Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Abernethy.
I remember how frustrating it can be not having the information and I apologized to the Member for that already and I will apologize again. It was a bit of a communication error and we will make sure that when I know, you know. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We’re on page 5-10, Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products division. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There’s quite a drop in the budget that we see here, especially in the large capital projects in this division. I know this division is possessed about dealing only with fossil fuels and not opening the door to renewable energy, so they have a big expense for fuel tank storage. It needs to be secure. We’ve heard from my colleague about cleanup costs and so on, but there seems to be a lull, which I’m happy to see. Does that mean we have caught up now in our need to do renovations to fuel tanks and so on associated with the petroleum products division and we can enjoy a lull for a few years in those expenditures, and maybe even longer if we switched to biomass? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Mr. Chair, as long as these assets exist, we will continue to have to do some lifecycle upgrades and retrofits. This just happens to be a period in the lifecycle where there is none on the books today, but there will be more coming. We believe the next one that will need to have a complete upgrade, similar to what happened in Tulita, would be Whati. We want to do our planning on that to make sure we get it right and to make sure we have the life cycling of these things done appropriately so that we don’t experience any spillages or breaches in our tanks. So right now we’re just in a low point of the lifecycle but we know more are coming.
Thanks to the Minister for that. I know the Minister is well aware of the phenomenon such as the City of Yellowknife is investing quite a bit in composting and, through that, extending the life of their landfill and avoiding those upfront costs for another year or two or 10 or 20. That’s the phenomenon I’m speaking of here when I ask is the Minister working with government facilities and other departments as the community contemplates having a renewable source of electricity that will replace a lot of fossil fuels, and thereby avoid need for expensive renovations and upgrading to large facilities, and then perhaps moving to smaller facilities in the community of Whati, for example. Thank you.
In the communities where we have responsibility for providing the fuel, we do a bit of an analysis in the communities on what the demands are going to be. It’s not just home heating fuel; it’s diesel, it’s automotive fuel, sorry, aviation fuel, it’s all these things. I think it’s probably a little premature to assume that we’re never going to need automobile fuel or aviation fuel. So there’s always going to be a need for some tanks, but I take the Member’s point that if we continue to move more in the way of biomass, there may be less need for larger tanks in the future.
There will likely always be some need for tanks as diesel is used for more than just home heating. But as we as a government continue to move down our strategy of greening our buildings and when we need things where we’re creating, I guess, capacity in communities where there will be market propellants, as long as we keep pushing these products into the community and start using them, we hope that other people in the communities will start to use them as well. It may in fact, in time, reduce our need to have large tanks. Today the tanks are still needed and as long as we need a large tank in, say, Whati, we need to make sure that that tank is as safe as can be. We need to make sure that it’s properly bermed and that’s it double-walled or triple-walled where appropriate, that the valves are good. So we want to make sure that what we put in there makes the most sense, but I take the Member’s point and as a government we will continue to push for more biomass in our buildings, we will continue to make those efforts.
I don’t recall making any such assumptions that we’re not going to need fuel for aircraft and so on. Whati was a bad example. I thought that was one that you were contemplating in the distant future, but I see now it’s actually part of this budget. I was meaning can we look an extra year or two down the road and start doing the work – the Minister said this seems like a reasonable approach – so that we can avoid and even delay and, in those delays, enjoy some savings for a few years to some of this work. But thanks to the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll treat that as a final comment on the subject. Committee, we’re on 5-10, Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products division, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $910,000. Committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, can I get you to return to the department summary page. That’s on 5-2, Public Works and Services, department summary, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $28.505 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that we’ve concluded with the Department of Public Work and Services?
Agreed.
Thank you very much, committee. If we can get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort our witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you, Mr. Guy. Does committee wish to continue with the Department of Health and Social Services?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. With that, we’ll go to the Minister of Health to see if he has any witnesses he’d like to bring in the House.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have witnesses.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Does committee agree to bring witnesses into the Chamber?
Agreed.
