Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize some of the people who are here with us today. There are some chairpersons of the school boards. John Stephenson is here with us, chair of YK No. 1. Gayla Meredith, president of NWTTA is here with us as well. I saw Ted Blondin earlier. He might still be in the gallery. He is the chair of the Tlicho Community Services Agency. For the Catholic School Board, Chair Simon Taylor is here with us, and also the superintendent, Claudia Parker, is here with us. I believe there is some staff that came in, as well, from my department: John Stewart along with other partners, Helen Balanoff, Sophie Hall and Laura McNeil. Thanks for being here with us. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize in the visitors gallery Sophie Hall, who has been a tireless worker on behalf of French first language education in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dolynny.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce a member from Range Lake. Mr. Huvenaars is here with us today and was introduced earlier by the Minister. What people don’t realize is that Mr. Huvenaars and I go way back. We used to curl together. We weren’t very good, but we curled together.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also would like to welcome the chairs of the two Yellowknife school districts who are here, Simon Taylor from Yellowknife Catholic Schools and John Stephenson from YK Education District No. 1. I want to say it was a pleasure to see Mr. Ootes and Ms. Baile here in the House earlier. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Bromley.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize Mr. John Stephenson, chair of the YK 1 and resident of Weledeh. Also, Simon Taylor, chair of the Yellowknife Catholic School Board, and some of the staff here today. Also, the residents of Weledeh, Jacob Schubert, one of our Pages today. Thanks to all the Pages for the service they are providing. I believe I heard John Stewart was in the gallery. I can’t always see behind me here, but another resident of Weledeh. I understand Roy Erasmus is in the crowd. I’m very happy to see him and any other folks that are returning for our celebration coming up here tomorrow, particularly of course Jake Ootes and Marg Baile. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize two Pages from Lutselk'e: Nathan Catholique and Ethan Rambough.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to recognize former Member Jake Ootes and his lovely missus. And also to recognize Roy Erasmus, a former Member also for the Legislative Assembly. It’s good to see Jake.
Mr. Speaker, I talked about the incidents that the CBC reported on Norman Wells being the number one community of oil and gas leakage, fire, injuries and pipeline integrity. I want to ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources if there is a reporting protocol and why doesn’t it include any type of notification to the public on these incidents that CBC had to tell the world on this type of stuff that’s dear to our hearts.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. ENR does have a spill line. It’s operational 24 hours a day. Plus, as well, we rely, as the Member well knows in his constituency, on reports from folks that are on the land. They have been very, very helpful in spotting leaks, especially on the pipeline. There is that opportunity there. The National Energy Board has responsibility for responding to leaks at production sites and exploration sites, but clearly, when you look at the map across Canada where spills occur, I mean, it’s very clear that when there’s oil and gas, this type of situation is going to occur, given the volume of material being moved and thousands of kilometres of pipelines and such that are in operation.
According to reports from Imperial in 2009, 127,000 litres of water contaminated with hydrocarbons that was used to force oil up from the underground also poured into the water. Even though we do have a report-a-spill line for all these types of incidents, with the Minister of the Environment, what are the consequences to ensure for these illegal releases of contaminated water in the river?
There are licences at play, there are remediation costs, and there’s a review to make sure that this issue is cleared up, the culpability is determined, and that the proper steps are taken to clean it up and make sure that we try to avoid those things in the future.
With the increase of oil and gas in our region and the development that’s going to certainly increase if the proven resources are there in the Sahtu, what type of level of increases of spills could we expect, based on the performance of the pipelines and the companies and the reports that we’re just finding out now from the CBC report? I’d ask the Minister.
