Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Justice, Mr. Abernethy.
Mr. Speaker, I can’t speak for the actions of a previous government, but I can say that when we came into the 16th Legislative Assembly, whistleblower legislation was a priority for both Regular Members and I as the Minister. Through negotiations with the union, the union requested that we work with them on a memorandum of understanding to put together some joint policies around whistleblowers, which we’re basically used as a pilot study. That work has been done. It was made effective April 1, 2013. I made a commitment that after we ran this program for a year, we’d do a bit of a review, learn lessons from that year and we would move forward with legislation. I will be coming forward with a legislative proposal to committee probably around October 2014, which gives us the year to run the program, a little bit of time to do analysis, which I will absolutely be sharing with my colleagues on both sides of the House and we will be coming forward with the legislation, without question. Thank you.
Thank you. That’s promising news here and I think it’s important that the public hear that as well.
So to truly appreciate what we currently have to protect our public sector, can the Minister please indicate what is the government’s experience so far with the memorandum of agreement with the UNW on whistleblowing within the GNWT? Thank you.
Thank you. The memorandum of understanding and the policy went live on April 1, 2013. We tried to get that information out as best we could. We’ve included it on our website; we’ve got it out in Bear Facts a number of times. We had a joint letter go out with the UNW to all UNW representatives in the Northwest Territories, and to date, we’ve actually had nobody take us up on this policy and program.
I guess just to pinpoint a little bit of the time flying by that the Minister has just indicated, he has indicated earlier that in October 2014 we should be seeing some type of legislative proposal on this side of the House. Can the Minister indicate as to when we might see a draft proposal at its earliest?
As I’ve indicated, we’re running this program for a year. We’re learning our lessons. We’re getting information. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any uptake on it, but we may. We will take that time from April 1st to the following October to draft some draft legislation and we will come forward with the legislative proposal and follow the normal legislative process in the Government of the Northwest Territories, and we will definitely have something through the House, hopefully before the end of this government.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I appreciate the Minister’s response there. I guess we all know how government works here when we see a proposal of this nature, large proposals coming really late in the 17th Assembly. Can the Minister give some reassurances here that we are going to have ample time to have all the amendments in place and to have full-blown whistleblower legislation by the end of our sitting in the 17th Assembly?
I’m committed to taking it through the process. I’ve already made that commitment to the House a number of times both today and previously. We will follow it through the normal legislative process, which includes going to committee, spending 120 days with committee, and then going to the House for, hopefully, first, second and third reading.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Hay River South, Ms. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today on regional high schools, before I get into my questions, let me just make a clarification. I made a brief reference to my own children coming from Hay River to Yellowknife. I am not advocating for any student from Hay River coming to Yellowknife. It was just an unusual circumstance where they had a parent at both sides of the lake and they took advantage of an option. I was speaking to the relativity. When you’re from Hay River, Yellowknife’s big. When you’re from Fort Res, Hay River’s big. When you’re from Toronto, Taipei is big. Everything is relative, right?
Getting into my questions, I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for Education if the idea of regional high school education is on the department’s radar in any way. I believe the option should be there for students that want to remain in small communities, but for those who would like an enriched curriculum, a variety of courses and subject material, that this could be available. Is this on the department’s radar?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Specifically, if it’s on the radar, probably not at this point, but I can certainly raise that issue with the school board chairs. I usually have a meeting with them. Part of the discussion that we’ve been having about grade extension is based on the feedback from the communities, the parents. The parents don’t want their kids to be sent out to regional high school. They’ve had some experience where their children, their students, I guess, would get into whether it be trouble or the substance abuse in the larger communities due to the fact we’ve created these grade extensions into communities. This is an area that we can certainly have discussion with the school board chairs.
In my Member’s statement I was very clear to suggest that this would not be feasible, doable or even desirable if there were not home boarding or residential options available to these students that were sober, supervised, supported and in every way healthy for the children.
The Minister says that parents don’t want their high school students to go to regional centres for the reasons that the Minister stated, and he said that he will speak to the superintendents of education. Could we not perhaps find a way to ask the parents how they feel about that? Because I have run across many parents who feel that their young people do well in the small communities, they get to a certain point, they’re bored, they are feeling like the education system is not challenging them, and they would love an opportunity for their students, for their children to go to a regional centre to go to high school. Is there a way that we could actually canvass the parents to find out if they have an interest in this?
