Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment today. I’d like to put aside the trick-or-treat and get right down to the cold hard facts from our oil and gas office.
I want to ask the Minister, has he had any word from any of the oil companies about them returning to the Sahtu to continue their exploration permitting?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have heard that companies are coming back to the Sahtu to have meetings in the Sahtu. As to whether or not that would see a return to activity in the region next winter remains to be seen, but I think it’s a good sign that companies are coming back to have meetings in the Sahtu. I understand that there’s a number of them that have meetings lined up this coming week in the communities in the Member’s riding. So that’s, I think, an important step forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Certainly hearing that is a treat over here, hearing those words.
Can the Minister give us some timelines for the development of the NWT Oil and Gas Strategy? Where are we at with this issue right now?
We’re in the initial phase today. We want to ensure that we get the best strategy that we can and, much like the Mineral Development Strategy, the Economic Opportunities Strategy, an Oil and Gas Strategy has to be done in collaboration with industry, communities, Aboriginal governments, and we are going to set that up. My hope is that the Oil and Gas Strategy will be complete by the end of the life of the 17th Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you. Can the Minister tell us how this strategy will incorporate findings and recommendations from the recent Sahtu oil and gas needs assessment?
The Oil and Gas Strategy would, of course, incorporate the work that has been done to date. We would be taking a look at all of that work. We don’t need to go out and reinvent the wheel if we have done work in that regard. That’s something that we will look at incorporating into an Oil and Gas Strategy. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has the Minister had any type of discussion of an impact fund similar to what was designated for the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, what we call the Mackenzie Gas Project, for oil and gas development in the Sahtu with the federal government?
Mr. Speaker, as it relates to the activity and the Canol formation, we haven’t had a discussion with the federal government on an impact fund. The $500 million the Member speaks of is still there. Of course, the Mackenzie Gas Project is in a hiatus right now, but that’s not to say that if the area does get into commercial production of some type, if there are further pipelines discussed or constructed, the federal government might, in fact, look at an impact fund similar to the one that they had put in place for the Mackenzie Gas Project. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask a question following up on the Premier’s statement on Junior Kindergarten made yesterday in the House.
Yesterday the Premier committed to “reach out to all other education authorities, Aboriginal Head Start, licenced daycare and home operators” in their consultation regarding Junior Kindergarten.
I am sure the department of ECE would say they have already done this, but what will be different this time around? Will the Aboriginal Head Start and the other leading, successful phase four program operators be taking a lead role in the communities where they are active and ensure their significant… How will we ensure their significant input in JK? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that as part of their review we will be meeting with the Aboriginal Head Start people to determine how best to move forward. At the request of the Members, we will be approaching each of the communities. My expectation is that those 10 communities that have Aboriginal Head Start, even though they are federal programs and federal money that is slated to expire in 2016, that for those communities that have Head Start and don’t want a junior kindergarten, we will accommodate them. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier. I have become aware of several complaints from teachers and parents regarding areas of concern, as have other Members: one teacher in a classroom with 23 pre-Grade 1 students, tension between existing programs, lack of appropriate supervision for four-year-olds, and some of these are actually three-year-olds until Christmas. These are happening now and these concerns have been brought to the attention of headquarters in ECE; however, the response has been to pass the issue on to the local school, yet this is a territorial program. JK is a territorial program delivered locally.
Will the Premier ensure that this situation is looked at immediately and that the process is in place to deal with these complaints effectively and report back to the House before session ends next Thursday? Mahsi.
As we committed to, this will be part of the review. I have offered each of the MLAs some of our senior management to meet individually with each of the MLAs so that we can hear more details about the concerns. We will be working with the DECs in every region and we have said that for those communities that want to opt out right away, we will accommodate them. Thank you.
Because this is so important, I am going to repeat. I think the Premier was busy when I made this question. What I’m saying is these are very serious complaints out there right now. Unsupervised three and four-year-olds. Very serious to communities, very serious to parents and so on.
Will the Premier ensure that there is a process in place to deal with those complaints effectively? Also, will he deal with them and get back to this House by next Thursday on what’s being done about this situation? Mahsi.
We are always watching out for the best interests of our children. We take these concerns, complaints, very seriously and we will be looking into them on an immediate basis. It would be helpful if the Member could share some of his very specific concerns with us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for that. The addition of a school year to the existing staff who are not trained in the specialty of early care and education is unfair to both teachers and young children.
Will the Premier commit to ensuring a plan and implementation to develop a team of dedicated early care and education personnel with the specialized skills required to properly deliver the early childhood programs they need? Mahsi.
Having trained educators or trained people working with these children is very important to us and we have been taking steps in that regard already. Through the review, we will further work to improve in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about the youth addictions and on-the-land pilot program that was held just outside of Fort Simpson at Six Mile. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services who actually participated in the first graduation there in Fort Simpson and a little bit more about his plans for developing the program further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Member for that question. I did have an opportunity to attend the first graduation. I spent about 10 or 15 minutes talking to each of the kids about their experience and what they got out of the experience.
The department is currently evaluating the lessons learned from that pilot program, which is actually going to help us articulate and identify how we can move forward with similar youth-based online programs in the future. So we’re in the middle of that assessment now. When that information is compiled, I’d be happy to have further discussions with committee.
