Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to follow up to my Member’s statement earlier, talking about tourism. In the NWT, the NWT has the second lowest tourism marketing budget of all regions throughout Canada, with a return of investment of over $100 million into the territory.
I would like to ask the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment what is his department doing to compete with these other jurisdictions so that we remain competitive in the marketplace in terms of tourism. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we work with what we have. I believe between the Northwest Territories Tourism and the staff at ITI, we do the best job we can with the money we have. We have some great staff up in the Member’s region working in tourism. Certainly, we could always use more money when it comes to marketing. That is something that perhaps, over the next few years, we will be able to realize some additional dollars to go into tourism marketing here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, my next question is in regard to the communities and regions that do provide some very unique and innovative tourism packaging or excursions that we don’t get to see throughout other parts of the NWT. If we don’t increase the budget in our tourism, if that should fail, what is the commitment of the Minister to get more funding out to these regions and communities so that when we have workshops, like we did in the community of Hay River and Inuvik, those projects get the funding in the budgets that they need to run a successful tourism project? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we do have some funding. We have the Tourism 2015 plan that focuses on six investment components, marketing and Aboriginal tourism and community industry engagement. Certainly, we need to be working with entrepreneurs in the regions and the communities.
As I mentioned numerous times in the House, tourism provides the greatest opportunity in all of our communities to bring some real economic benefit to the communities. We have to find folks in the communities that are willing to take those risks and get involved in business. Certainly, if they are willing to do that, we have programs and services that will help them get to where they need to be. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, with great projects like we just had in Inuvik here with the working group meeting for a full day and coming up with a nice, detailed plan and looking at following up in terms of getting this project off the ground and providing some kind of economic base up in an area that’s really needing that economic boom, the department did support that day-long workshop.
What is the department willing to commit to in terms of funding to the Beaufort-Delta region should they move forward on this project and meeting the resources that they need? What is the department willing to do and commit to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories Tourism is hosting its AGM next week, and gala. I would certainly like to hear more about the opportunities the Member talks about in the Beaufort-Delta. Certainly, we have supported other initiatives in the Beaufort-Delta, most recently $50,000 to the Inuvik Golf Association to help with the golf course up there. We are looking for opportunities to get funding into the Beaufort-Delta, so I would be more than happy to discuss opportunities with the Member to see how ITI could help. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the high cost of living in the North with all three regions – Yukon, Nunavut and here in the Northwest Territories – and the downturn in the economy not only in the Northwest Territories but throughout Canada and the world, what is the department doing to look at a pan-territorial plan forward to work with other neighbouring jurisdictions to get more tourism up in the Arctic and across the North? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we’ve had success in the past working with both Nunavut and the Yukon Territory in advancing marketing initiatives, and I look back to Northern House in the Vancouver Olympics. Through our involvement in the Pacific Northwest Economic Region with PNWER, we are exploring ways that we can work with the State of Alaska and the Yukon government to pursue some joint marketing initiatives under that banner. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I was trying to highlight some concerns regarding some of the penalties and the reporting under our WSCC requirements. It’s my belief that the GNWT should be considered a gold standard when we consider reporting on this particular legislation, regulations and guidelines which are, in essence, the ones we drafted up. So being late is certainly no excuse. Late fees should be filed without being late. In other words, late fees shouldn’t be the disturbing trend as they are. We have dozens and dozens of incidences and, as I have highlighted, thousands of dollars are going out the door needlessly.
My question is for the Minister of Human Resources. What is he doing with this particular information that we put together that draws out the disturbing trend of late fees and the penalties associated with it?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The data that was provided actually came from the WSCC. They are the ones who actually track all the clients’ costs and claims incidences.
With respect to late fees for late filing of incidents, I share the Member’s concerns completely. When I saw that data, the first thing I did was direct the department to start digging in to find out why we are late, because it seems to me that we should never be late. That information hasn’t been fully compiled. Once I have that information, I will share that with the Member and committee. I would like an opportunity to sit down and brief committee on some of the data that has been provided and I will be following up in that as well.