Thank you very much. Sergeant-at-Arms, could you please escort the witnesses into the Chamber? Thank you.
Minister Beaulieu, if you could introduce your witnesses to the House, please.
Yes, Mr. Chairman. To my left I have Derek Elkin, ADM corporate services. To my right is Perry Heath, director of infrastructure planning, Department of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Mr. Heath and Mr. Elkin, welcome to the House. Committee, we’re going to open up with general comments. I’m hearing none. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Department of Health and Social Services certainly has put some of its infrastructure where it’s needed, into our regions. I continue to thank the government for the support on the new wellness centre in Norman Wells and the territorial long-term care facility that’s associated with it. I know that’s something that’s needed and certainly the people in the Sahtu and surrounding communities that have sent out their elders to Inuvik or the Yellowknife area and to Fort Simpson appreciate that one day we will have a centre in the Sahtu, where we can have our elders closer to home who require 24/7 medical care. We certainly appreciate the support from the department to continue to push this, even though there are some dates that have been moved back because of some of the technical design issues and working in our region. So I wanted to say thank you to the Minister and his staff for moving on this issue.
We certainly look forward to the continuation of the planning study for the Tulita Health Centre. That health centre has been on the books for a while and I look forward to the Minister encouraging his staff members to conclude the issues that need to be to bring this forward to a decision level where funding can be found for the construction of the centre in Tulita. It’s one thing to have a planning study completed; it’s another to find out where the money is going to come from to build it against all the other needs in the Northwest Territories on the medical services such as the infrastructure of this budget. So that I look forward to, seeing the Minister moving closer to moving it over, and to securing money for that facility. First the department needs to complete the planning study to build this infrastructure in the community. So I’d like to continue to press the Minister on this important issue.
The other one is the support on this is somewhat in line with my colleague from the Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake, in that we have the infrastructure. We need to now provide personnel to that community for comfort and security and protection of people and look forward to the Minister’s imagination as to how we could bring in personnel. I know we’re talking about the O and M; however, the infrastructure is there, we have the housing, we have the building. It’s not very cool to have an empty building. We certainly see a need in the small communities to put personnel into those buildings.
I guess I’m talking first things first in the health care in our smaller communities. There I wanted to ask the Minister on the different classes of communities. I have an understanding from the Housing Corporation that there are different classes as they allocate the funding for certain housing. There’s class C and B in there, so is that similar to Mr. Beaulieu’s response previously as the Health Minister, in terms of the different classes for the different types of health centres or health stations or regional wellness centres such as the Stanton Territorial Hospital? So we have different classes in our communities that receive different types of funding based on the regional and geographical area or the needs in that community.
I wanted to leave it at that. Those are my opening comments to the Minister. I do look forward to having some discussion later on, on the community programs for our communities through the Social Services, especially for some of the programs or some of the infrastructures that can be put in here in regard to the new direction that the alcohol and drug addictions programs will be taking. Is that something that we need to look at or is that something I need to come back to another time? I’ll leave it at that there at your discretion, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a health centre/long-term care combination building. It is a very elaborate building. I’m going to get Mr. Heath to explain some of the technical class, I guess, as the Member indicated, of the building, but first to let the Member know that this is a building that is 4,000 square metres, approximately 4,000 square metres. We recognize there is a lot of staff to be trained. We’re in the process of putting the detail together and the training of the staff. We will also be going forward to the Assembly for all of the O and M that’s required to operate that building at the appropriate time. Before it opens we will have the money and we will also have the staff trained to go in there that can accommodate a building for its intended use.
For the interests of the Member, I will have Mr. Heath just explain the level of facility that we are constructing in Norman Wells.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Mr. Heath.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member talked about the classification of communities. Very quickly, for his information, we have several classes. A level A facility serves a population around 250 people. A level B facility services populations in around 250 to 2,000 in a program area. Level B/C serves large, in around 2,000, and our largest facilities are level F, which would be Inuvik and Yellowknife.