I want to make it clear that we’ll want to look at the numbers clearly. If you use a global number of spills, some of them are going to be very small; some of them will be larger, as the Member has indicated. We have to set up the processes as we take over. We want to make sure that we have the capacity to monitor, to do a better job, to work with the industry, to work with the National Energy Board to bring a better focus to bear, but there is a reality that if you have this type of activity with that type of material being moved, and given the fact that they’ve been in operation for decades, some spills will happen. The issue is going to be to make sure we catch them quickly, that they’re small, and that, in fact, we aim for zero spills, as difficult as that may be.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, the National Energy Board and the Government of the Northwest Territories are certainly going to enter into a partnership where we will become the employer and the National Energy Board will become the employee on April 1, 2014. I want to ask the Minister: Would he set up a meeting with the Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated, the GNWT, the National Energy Board – because they’ll be our new regulators – and Imperial Oil to look at this report here and look at, going forward, where do we need to work together to put a zero effect of oil spills, pipeline corrosion, any type of incident, that would assure our people this work can be done in a safe manner?
As we move towards devolution and as we move towards the Government of the Northwest Territories setting up its northern-based regulatory regime, we will very certainly be meeting with industry, with the regulators, with the land and water boards, with the folks in the regions, in the Sahtu and other regions, and offshore as well, and absolutely, the issue of this type of damning report will be looked at carefully. We’re going to want to make sure that we’ll be able to provide comfort and certainty to Northerners that due process and due diligence and rigor has been applied to this issue, and as the Member said, the ideal would be to have no spill and what do we have to do to get there.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
QUESTION 410-17(4):
INDUSTRY CONTRIBUTIONS TO
WINTER ROADS
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. I recognize that the Minister is quite new to this position, and I’d like to start by offering my congratulations, and I hope he’s ready to get on with things in his new role. My questions are on the issue of public highways and what happens when resource exploitation puts extra pressure on them. My constituents on the Ingraham Trail are concerned that the secondary winter road to the diamond mines may not be built this year. They are concerned that this will cause an increase in truck traffic on the Ingraham Trail that will damage the highway that has just recently been repaired.
I’m wondering: Does the Minister agree that the lack of a secondary winter road to the diamond mines will cause increased highway maintenance costs for the GNWT through damage to that highway?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A joint venture group has been building the secondary winter road on the Ingraham Trail to handle the increased traffic. However, the department understands that they will not be constructing that road, or unlikely that they will be constructing that road. The department’s first priority is safety and we will be looking at stepping up some of the highway patrols there and putting some people on there for security for 24 hours a day during the winter road season. However, the road is being rebuilt and I’m not sure that the increased traffic is going to do damage to the main road to Tibbett.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. I’m glad to hear he’s all over the safety issue. That’s number one, of course, and that happens with this increased traffic now on the Ingraham Trail.
I’m sad to hear confirmation that the secondary road will not be built and I hope the Minister will look into working with industry to see if he can get them to put it in. We do a number of things, because, I mean, it’s clear that this damage does happen with truck traffic. Any resident out there and the Department of Highways can tell you. We do things in a number of different ways up here. The winter road to the diamond mines is paid for by the mines, while the Ingraham Trail is paid for by the GNWT, the Mackenzie bridge, a combination of trucking tolls and government funding.
Can the Minister explain his understanding of how this should work? Should industry pay for what industry uses or should the public pay for everything? Mahsi.
Thank you. Although I haven’t gotten into the details, how I think it should work is if industry is bringing a lot of resources into the Territories, then the government should be there to support industry to allow industry easy access to resources so they’re able to pay for the resources that are taken off the land. Thank you.
Thank you. On our trip to North Dakota, we saw that fracking requires a huge number of trucks; so many trucks that they were wearing 10-inch-deep ruts in the asphalt and causing the state to go to concrete road construction at substantial cost. Now this government is promoting fracking for the Sahtu.
How does the Minister plan to ensure the public roads we have already built are not destroyed and the public is not paying for roads and repairs that should be paid for by the extraction industry? Mahsi.
Thank you. The Department of Transportation has certain load limits and certain speed limits on roads when there is hauling going on and so on. Those are designed to ensure that the roads do not fall apart and deteriorate quicker than is normally expected. So with the speed limits, the amount of weight that is carried on the tires that the truck is using and so on is all calculated so that the roads last a certain period of time. With those calculations, the Department of Transportation is not concerned that this piece of infrastructure will deteriorate any faster than what we anticipate. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can confirm that residents, based on 15 years of real experience, are very concerned. I hope the Minister also becomes concerned about this.