There has been a survey in the past, when we started the discussion on grade extension. We can reopen that dialogue with the communities, especially with the parents. I would like to hear from the parents, the school board chairs, the superintendents, the educators and the grandparents how they feel about having regional high schools in another part of the community to send their kids over there. By all means, I will be more than happy to have this dialogue happening in the communities through the school board chairs and the school board directors.
I think anything that offers more options to our secondary high school students in the Northwest Territories to make sure they get the best high school education they can, should be looked and should be considered. I would like to ask the Minister, do the education councils at this time have any funding in their budget for one-offs. If a parent came and said, you know what, I would like my child to go from Tuktoyaktuk to attend school in Inuvik, is there funding in budgets right now on an application or one-off basis where parents can have their student or their child attend a regional high school for the cost of travel and home boarding?
More options, I totally agree with that. That’s why we’re looking at various programming such as I mentioned. E-learning is just one of the examples that the Beaufort-Delta has been very successful; also, the tutoring in the South Slave region. Those are just some of the areas that we continue to push.
With respect to some of the areas for funding allocation, we provide funding to DECs, district education councils, on an annual basis, based on enrolment, and part of that has been distributed to district education authorities so they can expend at their pleasure. We provide funding on an annual basis and they decide where the money should be expended.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Hay River has a wonderful high school, which is not utilized to its maximum capacity, with very experienced teachers and a very wide variety of course options, so I would like to ask the Minister if he could report back to us what a survey of parents might indicate who, in the South Slave, in small communities, might be interested in accessing an education in Hay River.
We’ll definitely do that with the community of Hay River and also the surrounding small communities that the Member alluded to earlier.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are based on learning that in North Dakota, workers pay income taxes to the state of North Dakota regardless of where they reside. I’d like to direct my questions to the Minister of Finance exploring our situation. Early in the previous Assembly, we learned that we were losing about $300 million per year to high salary workers flying in to work in the NWT mines from other provinces.
Would the Minister have any update on how much this figure is currently for mine workers and what additional we are losing now for oil and gas workers?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can commit to get that information for the Member.
Thanks very much to the Minister for that commitment. I think he would probably agree that it’s a substantial number and not something we’d like to see. A report published in 2008 by the Parkland Institute pointed out that the GNWT does collect the payroll tax from all workers, including those who fly in and out, which I think is beneficial, but I don’t believe we have increased those payroll taxes in the last five years. Now, this could be done in a way that does not change things except increase the tax we collect from fly-in/fly-out workers.
Would the Minister be able to confirm that raising the payroll tax for high-income workers while lowering the income tax by an equal amount, or the payroll tax, or income tax for those at lower income would allow the GNWT to collect increased taxes from fly-in/fly-out workers without changing the tax burden on NWT residents? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t have access to the document that the Member is quoting from the Parkland Institute. I can indicate to the Member that we have looked at increasing the payroll tax in nearly every Assembly that I’ve been in. We’ve broken it down in great detail; we’ve looked at it from every angle. The bottom line determination to date has been that increasing the payroll tax, when you look at all the administrative costs and the complexities and the amount of money spent making sure that there is no negative impact on Northerners has made it not worth pursuing at this juncture. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for those comments. I would be happy to provide him with a copy of the report, although this isn’t totally from the report. The Minister mentioned it has to have a benefit to it. There are some costs associated with this. Right now we have the federal government collecting income tax for us. That’s a bit of a deal, because it’s an expensive process. At some point, you hit an inflection point where it becomes worthwhile paying the administration and doing the collection yourself.
Has the Minister looked into that at all to decide when it would be… I appreciate his commitment to find out how much we are losing. Maybe he would be interested in doing some projections. Has the Minister looked into at what point we might consider collecting those ourselves? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, we would be more than willing and interested to appear before a committee to lay out in detail the specifics of the payroll tax as we have it set up now and the work that we’ve done in looking at alternatives and options to increasing. We have, in fact, done that in the past and it may be time to have another look at it. I would be interested in looking at the Parkland Institute paper, to see if there is something new that hasn’t been contemplated. As well, I think the big issue is the leakage and what is the best way to prevent that leakage of all that money going directly south, and is the payroll tax increase the only or the best way to do that. I know we have had, and are having, discussions with Dominion Diamonds, for example, to look at ways that we can encourage and incent more people to stay and come to the North to live and work, not just work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister. There has been a lot of work done and I supported that and appreciated that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be getting us where we want to go.