With respect to the late fees, one thing that has already come in so far is that many of our employees who work shiftwork may be injured on a weekend or after regular hours. If somebody happens to be injured on a Friday and they don’t submit until Monday, we the government, would be assessed a late fee. We need to find ways to streamline our applications or notifications of injuries straight into the WSCC so we don’t get any more of these late fines.
I agree with the Member completely; this is something that we need to address. We should never be in a situation where we have to pay late fines for late notification. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, with the alarming trends that point towards many claim costs, one particular envelope seems to be – I wouldn’t describe them as the shining example – the one we should be asking ourselves tough questions on what they are doing. The area I am speaking about is the health envelope. They represent 50 percent of the claims, 45 percent of the late filing penalty claims, as well as the overall cost to the claims under the WSCC.
With the trend of the health envelope being the worst offender on all three accounts, what is the Minister for Human Resources doing to help pull up the socks of the GNWT so we comply with these regulations that are our own? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the health and social services system represents approximately one-third of the GNWT public service. So it’s not that surprising that we have a proportionately high number of claims in that area. Front-line workers are in high-risk business, operating 24/7, and front-line staff may incur physical injury when they are lifting or moving patients.
The Department of Human Resources is a shared service provider and we provide support, guidance and advice to assist departments in improving their health and safety practices within all departments, boards and agencies. However, individual departments are responsible for ensuring that their workplaces comply with health and safety standards.
The Department of Human Resources is leading the development and implementation of a GNWT Occupational Health and Safety Program that will cover all the key elements of a successful Occupational Health and Safety Program, including training, incident management, preparing for emergencies and managing hazards. So we are working with the departments to help them strengthen their own programs and services in the area of occupational health and safety. Thank you.
Again, one of the clear results that are being demonstrated by the trends, now I emphasize if you look at one department by itself, it may not stand out, but when you put them all together, it shows significant frequency of behaviour.
What is the Minister of Human Resources going to do on our leadership perspective to sew the departments together to ensure we are complying with, a) the filing requirements, and b) we’re working for a safer work environment, because that fight needs to be relentless? Thank you.
Thank you. We obviously want a safe work environment. The last thing we want to do is see workers get injured.
With respect to health and social services, the three health and social services authorities with the large number of claims, Stanton, Beaufort-Delta and Fort Smith, have acute care facilities that have successfully passed an accreditation review by Accreditation Canada. So those require them to have certain practices in place to assist, avoid injury.
But there are a couple of other things. Although we see significant value in the intent of the Safe Advantage program, we do have some concerns. One of the concerns that we have is based on the Q1 performance update for the 2012 balanced scorecard of the WSCC’s website, their target for a loss of time claims per 100 is at 2.42 claims per 100 losses. The GNWT right now, with respect to time lost, is at 1.8. So although we exceed what the WSCC is suggesting that all employers are at, we continue to get some fines under the Safe Advantage program.
We agree with the intent, we know that we need to continue to do work, we want no claims, but we do have some concerns about the Safe Advantage program. But with respect to our workers, we continue to work with them. We will put programs in place and we will reduce claims over time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When reviewing the WSCC claims cost summary, it’s become more than evident that the claim costs from 2009 tend to increase into 2010. They further increase in 2011 and they’re even at the same numbers as of September for basically on average for 2012, and 2012 is not finished.
With thousands upon hundreds of thousands of dollars going out the door because of compensation for medical, rehabilitation, pension and overall compensation, what brakes and alarms are being sounded on this particular issue? Are brakes being pulled? Are alarms going off? How is the government stopping this disturbing trend that puts workers’ lives at significant risk? Thank you.
Thank you. Just for clarity, the vast portion of claims where there are claims cost or salary, the Government of the Northwest Territories from 2009 to 2012 has had about a 6 percent increase in salary. So even if our claims stayed the number, our costs would go up.
