Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Brittany and Lucyanne Kendo, originally from Tsiigehtchic. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, I too would like to recognize a relative, my sister-in-law Karen Lafferty. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m really glad to recognize my partner Lucyanne Kendo and step-daughter Brittany Jewel Kendo. You guys are my heart. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize our past mayor of Yellowknife and resident of Weledeh, past mayor Gordon Van Tighem. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I would like to welcome here my good friend Wade Istchenko. We worked together for the last 10 years with the Rangers and Junior Rangers, and if people only knew how many hours and months he put in with the Junior Rangers in the Yukon and all the good that you do, not only that but the work that you’re doing in making sure our Dempster Highway is always in good condition. Thank you, Mr. Istchenko. Welcome to the House.
And my good friend Beth Anne Mackay, president of NWT Dogsled, that she’s been putting in for so many years and trying to make dogsledding not a dying sport, and pushing forward to make it one-way transportation. Thank you, Beth Anne, for coming today, and your daughter, welcome.
I’d like to also wish my good friend Gord Van Tighem, with all the years that we worked together in the past, welcome to the House. It’s always good to see you.
To everybody here, thank you for taking interest in our proceedings today.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I spoke about so many housing issues, transitional housing and homelessness, and I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation some questions.
I’d like to know if the Housing Corporation has been working on any plans for transitional housing options for the regions and communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member had mentioned before on the core needs study that was done in 2009, and since 2009, as a government, I think we’ve spent over $151 million across the territory to try and address some of the issues contained in that report. There was $17.5 million in Nahendeh alone, plus an additional $5.7 million, I think, we’re debating this year and I’m glad for that.
As far as working on transitional housing goes, we are currently looking at a new initiative where we’ll identify some communities that could possibly have one of our housing units there converted into a bit of a transitional home. It’s a start. It’s not going to address all of the concerns, but we need to start somewhere and we feel that’s a good start. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Certainly, that last report was in 2009. As I said, great strides have been done with that to take care of the housing that’s in core need. But for this House, one of our challenges is, of course, to address homelessness.
I know that the Minister is working with the Social Envelope Committee, but can he tell me a little bit about the strategy and what we’re going to do about the homeless, especially in the small communities?
Mr. Speaker, we have a homelessness coordinator who was hired in August. She is actually planning on going to all regions in the Northwest Territories, compiling some data, a bit of a report, and then we’ll take that report and look at that as possibly a future way that we can allocate more funds into some of the communities again.
The pilot project I spoke of is a start. Once we hear back from our new homelessness coordinator, we look forward to working with the Members and seeing what we can provide to some of the communities that are most in need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I certainly look forward to working with the homelessness coordinator as she tours my communities.
I’d like to ask the Minister, in terms of homelessness, I know that here in Yellowknife, of course, it’s a much larger centre and they’re able to have O and M to address homelessness.
Is this the type of thinking they will be having when they go out to the communities and have their scoping sessions? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, Yellowknife is a much larger community and a lot of people do come here and end up homeless. We recognize that. We work with some of the organizations in Yellowknife and provide some type of funding. Most of it is on the infrastructure side, but we make contributions. It’s starting to be recognized that out in the communities it is getting to be more and more of a problem. We have replacement public housing units we’re hoping to put into some of these communities. I think we’ve identified 14 for the Nahendeh this year, but that still is not going to address the homeless.
There are many reasons that people could be homeless and it’s a cross-departmental exercise that we’re going through with my colleagues on the Social Envelope Committee. So we have to identify some of these situations and see what we can do as a government to try to assist them.
Again, the new initiative we have is a start and we’re hoping to build on that. Thank you.
As we move towards this, can the Minister indicate who would be the proponent in this case? Will he be working with the band councils or else any interest groups out there that want to do a ground-based proposal that are interested in providing this kind of service? Thank you.