Could the Minister please explain how that same philosophy that industry should contribute to the cost of roads they are using and degrading, how has that been applied in the case of the new Inuvik to Tuk all-weather road? How will industry contribute? Mahsi.
Thank you. From what I understand, the Inuvik-Tuk highway is funded heavily by the federal government. The intention there is not solely for the extraction of materials. That highway is not going to be in and specifically designed for the resource developers to use. It is there to put a highway in to the Arctic Ocean.
So for sure resource developers will be using it, but it’s funded… Again, the majority of that road is funded by the federal government. They put the money in there. That’s why the road is being built, but it’s not really tied into the resource extraction in that area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my statement and I have some questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
I spoke to a review of inclusive schooling, which we had been advised by the Minister was being done. I’d like to first of all ask the Minister for an update on that inclusive schooling review. Has it been done and when will it be made public? Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This whole inclusive schooling has been a topic of discussion within our department and with our regional partners, local partners, educational, NWTTA and other partners that are involved. We’ve done the review through the program review office because we have to do our review via the office of the Auditor General as well.
So some of the recommendations came out that we knew we were working within our department and working with the school boards. So, through the Education Renewal, it’s been highlighted as part of the initiatives that we need to roll that into our Education Renewal. We are working closely with the education authorities, education school boards, because this will have a positive impact in the communities and schools. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister and I absolutely agree with the Minister that this needs to be looked at, but we were told that this was going to be looked at some months ago. The fact that it’s rolled into the Education Renewal Initiative confuses me and makes me somewhat apprehensive. The Minister is tabling that Education Renewal Initiative document this afternoon. So I don’t understand how we can roll the inclusive schooling evaluation into a document that’s about to tabled. Can the Minister explain that? Thank you.
Mahsi. Currently we deliver inclusive schooling through the school boards and through their formula funding, upwards of $26 million above and beyond what’s legislated. So it is $7 million beyond what we’re legislated. The school board is at the discretion of using those funds as well.
I’m still confused and I’d have to say, and I spoke in my statement and I need to tell the Minister this is not working. From the perspective of school boards here in Yellowknife, but also other school boards in the territory, the Inclusive Schooling Program funding that they’re getting is not working.
I want to know from the Minister will he commit to doing a study of inclusive schooling funding and a study of the Inclusive Schooling Directive and make some revisions? Thank you.
Mahsi. Those are some of the areas that we are currently collecting data, the stats from the school boards. We need to identify what’s working and what’s not working. I fully agree with the Member that we need to re-evaluate inclusive schooling within our school system. This is an area where my department is working very closely with the school boards and we need to fix that issue, some of the areas that need enhancement. So those are key areas we are looking for. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to say to the Minister I heard the same words from the Minister about, well, we need to do this and we’re going to do this. I heard that many months ago. So I’m not very pleased that we are going to be “starting over again from zero.”
I’d like to ask the Minister how he is going to ensure that the money that is required for specific students gets to those students that need it most? Thank you.
Mahsi. We’re not starting from scratch. We’ve collected information and we are moving forward on this. It’s an education renewal. We’ll certainly capture that as well. But at the same time, we are collecting that information. We always use the best practices as well from across and so forth.
This particular inclusive schooling has garnered a lot of attention within our department and we will continue to improve in those areas. Again, we have to work with our partners, the school boards, the DEAs and DECs. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A few days ago I was questioning Minister Miltenberger regarding the power rates in the Northwest Territories, more specifically the power rates here in Yellowknife. His assessment is we’re doing things, we’re moving forward, there are challenges, et cetera, but he’s always willing to hear a good suggestion.
So the Government of the Northwest Territories engineers or manipulates, or call it as you will, 40 percent of the power rates for residents of the Northwest Territories. Yellowknife is not on that list of 40 percent of the Northwest Territories that they are, again, engineering or manipulating power rates. As such, I would like the Minister to explain what all the Yellowknifers perceive as an anti-Yellowknife approach.
What is he doing for Yellowknife? Why is it good enough for almost everybody else but not for this city and their residents? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
