statutes, requirements, regulations and guidelines.
We haven’t had confirmation if the OAG staff did confirm that they did meet with these departments, but can the Minister of Finance explain why his department is still currently in direct violation to these public accounting standards of practice today?
We just had a successful audit. We are going to be tabling the public accounts in the next little bit, and we fully expect to be compliant as required.
We still hear that the department here is compliant. We haven’t seen the final results yet, but I can tell you that the standards of practice are in violation, so to be fair I will ask this one more time and offer to the Minister of Finance to clearly articulate why his department refuses to deal with environmental remediation costs properly.
We fully engage ourselves in complying with all the necessary regulations and requirements that govern us, or if we have any other kind of involvement with the senior government like the federal government, we will, of course, work to comply in those areas as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s difficult to continue with these types of questions when we continue to hear a paid public announcement here by the Minister. Clearly, the Minister and department are keen in ignoring these standards of public accounting.
So in preparation for the upcoming public accounts, can the Minister maybe enlighten us as to how many other breaches of accounting standards the Department of Finance intends to violate this year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As we sit through the political bavardage of my colleague, we can clearly see he’s on a fishing expedition. We, of course, pride ourselves on complying and having good audits, Aa1 credit rating, budgets passed unanimously in this House, public accounts that meet the test, and we are going to continue to hit those standards. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up on my Member’s statement, a direction was given to the government to create a policy in terms of providing funding to non-government organizations for their infrastructure needs. I will ask the Deputy Premier – who also is the Minister of Education whom this came to, so he’s well versed in this policy that we’re talking about today – has the government undertaken this work to create such a policy that we can fund non-government organizations for the infrastructure they need who do good work on behalf of government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Honourable Deputy Premier, Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Executive and also Finance are working on a draft policy on publicly funding privately owned infrastructure. Once there’s an approval for referral, it will be presented to a standing committee for their review and also for their comments. The plan is to have the policy rated for review by next session. So that is the overall plan, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
There is a concern because I know there were a lot of non-government organizations who were looking at this House when we actually approved a non-government organization for the infrastructure needs. It’s taken over two years to get this policy in place.
Is there any opportunity to speed up the process so it comes to committee… Or can I ask the Minister, with the draft policy that he’s working on, can that policy be given to committee to give any input right now to speed up the process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Part of the plan was to introduce that in the next session, but I can commit to the Member I will find out the status of where the actual draft policy is at. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
As I mentioned, we do have a lot of NGOs out in the territory who do great work on behalf of the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned earlier, the NWT SPCA who takes wild, I won’t say wild, but stray dogs from the communities and putting them into their compound but it’s getting filled up, also shelters who are sheltering homeless and people who are battling addictions. In the meantime, while we are creating this policy – obviously there’s a policy coming – can any NGOs apply for funding for infrastructure needs from now until when we see this policy come into the next session? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The NGOs, obviously, can apply for programming we have within GNWT. This particular focus is on having a policy in place to deal with private funding for public infrastructure. That is in a draft format and will be ready for next session, but I will get the status on that.
With respect to accessing other programs or infrastructure funds, there is a venue for that, as well, within GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m quite aware of some of the programs that are available that NGOs can actually utilize, but can the Deputy Premier clarify what programs the government has right now that NGOs can access for their infrastructure needs as he stated in his last remarks? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I committed in this House, I will be providing the latest status on the draft policy on infrastructure. At the same time, we will provide those various different types of programming, funding that’s available for NGOs within the GNWT. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated, it’s a good day. My questions are to the Minister of Health about the program of midwifery.
Can he give me an update on how other programs on midwifery are being rolled out currently?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following the plan, we have put money into the Hay River region for two positions. Those two positions are filled. The next step is, obviously, we are planning to put some money in the budget for 2015-16 for Inuvik. In the meantime, we are working with Inuvik to explain the protocols and procedures that will be followed in that jurisdiction and we are hoping to fill those positions in 2015-16.
As we begin to roll out more midwifery programs, will this program speed up? Will we be implementing two programs in one year, or are we doing one a year? I guess we are learning our process as we go. Can we speed the process up?
Every region, every community in the Northwest Territories is different and has their own unique realities. The plan was originally to put them in Hay River one year, Beaufort-Delta the second year and then move forward with Yellowknife. We are also exploring the possibility of putting it in other communities and regions. Only recently the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority has approached us with an indication that they would be interested in doing midwifery services there. We are working with them to see when we might be able to roll that out. We do have a midwifery coordinator position within the department that actually helps us do a significant amount of that work. That position, unfortunately, is currently vacant. We are out recruiting for that position today. We are hoping to have that position filled by December, which will help us continue to roll this work forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I guess people are anxious to have this program in all their communities. I’m just wondering how many other communities – he indicated the Deh Cho – and what are the limitations in implementing this type of program in the communities.