Thank you. We’d be more than willing to listen to all proposals that come in from the community. As I said before, we’ve made contributions in the past to some of the infrastructure side of it. The O and M, we haven’t made too many contributions to that. With the new initiatives, again, we’re looking at a partnership with a local organization and we will provide the infrastructure again, and we’ll work with them to see if there’s an agreement we can work out where they provide kind of the supervision of the place.
So as we roll out the details on that, I will be sharing it with committee members and we still haven’t made a determination as to where the pilot projects are going. I think we’d look at some of the communities that are most in need and work on that. Some of the larger regional centres we’d look at too.
So we look forward to working with the Members and we’ll update them as we make progress. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement on the Regional Recruitment Program and the good efforts of the Department of Human Resources to look at opportunities for filling vacant positions in regional centres, I do have a few questions.
In the same statement or press release that Minister Abernethy put out, it says that the Department of Human Resources will provide support to managers through a new decentralized, regional recruitment officer position. Could we have that in Hay River, please?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that we’re looking at a location for that and I think right now I believe we’re looking at Fort Smith and I think we’ve already got somebody who has been identified as a reasonable and suitable candidate. But I will confirm, for the Member, that information. Thank you.
Thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister, how does the vacancy in GNWT positions rates compare in Yellowknife versus regional centres. If he knows, I’m not sure if that’s something he would know off the top of his head, but just curious. Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t have the exact vacancy rates for anywhere in the Northwest Territories directly in front of me, but what I can say is that we know at any given time there’s about 380 to 400 vacant positions in the GNWT that we’re trying to staff and fill. Approximately half of those are in Yellowknife and half of those are in communities and regional settings. So about 50/50. Thank you.
Thank you. In an effort to identify people who might be willing to fill positions vacant or otherwise in regional centres, in my Member’s statement I mentioned an idea of perhaps surveying people who might be interested in relocating, because my sense is that there is a bit of a mindset that that’s not the direction you want to go. But I want to tell you that I can’t even tell you the number of people who come to Hay River for business, perhaps with the government, perhaps with private sector and look at our amenities, look at our housing prices, look at the community, the lake, the river, the sports, all the other things that are there and say, you know, I could live here. But how would they communicate that to their employer if it’s the GNWT and how could we look at someone who has a job that can travel, that can relocate? Is a survey a possibility? Thank you.
Thank you. Certainly an intriguing idea and if it’s something committee wants us to look at I’m certainly willing to.
Having said that, the Regional Recruitment Program that we’re talking about here is actually a program designed to help people from the communities and the regions obtain employment with the GNWT and it will be a valuable tool as we devolve positions throughout the Northwest Territories because it will help those individuals who feel or may not qualify for jobs. They’ve developed the on-the-job training and skills they need to get jobs, but with respect to Mrs. Groenewegen’s question, if it’s something committee wants us to look at, I’m absolutely happy to take a look at that and discuss further with committee. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I realize that I have kind of mixed a couple of things here and I know that that’s not the letter of what this Regional Recruitment Program is about. That is to fill existing positions in regional centres and I’m kind of mixing that in with creating positions at regional centres. But I just want to say that I think the people should be advised of this and the program as it’s laid out for trainees and job shadowing, the $15,000 allotment, I think the whole thing is a really, really good idea and a great program.
I would like to know how people are going to be advised on a broad scale of what those positions are. We see positions advertised in newspapers and ads and so on, but can we get an inventory of vacant positions community by community? Thank you.
Thank you. The list is evolving and we have people coming into positions, people leaving jobs. It changes on a fairly regular basis. We do know that we run about 400 in the Northwest Territories at any given time that we’re trying to staff. How we’re planning to let people know, is we’re looking a little outside the box, we’re not just going to rely on our advertising and communication. We do know in the communities that there are a lot of people who have been going through career development officers and other mechanisms to find opportunities for themselves. So to make this work, we feel it’s critical to have a departmental collaboration with Education, Culture and Employment and the career development officers, who are individuals that a lot of these people looking for work go to. So we’re developing that relationship, we’re making sure that the career development officers are on board, they’re part of the team to communicate the message to residents of the communities who would be eligible for these training opportunities.
