I’d like to ask the Premier, if the deadline is extended, will the Minister commit to helping NWT residents maneuver through this application process? For example, with the communities that have government service officers.
We have those community liaison officers for that exact purpose, to help people in the communities access benefits that they are entitled to, and we would work with the federal government to make sure that if it is extended that they be provided with the requisite information so that they can assist those former residential school students that would like to take advantage and benefit from these personal credits so that they can maximize their healing.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for Premier McLeod, following my Member’s Statement where I spoke about my disappointment that yet again this government has acted in a way inconsistent with the tenets of consensus government, this time in the formation and work of the Intergovernmental Council on Land and Resource Management. Despite assurances from the Premier, MLAs had no input into the terms of reference and have no observer status.
Why, despite specific requests to and obligations of the Premier, were MLAs left completely outside of the room of the Intergovernmental Council discussions on terms of reference when these important items were discussed?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did bring forward a request from the MLAs to the Intergovernmental Council. I think it’s important to recognize that the Intergovernmental Council is intended to foster improved cooperation and collaboration on land and resource management issues, and each government will continue to represent its own interests and the independent jurisdictions of each government are untouched. So, ultimately, the accountabilities of each government must remain. So on this Intergovernmental Council there’s the Government of the Northwest Territories and at least seven Aboriginal governments, and when the question was posed to them, the council felt that it would not be beneficial for them to have observers. They asked if they could have observer status in our committee meetings. So, as I indicated to committee, the Intergovernmental Council is very interested in meeting on an annual basis with standing committee or Caucus or what have you.
The Premier just explained how he contravened the consensus government, given that the mandate of this council is that every government sticks to their own authorities, and the authority of the Premier is to require a consensus approach.
He also mentioned that others requested observer status, and I have absolutely no problem and we told the Premier this – I certainly told the Premier this – that the meetings should be open and transparent for any elected officials. So why did he not say yes?
I spoke about the apparent overlap of responsibility of the Intergovernmental Council and this House. Given that the Intergovernmental Council is making decisions such as priority of legislation, apparently, and who knows what else behind closed doors, the authorities and MLAs are being arbitrarily usurped or undermined. Decisions are now apparently made on behalf of this House by a brand new quasi-government structure that has had essentially no democratic review, the Intergovernmental Council.
How does the Premier see the mandate of Regular Members vis-à-vis the decisions of the Intergovernmental Council?
The Member is suggesting that there is conspiracy behind every door, but that’s certainly not the case. The Intergovernmental Council, as we’ve laid out, will take a lead on legislative and policy matters related to land that they identify. These are issues that the Aboriginal governments feel are important for them to understand may emanate from their land claim agreements, because in order to be part of the Intergovernmental Council you have to be recognized as an Aboriginal government and to be an Aboriginal government you have to have a land claim or be negotiating at a land claim table.
So the way it works is that the Intergovernmental Council is not a replacement for the processes governments have and which governments must follow when it comes to legislative or policy development. So I don’t see it interfering in any way with the work of the Legislative Assembly or consensus government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I should be clear that I support the concept of an Intergovernmental Council if it’s transparent and clear. It’s not transparent and clear, and the Premier’s minions do not understand, because they’re telling us that the Intergovernmental Council is setting priorities which are the responsibility of this House. That’s the example I raised.
As an elected representative of the people, when I look at the Premier’s push to give away and limit our right to authority without any democratic review still, I have concerns about the opportunity to meet the expectations of the public for MLA involvement and representation in the regular day-to-day decisions of the House.
What other decisions are the Premier and Intergovernmental Council making without the input of MLAs? Mahsi.
As I explained to committee and as the Member will be very pleased to know, all of the members of the Intergovernmental Council are very committed to transparency and all of the intergovernmental leaders have agreed to make meeting outcomes available, and leaders also recognize the need to be open and transparent and available and open to the press, their constituents and their fellow leaders within their governments. As I offered, there are ways around this observer thing. All of the governments have agreed to limit their participation to three members at the council. As I suggested in the briefing, our government could have, perhaps, the chair of the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning sit in on the meetings as an observer for all of the MLAs that are interested. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker, and thanks for that offer from the Premier. I assume he would be willing to present that in writing. I’m sure that committee would respond positively to that, had we received that.
Given that the Premier has told us that other governments would be open to observers if they also had the opportunity to have observers, would the Premier go back to them and take them up on that offer and push for observer status for elected representatives of any of the governments participating in the Intergovernmental Council? Mahsi.