The Norman Wells facility is a level B/C facility, and it’s based on a classification that it is a regional centre. It does serve a wider population.
Thank you, Mr. Heath. Next on my list I have Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to bring up a concern that’s been raised up in the Mackenzie Delta. As you know, for the last number of years the communities have asked for a long-term care facility. I know that we are expecting some elder homes, but many of the elders would like to stay within the community. I know it’s more difficult as they move on in age, but I think it’s time that we decentralize this care. I know right now we are practising bringing them into the regional centres, but I think we need to step back and go to the models that we once had. For example, the Joe Greenland Centre. I just wanted to raise that issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The example the Member uses, the Joe Greenland facility, is an NWT Housing Corporation facility. The Member is correct that at one point Health and Social Services had more involvement in supporting the seniors and the facility such as this. We are currently working with the Housing Corporation on providing that level of service again to the individuals at both the Joe Greenland Centre, eight units that added on to the seniors citizens home in Aklavik, and a new facility that is planned for Fort McPherson of approximately eight or nine units that’s an assisted living facility. Part of the Housing Corporation’s inventory, but Health and Social Services is going forward with an enhanced home care project or program and our intention is to try to keep individuals in their home communities and even in their homes working, again, with the Housing Corporation on some homeownership stuff in their home communities, possibly in their homes, as long as possible as part of the continuum of care that we provide for seniors in part of a national project that is called Aging in Place.
That is what the Health and Social Services will be working on, and we agree that we need to provide a certain level of service to those communities to keep their seniors there as long as possible. However, it is very difficult and very costly to provide what we refer to as long-term care. That rating of care is expensive. It’s over $100,000 per person and is best housed in an area like Avens here in Yellowknife, Inuvik’s Woodland Manor, Northern Lights in Fort Smith, and a couple of the newer facilities that we’re earmarking as long-term care facilities, called long-term because that’s what they are. There are more services there but we can provide a certain level of service that’s required in the next level community that was essentially talked a bit about here in our last response.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Next on my list I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We do have a motion on the floor to report progress. If I can get Minister Beaulieu to take his Cabinet seat, please.
---Carried
Can I have the report from Committee of the Whole, please, Mr. Dolynny.
Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Tabled Document 107-17(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2014-2015, and would like to report progress. I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Do I have a seconder? Mr. Blake.
---Carried
Mr. Speaker, orders of the day for Thursday, October 24, 2013, 1:30 p.m.:
Prayer
Ministers’ Statements
Members’ Statements
Reports of Standing and Special Committees
Returns to Oral Questions
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Acknowledgements
Oral Questions
Written Questions
Returns to Written Questions
Replies to Opening Address
Petitions
Reports of Committees on the Review of Bills
Tabling of Documents
Notices of Motion
Notices of Motion for First Reading of Bills
Motions
Motion 24-17(4), Extended Adjournment of the House to October 28, 2013
First Reading of Bills
Second Reading of Bills
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bill 3, Wildlife Act
Bill 13, An Act to Repeal the Curfew Act
Bill 14, An Act to Repeal the Pawnbrokers and Second-hand Dealers Act
Bill 15, Gunshot and Stab Wound Mandatory Disclosure Act
Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Justices of the Peace Act
Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act
Bill 18, Apology Act
Bill 19, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2013
Bill 21, An Act to Amend the Dental Profession Act
Bill 22, Territorial Emblems and Honours Act
Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Liquor Act
Committee Report 6-17(4), Report on the Review of Bill 3: Wildlife Act
Committee Report 7-17(4), Report on the Review of Bill 24: An Act to Amend the Liquor Act
Tabled Document 70-17(4), Electoral Boundaries Commission, Final Report, May 2013
Tabled Document 107-17(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2014-2015
Tabled Document 134-17(4), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2013-2014
Tabled Document 135-17(4), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2013-2014
Report of Committee of the Whole
Third Reading of Bills
Orders of the Day
Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Wednesday, October 24th, at 1:30 p.m.
---ADJOURNMENT
The House adjourned at 6:04 p.m.