We are working with individual departments. The Department of HR, as I indicated, is working on Occupational Health and Safety programming that can be implemented by the departments. The individual departments have some responsibility in that area and we continue to work with them.
By way of example, the Department of Justice is one of the other departments I happen to be responsible for. It’s also a department with significantly high claims. We have identified specific staff within that department to actually dig deep into why these types of things are happening in the Department of Justice in our correctional facilities and come up with some recommendations and ways that we can actually reduce the number of claims within the Department of Justice. So other departments are doing the same types of things. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of the Environment and again in follow-up to my Member’s statement earlier today. I noted the impact of increasing energy costs on the cost of living and our vulnerability to these costs is increasing, an anticipated jump in the cost of living as electricity rates soar almost 30 percent in the next few years, despite the injection of $65 million.
Why does the government, that claims a commitment to fiscal prudence, not spend money for renewables now to stop the hemorrhage of tax money and save our citizens from rocketing energy costs? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reality is we have to and we are doing both. Yet, as we laid out for the people and for the Members that there is a rate cliff because there’s been no increase in power rates for the last five years, the fuel prices have continued to escalate and rather than put the burden fully on the ratepayers that buy power, we put that subsidy in. At the same time, we are making significant, and have made significant, investments: $50 million or so in the last Assembly towards solar, biomass, wind, improving our energy standards, rebates for people to help them convert to more energy-efficient appliances to upgrade their houses. We have work underway with solar being put into Simpson. We’re looking at wind. We’re going to go to Diavik and see the tremendous work that they’ve done there, to see how that may apply to Inuvik. Biomass is being put in in a lot of our own facilities. We’re working on a biomass industry. So we have to do both. Thank you.
Thank you. I heard the remarks from the Minister and yet the WSCC report issued a couple months ago says 8.7 percent increase in electricity costs this year alone, and I am aware of no new community electricity systems in the life of my time as an MLA. We’re into our sixth year here. So that defies what the Minister is saying. Public consultation is about to get underway on a new Energy Plan, I believe yet to be seen, that will chart the future for energy development in the coming years. The Finance Minister set the rules of its fiscal strategy: no new expenses, deferred infrastructure, paying down debt before going to public consultations.
In the same way, will the Minister establish that, given that our new Energy Plan will be based on renewables and bringing an end to the fossil fuel dependency of our communities, will he establish those same criteria? Thank you.
Thank you. Just concluding, in fact we’ll be having operational the rebuilt Bluefish site, which is about a $37 million investment in hydro. There is a tremendous amount of work that’s been done on the Taltson expansion, for example, and now we just have to have the debate on the transmission line and how do we proceed to link those two systems so that in fact we can become more energy efficient.
Everything we do as a government is looking towards the long-term of minimizing our costs and reliance on fossil fuels. Our Greenhouse Gas Strategy is predicated on trying to limit emissions and that’s all tied with minimizing our reliance of fossil fuels. So that is built in as a fundamental premise of the work that this Assembly has done and of Assemblies before them. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for those remarks. There are electricity generating systems based on biomass and renewables all over Europe. We’re learning now the Maritimes are doing it through wood gasification. The possibility in Fort Liard for geothermal, thanks to the private industry there in the community pushing it really hard. There’s even electricity generation from biomass in Senegal, but where is the priority listed in the Biomass Strategy? I think it’s item number 12 or the item for 2012, this generation of mine heat and power in a community in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you. I agree with the Member that the whole area of wood gasification is of great potential and of great interest to us. Combined heat and power as it now exists, as far as I understand it, is for every megawatt of power electricity that you generate, you have to be prepared to somehow capture and put to use four megawatts of heat, four to five megawatts of heat. So it is an area with challenges. We are looking to the day when, as we watch the technology expand, of something that would be applicable in the communities that are in the Boreal Forest and maybe those outside where we could transport biomass to them. It is an area with potential. We have a lot of initiatives on the go but the issue of using biomass to generate electricity has not been put into practical reality yet.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for those remarks. That was, indeed, my point, is that it hasn’t been put into practicality yet here in the Northwest Territories.