I’m always pleased to communicate any request of Members of this House to the Intergovernmental Council. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier and I want to follow up on some questions that my colleague Mr. Dolynny asked earlier following up on the statement of the Premier today. I want to, at the outset, indicate that I am very pleased and was pleased to hear the statement from the Premier. It is good news. But one of the things Mr. Dolynny asked had to do with funding and the funding ongoing. The Premier indicated in one of his answers that there were funding reductions for education authorities in this fiscal year, 2014-15, that there would be reductions in 2015-16 and there would be reductions in 2016-17. If phase two and three of the Junior Kindergarten program is not going to be happening, I need to get confirmed from the Premier whether or not there will be reductions to education authorities in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in the letter, I said the funding model would remain the same for years one and two, which is 2015-16 and 2016-17. The reason for that is we have 23 communities that have implemented Junior Kindergarten. As the Members have requested that we review that immediately and so we have to determine how many of those will no longer participate in the Junior Kindergarten program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Premier for clarifying that. It doesn’t make me happy, however. We are now targeting regional centres’ education authorities and Yellowknife education authorities in a second year for a program which presumably is fully funded in this first year. We have 23 communities now ongoing for Junior Kindergarten. We had reductions from education authorities to fund the first year and the reduction in the second year was supposed to fund the second year, from what I understand.
The other concern that I have is that this funding is only coming from authorities who have schools greater than 120 students. So we are totally targeting larger schools and larger authorities. Is that correct, that we will be doing reductions in 2015-16 from education authorities who will get nothing for at least another two or three years? Thank you.
As I’ve indicated in my previous responses, we will be re-profiling from all authorities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I don’t think I heard an answer to my question, so I guess school boards are looking forward to reductions in 2015-16 and they aren’t going to get anything back for at least another two or three years.
The Premier referenced surpluses and he referenced the need for particularly the two boards in Yellowknife to use up their surpluses. There are other boards with surpluses. I’d like to ask the Premier if the need to use up surplus to deal with the funding shortfall because of the reductions that are happening, is the need to use up surpluses the same for every education authority or is he looking specifically at Yellowknife? Thank you.
As I said, we would have to revisit it depending on how many of the 23 communities determine that they will not be continuing with Junior Kindergarten. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s hard to be short when I get an answer that doesn’t reference my question. The Premier says that all the schools are over-funded. Our legislation says our PTR is 16 to 1. I want to say that the only schools which are meeting that 16 to 1 PTR are in Yellowknife. I would like to know whether or not the Premier intends to enforce or reduce dollars so that we are 16 to 1. Is he going to enforce a ratio of 16 to 1 in every school across the territory? We now have some that are funded at less than 5 to 1. Thank you.
We’re hearing that we have to adhere to our legislation. Obviously, as a government, we take that very seriously. We’ve indicated that we are doing a very comprehensive review and I think we would revisit it at that time. So we expect the review will take a period of time, but I’ve written to committee and indicated that we will seek input from every MLA on how this review should work, so that everybody will have input into it. Everybody, at the end of the day, will be happy with the outcome of the review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I love asking questions and I certainly enjoy the answers that I sometimes get. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Housing Minister.
We all know mould is a serious issue in the Northwest Territories, certainly in public housing. Quite often we hear a lot about it. I want to know how often public housing units are tested for mould, who does the testing, what skills do they have, how do we ensure authorities are testing them properly and what expertise do we use. Those are the bulk of the questions and, well, let’s find a way to get through them.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can answer them all at once or take them all as supps. Units are condition rated every year. We have qualified folks from our local housing authorities who go in and do the inspections, if mould is found and identified or if mould is found and suspected. Most of our regional staff are getting trained in mould identification and remediation, so they have an opportunity to go in and confirm it and take the necessary steps to deal with the situation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I think I got most of them. Just to drill down slightly deeper, how many people are actually qualified at his point? I think the Minister had said they are training some folks, so let’s get that on the record. How many people are specifically qualified to identify mould and send it out for testing? Nobody can just stand there and say it’s this type of mould. It has to be sent out.
That said, what regions do they typically work? The Minister said just a moment ago, every public housing unit is condition rated every year, so I just want to make sure we’re doing this regularly and in which regions. It’s very important. Thank you.