I too spoke with the provider of the course. Shakes the Dust Hope Consulting provided it, and members of the community, too, saw growth in those young students that participated.
As part of the assessment, will he be rolling this out in other regions as well? Thank you.
It might be a little early to say for sure. That would ultimately be our goal, but until we actually do the assessment and do the analysis, I’m not sure exactly how we intend to roll that out. But it is something that we’re interested in doing. We’re doing the analysis, and when that analysis is done I’d certainly be happy to sit down with committee and have some more discussions about how we could move forward with this in the Northwest Territories in different communities in different regions. Thank you.
Certainly, we want to build on that experience as well.
Will part of the assessment also be using the facilities that were created at Fort Simpson and continuing the program for the Deh Cho region? Thank you.
The department has actually donated the tents that were used for this youth on-the-land healing program to the Liidlii Kue First Nations to support the community in doing other programs that they’d like to deliver at this site. We’ve also helped them clear the site and set it up so that it could be used for future functions. Now, it is their site, it is their location, they do have the tents, so they can use that location, and I actually expect that they will use that location for many different healing opportunities.
We do have an agreement with them that if we wish to run a healing type program or partner with the healing type program in the area, that we can use those tents that we have donated to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Common law for residential real estate requires that a seller disclose latent or hidden defects that he or she is aware of and that could not be seen in an ordinary inspection. Most real estate purchase contracts obligate sellers to disclose certain information, especially with respect to compliance with municipal regulations and appliances. While generally not legally mandated in Canada, seller property disclosure statements, also called property condition statements or seller property information statements, afford some protection to both buyers and sellers.
My questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. The Member for Yellowknife Centre also raised this concern in the recent past.
Could the Minister inform the House, what is our government doing to raise awareness of a home seller’s legal duty to disclose hidden defects and serious issues to potential buyers?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve done some research, and our research indicated that territories and provinces feel voluntary disclosure statements don’t provide meaningful consumer protection because they ask many types of questions to the homeowner. Here in the Northwest Territories, being a smaller jurisdiction, we rely, and people should rely, on the honesty and the integrity of the people that are selling the home. However, I mean, this is an issue that has been raised before. I can assure the Member that MACA is still doing some research into this particular subject.
If the Minister can inform the House, we know very well that other provinces do have measures to protect home buyers, and the voluntary disclosure statements are just one form. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement today, we do have other techniques or tools such as the requirement for realtors to require error and omission.
Can the Minister indicate to the House where are we on maybe providing certain measures to protect the home buyer and seller?
The sheer volume of home sales in some of the larger jurisdictions down south required it almost be mandatory for them to have this type of protection. However, here in the Northwest Territories we deal with this on a much smaller scale. However, we hear the concerns.
One thing we are planning on doing is our whole communications strategy, our consumer affairs website. We’re trying to enhance our content on that website to provide all different types of advice on different types of consumer protection, so any input we receive on how we can enhance that even further would be much appreciated.
We all know that there’s a growing trend towards private sales and not using a realtor.
Will the government, under MACA’s lead, review the consumer and protection legislation with a view to making changes to protect potential home buyers in the Northwest Territories?
We’d love to see the day where we have a lot of homes being bought because people are moving to the Northwest Territories, and I feel that day will come and we need to ensure that they are protected. There are some firms out there, one, possibly two, that will do home inspections on behalf of the potential buyer. I think the Member, in his statement before, talked about different training opportunities, and here again is another opportunity for us to have some people that are trained to do proper home inspections.
It is probably the largest purchase a person will ever make, so it would be to their benefit if they had a proper home inspection done and if they made sure that they were buying a piece of property that was well looked after and had no issues. We will continue to work on that and there are opportunities.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement earlier today, I was hoping the government would be doing more than just taking a look at things. We need to tighten up the belt in this area and we owe it to the public to do so. So, without seeing this mysterious population growth strategy from Cabinet that is trying to encourage more permanent NWT residents, has the government, under MACA’s lead, given any consideration to lowering the risk of buying a home in support of this strategy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I said before, we will enhance the information and communication that’s on our website. If you looked at stand-alone legislation for this particular issue, that’s almost a two-year process. With the priorities that this government has had in the 17th Legislative Assembly, we have received no complaints on this particular issue. It wasn’t considered a priority at this time. However, most of the work for the 17th Assembly is coming to an end, so this is one that they could possibly look at in future. Part of doing this is doing the research and seeing if there is a need for full-blown legislation or some ways we can advise consumers on protection and the services that are offered to them. 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 Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to follow up on my statement and some of the questions asked by Mr. Dolynny yesterday. In this fiscal year, 2014-2015, budgets to all education authorities were reduced to a certain extent in order to fund the start of Junior Kindergarten. That funding apparently was to go help the 23 schools that are offering Junior Kindergarten this year to get their program in place.
So I would like to ask the Minister first off, why, if these programs are operational and we have funding for the boards in this current budget year, why does the department need to do further budget reductions in the 2015-16 year to fund a program that is fully operational?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. That decision was made by this government to proceed to deliver to the 23 communities based on a two-year commitment that’s been made as part of the agreement that was agreed to by this government. So this year and next year the funding allocated will continue through those two areas. We will continue to work with the 23 communities. Based on the review, we will have to decide next year how it’s going to look and continue with the delivery to 23 communities in 2015-16 as well. Mahsi.