We have gone to the Beaufort-Delta and started having some initial conversations with the people in the health centre there. They raised concerns that are unique to their own hospitals or health centres. We want to make sure that the Midwifery Program works in the regions and communities based on the protocols that already exist in those areas. That would have to be true coming into Yellowknife. We would have to make sure it works in the system and in the infrastructure that we have here.
The Deh Cho is different, once again, in that they don’t actually have a hospital. They have regional health centres, so we would have to modify the program to suit their needs. So every region, every community is going to take some modification to make sure, during the deliveries, the mothers and babies are safe and they have proper connections with physicians at all times. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As these programs go out, what kind of evaluation have you done? My biggest concern would be actually a funding requirement, if the programs are underfunded.
What evaluations are the department doing as they roll it out for the funding needs of these programs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That’s part of the work that we’re doing in the design or the implementation in each of the different communities or regions where we deliver this service. We need to track the types of things that are happening and put in an evaluation framework so that we can make some evidence-based decisions moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I want to return to one of my pet peeves, my pet issues, and that would be the implementation of 911 in the NWT or hopefully just Yellowknife to start.
The last time I asked some questions about 911, I believe I was advised by the Minister that there was a study in the works. They were doing another study based on a study or studies that had been done by the City of Yellowknife. So I’d like to ask the Minister initially if he can give me an update on that study.
Are we anywhere near close to completion? When might it be completed and will it be shared with Members and the public? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll give the Member an answer to her study question as soon as I’ve had an opportunity to study the question and reply to it.
The working group has been doing a lot of work on this and it’s an issue that we’ve heard for a number of years in this Assembly. We’re anticipating the work to be done during this winter and we will, of course, be sharing that information with committee and this Legislative Assembly. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I understand, as well, that Municipal and Community Affairs did a survey of attendees at the NWT Association of Communities AGM in May, I guess it was, of 2014, earlier this year. I’d like to know from the Minister, if there are results from that survey, are those results public, would he commit to share them again with Members and the public? Thank you.
We did the survey during the last one. I’m not sure of the results yet, but I will follow up on that and once the results are known then we will share them with committee. I do know that the communities are fairly supportive of the feasibility study that we were doing on the implementation, or the partial implementation of 911. So again, once I have the results of that, then I will share them with the Members across and all Members of the Assembly. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that. I would hope that it would also be shared with the NWT Association of Community members and I suspect he meant that as well. They are public, after all.
The study is going to be done this winter. Winter is, unfortunately, eight months and I’m wondering if the Minister could give me a bit of a tighter definition of when this study might be done. Thank you.
Thank you. Something I always tell the department, when Wendy is asking questions, or when Ms. Bisaro is asking questions, question number four is always when. Yeah, this is three, yeah. So anyway, my understanding is this winter is going to stretch right into July. So it’s going to be a long winter.
---Laughter
No, I will follow up and I will see how we’re moving along on this and if we happen to be done earlier, then of course I will be glad to share that information with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. My last question has to do with – it is kind of a timing question again – the city will have an upgraded and adequate dispatch system by quarter one of 2015 they’re telling us. So the technical capabilities will be in place for 911 for dispatch, the technical capabilities are there from NorthwesTel’s perspective, as far as I am told. So once this study is out, I’d like to ask the Minister how soon will we be able to move forward on this. The technical stuff is there, we simply need the will of the government. Thank you.
Thank you. As long as I’ve been Minister of MACA we’ve had these questions, and I think one of the reasons that we had originally said at the time was our lack of telecommunication infrastructure across the Northwest Territories. I think we’ve seen in the last four or five years that has improved dramatically where you’re getting service in a lot of the small communities. One of the things we want to make sure of before we implement, and it could be a partial, I mean, that’s one of the options they’re looking at to implementation, we want to be sure that all our communities have the capability to respond to any such emergencies and we need to work with our partners out there. We’ve offered some training to first responders and we plan on offering more training to first responders, but again, this is an issue that we’ve been trying to find some resolution to. Again, I will work with the Members across and get some information off to the Members. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the spring this year the Minister of Human Resources had conveyed to Members that there were just over 1,200 vacancies on the books. The Finance Minister had said on the record that they were actively pursuing half of those, and that was 571 jobs. On further drilling down on those books there were 800 vacancies, and may I remind this government we have a 3.4 percent unemployment rate in Yellowknife, but we also have more than 30 percent unemployment rate in the communities. We need these jobs, they’re critical.
So let’s first start off from the Minister of Human Resources to find out what the state of affairs are for job opportunities available to Northerners. How many jobs, if I went to look today, will I find being posted in one form or another that Northerners can apply for? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our PeopleSoft is essentially a snapshot, but the numbers are fairly static throughout the year. So at the point when we did the last print off on PeopleSoft, the last time it was able to give us our semi-annual information, we had 244 jobs that the government was pursuing to fill and 281 jobs that were scheduled to be filled within a short time after that. Thank you.
I didn’t have a chance to write those numbers down, but if we put them together they sound like about 500 jobs.
Why are there only 70 jobs being advertised on our public website? Is this government not interested in hiring people to ensure that they can feed and take care of their families?