I appreciate the Member’s interest in the state of housing across the Northwest Territories. I can assure him that our folks on the front lines are fully trained, that they are all qualified. As far as who is qualified or how many there are, that’s more of an operational question. I can get the information for the Member and share it with the Member and committee. The condition ratings, again, those are inspections we do every year with the local housing authorities. I can get the information as to how many individuals are actually qualified and which region they work in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to give deep and sincere thanks to the Minister for recognizing my concern about public housing. It’s an important issue for me. I will accept every offer he just made about providing that information.
In the spring I was asking some details about certain public housing units and they were in the Nunakput region, interestingly enough, the one that you represent, Mr. Speaker. I had some concerns about the particular condition rating. I drilled down a little further later on, asking about if they were as qualified to do it as such and was the information fully contained.
I’d like to know, maybe, an update on this particular scenario. When has the condition rating been reviewed in those communities and what skills are the people using? In other words, what expertise are going into these units and assessing these units so we make sure we do them properly? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker. our maintenance people in the communities are fully qualified to carry out the inspection. This is unit condition rating, so they go into the unit; they inspect all the components of the unit. If they suspect mould might be present, if they’re not qualified to identify and remediate it, they then will pass that information on. We will get people into the community to identify and remediate the mould.
As far as this particular unit goes, I’m not quite sure if it’s a public housing unit. I’m suspecting it might be a private homeowner unit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe for the benefit of the public – I’ve heard this answer before, and I’ll explain it when I say it – maybe the Minister can help us understand what “fully qualified” means.
As we all know, things like housing maintainers are not Red Seal tradespersons, so I want to make sure we have the right people on the ground making the assessment. The only thing I would say, Mr. Speaker, is a housing maintainer – this is my last question, Mr. Speaker – cannot go in and identify an electrical problem. They can suspect there’s an issue there, but they’re not qualified to say it truly is a problem. So a housing maintainer probably doesn’t have the skills, in most circumstances, to identify mould, electrical problems or things like outside of what is obviously a typical problem.
I just want to make sure we have the right people with the right skills assessing these properly because, frankly, they’re territorial assets. We have every duty to ensure that they’re safe and we certainly have a social responsibility to make sure they’re healthy for the tenants who live there. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we know exactly what our responsibilities are, that’s why we have these people go and take care of these units. On behalf of all housing maintainers across the Northwest Territories, I take offence to the Member’s comments, because it is a full apprenticeship, they do three years of training and a lot of it is basic home repair. But I would challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified.
I say, Mr. Speaker, I challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified. For him to stand over there and question the ability and the qualifications of these people who have been working in the fields for 20, 25, 30 years I think is unfair and they take a lot of pride in their work. I say again, they do have the qualifications. They have the experience that’s needed to identify a lot of these issues. If they can’t repair it, then they will get someone in who’s qualified to repair it.
They have electrical inspections every year. They contract it out. They get an electrician to come in and inspect a lot of the units as far as the electrical issues go. So there are a number of inspections they do on the units. I can assure the public out there that our units are condition rated and they’re well maintained and they have regular inspections by qualified people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time for oral questions has expired. Item 9, written questions. Item 10, returns to written questions. Item 11, replies to opening address. Item 12, petitions. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The committee would like to report on its consideration of Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Act.
Bill 12, sponsored by the Minister of Finance, sets out the legislative framework for the Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan to continue as a multi-employer, multijurisdictional public sector pension for employees of approved public employers in both the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Bill 12 received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on February 27, 2014, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review. At the same time, our counterparts in the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut have been considering Bill 1, which largely mirrors the provisions of Bill 12.
Earlier this week the Nunavut Legislative Assembly adopted a motion to extend the period of time for their standing committee to consider Bill 1 by a further 120 days.
Today I am advising this House of our committee’s wish to join our counterparts in Nunavut and to extend our review of Bill 12 by the same amount of time, 120 days.
Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves in a unique situation whereby two distinct and independent Legislatures are considering amendments to two pieces of mirrored legislation governing a body that conducts businesses in both jurisdictions.
Given the shared nature of the pension plan between the two jurisdictions, it is essential that the two bills that will emerge from the two Legislatures be harmonized to the greatest extent possible.
Given the interest already expressed by constituents, the unique nature of this bill and the challenges proposed by its multijurisdictional nature, it will take time to do this job properly. I believe that lawmakers from the Northwest Territories and Nunavut would agree that this is the best way to ensure that NEBS gets the clear legislative framework that they need and the balanced one they deserve.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Motion is on the floor. Motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
The review period for Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services…
---Interjection
Thank you, guys. Order!
The review period for Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act, is extended for 120 days.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Annual Report on the Activities of the Rental Office, April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014.” Thank you.