Given that we are choosing to spend $100 million in subsidies for electricity rates, what actions will the Minister take to replace the community electricity systems that we know are really expensive, based on fossil fuels, and make the changes required?
The solar strategy that’s going to be coming out is going to have ambitious targets in there to try to displace up to 20 percent of the diesel in communities that are currently being used for generation of electricity. We are looking very closely at the work that’s been done by Diavik as they have invested about $30 million into wind turbines, which we think has great applicability to helping deal with the energy circumstances and challenges that are currently facing the community of Inuvik. In fact, the community of Tuk could also benefit from that type of installation, for example. The biomass, we’re going to look at that in terms of combined heat and power, as we’re going to look at expansions of the grid to make sure we can become as efficient as possible. If we hook the Snare and Taltson bridges together and came up the west side down the highway, we would be able to pick up communities that are not currently on the grid. We’re looking at expansion of the grid into Whati. We can pick up Providence. There is plenty of opportunity here before us. There is the question of resources and time. All those types of initiatives are being seriously considered and we want to have that discussion in the coming weeks with committee and with the people of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the biggest or most important industries is the trucking industry in the Northwest Territories, to get those products to people in the Northwest Territories, getting food on their table. I have several questions for the Minister of Transportation.
As I was discussing earlier about innovation, this industry has been innovative and created new tri-drive, triple-axle trucks. They are not currently recognized in the Northwest Territories. Is the Department of Transportation looking to recognize this innovative new part of the trucking industry?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for bringing this to our attention this last fall here. Certainly the department recognizes the importance. The regulations would require amendments, and we have them into Justice for formatting and translation. That’s a process that typically takes three to four months, but that work is in progress.
That’s good to hear. I have another question for the Minister in the area of these regulations. I’m wondering if, while we’re making these changes to the regulations, we have looked at other jurisdictions, our neighbours to the south and west of us, such as Alberta, BC and Yukon. Are we paralleling our regulations? Currently, I understand there’s a difference in regulations whether we have licence plates on the back or the front. Is the department looking at having a common or similar to the jurisdictions’ regulations to the Northwest Territories, ones that we’re making changes to?
We’re always looking to other jurisdictions. We always are paying attention to what other jurisdictions do, and through organizations like Westec and working with other Transportation Ministers, especially in Western Canada. That’s certainly an area where we can bring our concerns to the table and have them addressed. We certainly look forward to continuing to build relationships with other jurisdictions, especially here in Western Canada when it comes to regulations in the trucking industry.
Another concern that the trucking industry has indicated to me is the new bridge and the tolls. Has the department begun its discussion with this industry on how the tolls will be assessed and how it will be operated once the bridge is completed and ready to roll?
The answer to that is yes. We have had those discussions. I know I was helping the Member with a concern that one of his constituents had. I’d be happy to lead anybody in the right direction with the Department of Transportation to get the answers that people need in the advance of the bridge opening and tolls being collected at that bridge.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the winter season progresses, the trucking industry is trying to get all the product up North here. I’m just wondering if the department has actually set a date on that opening of the Deh Cho Bridge.
We haven’t got a firm date but it should be, the expectation is by the end of November. If it can happen before that, we’ll be advising the House of such.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to pick up where some of our Members have been going today. Grave concern about WSCC claims costs. We have talked about penalties. These are pretty large numbers here that I think most people need to get some clarity on.
I want to hone in on what was said earlier today or bring up a part of the response here from the Minister of Human Resources where he had a concern about the WSCC Safe Advantage program. Did he have a concern with the fairness for the GNWT? Was there a concern with the framework of the plan? What is the Minister’s concern?