Just following up on my last, what action is the Minister taking to discuss this topic with our neighbouring jurisdictions, particularly Nunavut and the Yukon? Certainly, they have to be having similar issues and maybe they will more and more. So there’s an opportunity, maybe, for northern Canada to have a special dispensation where we can actually collect income tax from dollars made here. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, in fact I do believe, as well, that Alberta has the same challenge with a significant amount of workers it brings in mainly from eastern Canada on an ongoing basis. We have had discussions about the challenges they face. I haven’t had any immediate or recent discussions with our northern territories. I have had more discussions with Alberta as they struggle to come to grips with the same issue. They may have come up with no surefire solutions, either, because the planes still fly on a weekly basis full of workers returning home or on shift change. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I would like to ask him about a letter that was written about two months ago. The NWT Chapter for Council of Canadians made a request to the Minister of ENR. That request was for an investigation under the NWT Environmental Rights Act. The letter said, “This letter asks you to investigate the likely release of contaminants not specifically named by ConocoPhillips Canada Resources Corp under the Type A land use permit and Type B water licence in the Tulita district issued by the Sahtu Land and Water Board and to require full public disclosure of all chemicals used.”
I would like to know, first of all, from the Minister, whether or not he is aware of this letter or this request, and if yes, can he provide an update to the House on where this request now sits. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The letter has been responded to. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Minister for that information. I was not aware. Perhaps the Minister could advise us as to what was included in that letter. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in some way, as I’m sure the letter will become public knowledge soon enough, I am declining the request or the demand that we strike an investigation into the Sahtu permits that were handed out. There are a number of reasons for that, which I would be happy to discuss if the Member has further questions. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I do have questions for the Minister. I guess I don’t understand why he would deny this request for an investigation. The act is Section 4, I think it is, and the act is relatively clear. It states that residents may apply to the Minister for an investigation. I need to ask the Minister why he feels that this investigation is not merited. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the project that was called into question had already gone through a thorough environmental assessment process under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which is federal legislation. That act came after the implementation of the Environmental Rights Act. When the Environmental Rights Act was drafted in the 1980s, in my opinion and from what I understand, it did not contemplate such legislation and was the only opportunity Members had at that juncture to raise issues. Since then, we set up land and water boards. We’ve had the environmental process and it was given a thorough screening. On that basis, I declined to call another investigation in what, in my opinion, would have been a type of double jeopardy on the process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks to the Minister for his response. I can appreciate his rationale but I have to agree to disagree as, unfortunately, we often do. I think the chemicals need to be made evident to us and the public.
Could the Minister advise when the letter was sent, and was it e-mailed or was it mailed? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have a common concern about making sure we have the best industry practises when it applies to any type of resource development; in this case, hydraulic fracturing. As a government, we have come forward with a draft guidance on the issue of best practises for hydraulic fracking. That information, the document, now sits with committee, looking for their feedback.
As industry has indicated to us, as well, they are prepared to do full disclosure. It’s something that is supported by CAP. We are looking for feedback, but we are fully intent to make sure we manage and have that balance between the resource development and protection of the land, water and animals. I believe the letter went out last week. I will have to double-check. We probably did e-mail and regular mail, but I will double-check for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
QUESTION 384-17(4):
SERVICES DELIVERED BY
DENTAL HYGIENISTS
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about the dental hygienist and the poor oral health in the small communities and the abilities of the dentists to get out there. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what the department is doing currently to remedy the poor oral health practises and visits to the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services recognizes that poor oral health is costly to our health system and that poor oral health leads to all kinds of other problems that negatively impact students in schools. So what we are doing in the big picture overall is developing an oral health strategy, working with the two northern jurisdictions, Yukon and Nunavut, to develop an oral health strategy.
Also, I would like to ask, is increasing the amounts of dental days to small communities part of that strategy.