I will commit to sharing, with committee and the Member, an analysis, as we go, of the types of positions that we’re getting uptake on and what communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I talked about the traditional foods at the health facilities in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, other than the Aboriginal Wellness Program, the Stanton Elders Council, are there any types of discussions happening to increase the amount of Aboriginal foods that are served at the Stanton Territorial Hospital and possibly at the Aven Manor?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Our environmental health unit has, in the past, worked with the various institutions that are run by Health and Social Services or the authorities to try to get traditional foods into these homes. In addition to that, recently the Member has brought to our attention that perhaps we should start looking at institutions that are under our authority that already are providing traditional foods on a regular basis and start working with them to see if they can expand the traditional food by delivering it to other institutions in town where traditional foods are not usually served on a regular basis.
Thank you. Certainly, the Minister is correct of our discussion. I want to ask the Minister, is that something that could be within this fiscal framework, to look at the various solutions to increase the Aboriginal foods, say, at Aven Manor? I understand they serve traditional foods only twice a month and at the Stanton Hospital they serve traditional foods every Friday at lunchtime. At Stanton Hospital, the last report indicated 65 percent of patients were Aboriginal people. So I want to ask if the Minister would look at some of these types of solutions to help our elders and our Aboriginal people in these health facilities to get their traditional foods.
Like I had indicated, we are now reaching out to the organizations. Immediately after my conversation with the Member, I had asked the department to talk to the two organizations that he is referring to. We have done that. All we need to do is find the various ways within our policies on traditional foods, the various ways we can legally provide traditional foods in that type of institution. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m looking for a commitment from the Minister of Health and Social Services to direct his department within the next couple of months. I’m looking forward to seeing some type of policy, a direction, where this is going to happen. Can the Minister give that commitment to me?
Mr. Speaker, we are prepared to look at the requirements of handling uninspected wild fish and game. This is really the key issue, is how traditional food is brought into these residences for long-term care, hospital or any residential type of facility where there is a requirement to serve food. We have to discuss an effective and consistent way of getting uninspected wild fish and game into those places as part of the menu. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
That’s what I said in my Member’s statement. How do we try to regulate something that is just common sense in our small communities? We should see some of the places where we store our food and wonder, gee, it must be quite the challenge to cook it up.
What makes something that is common sense in our small communities so unexplainable when it comes to our health centres? Why do we have to go through all these processes? How can the Minister help me with the existing facilities we have now so Aboriginal people and elders can get their traditional foods in these facilities?
Mr. Speaker, the Food Establishment Safety Regulations under the Public Health Act lay out what we can do legally when we provide traditional food into the long-term care centres or the hospitals. One way that we are thinking about getting around that specific issue is that because fish and game can be donated by individuals that have a general hunting licence or individuals that have the right to hunt and donate food. A lot of that has been done at the Vital Abel where they are serving traditional food, and the Member talks about how we would be able to work with the Vital Abel to provide food at Avens and the hospital, as an example. Considering that we do have contracts with those individuals, as well, we had to talk to all of them to make sure that we’re not trying to offload work on somebody without having that discussion first. I can assure the Member that we’re moving forward with this and that we’re trying to find a solution. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs on the subject of unauthorized occupation of a small point of land in the Weledeh riding. I’m talking about the houseboat that has been pulled up on shore at the point in Willow Flats. I appreciate that there were three originally; we are down to one. I have been getting complaints from constituents since this boat arrived in June and these complaints are escalating as we learn about the poor treatment of a pet chained now at the point.
Would the Minister explain who has what jurisdiction over this situation and on that piece of land and water? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have jurisdiction over that. It is Commissioner’s Lake that land is called. We have been trying to locate the owner of the houseboat so they can be served and have that houseboat removed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for that. This is a favourite spot for families to gather for picnics, to swim and to walk their dogs throughout the winter, or should I say, they used to do those things.
Would the Minister be able to explain how or if this jurisdiction arrangement will change with devolution? Mahsi.
