Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On October 6, 2008, in my Member’s statement I talked about this government’s limited support for youth in smaller communities. Many of our smaller communities struggle daily with little or no youth budgets. Municipal budgets are already strained with O&M and delivering essential services.
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for Youth. I’d like to ask the Minister: can he advise this House what the current level of funding specifically earmarked for youth, not counting education budgets, is for 2008–09?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The budget for 2008–2009 for Youth was approximately $1.15 million broken out into three different categories: the NWT Youth Core, the Youth Contributions Program and the Youth Centres Initiative.
During my visit to the communities this past year I heard from the youth in both communities about how they feel and what they need. “There is not much for us to do” is often the comment.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell this House what the plans are, if any, to increase the budget in the Youth portfolio for 2009–2010?
The 16th Legislative Assembly has identified youth as a priority. With the upcoming business plans I’m sure there will be an opportunity to look at increasing the Youth budget. I agree with the Member. I remember that the youth are a priority. If there’s an opportunity to increase funding for youth programs, I think it’s something that should be looked at.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to conducting a comprehensive review of how Youth budgets are currently allocated, specifically in the Tu Nedhe communities — if there are any planned budgets going into those two communities of Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution?
As part of my familiarization with all the monies that are available to Youth, I would commit to conducting a review. It ties in, in part, to familiarizing myself with the Youth department and seeing what else there is that we can do out there. I would commit to having a review of the youth programs and the Youth funding.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to working with me and each of the Tu Nedhe communities of Fort Revolution and Lutselk’e to develop a youth strategy? I feel that a youth strategy is important. I define the youth strategy as a comprehensive, community based approach to investing in Youth budgets, programming, infrastructure and other youth related support.
I would make that commitment to work with the Member for Tu Nedhe and every other Member on the other side of the floor to come up with a good youth strategy. Like I said earlier, it is a priority of the 16th Assembly, and it is a strong personal belief of mine that we have to put youth as a priority and see what we as an Assembly can do for them. I would make that commitment to the Member: I will work with the Member for Tu Nedhe plus all Members on that side to come up with a youth strategy.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement by asking whether — I believe it’s the Minister of ITI or ENR looking after the regulatory process here — the important conclusions of the environmental audit of 2005 are being followed up with some very important and critical recommendations requiring additional resources, the implementation of the cumulative impacts program and so on. Are they actually getting done? We’re in 2008; the next review will be in 2010. What’s our progress on that?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Work is being done in that area. As well, work continues to be done to address and analyze and be able to give a thorough response to the McCrank report, about which we want to deal with the new government once the election is over. That work is expected to be done for the McCrank report sometime in November, I believe.
Just for clarification, I want to be sure I got that right. The report that’s coming out at the end of October, soon after the election, will include an assessment of where we’re at with the 2005 audit as well as address the McCrank report. Is that what I’m hearing? In one report?
Mr. Speaker, very clearly there is a link. We’re going to do the analysis, look at the gaps and address our specific recommendations on going forward, as well as raise some of the concerns that we do have with the McCrank report. We expect and anticipate that it will be thorough.
Mr. Speaker, the point I certainly agreed with in the McCrank report has already been highlighted by the boards and agencies themselves and by other reviews and the environmental audit. But a big one is the lack of funding to our agencies, especially the Mackenzie Environmental Impact Review Board. Will that be addressed in the report, and is this government lobbying to get that big gap taken care of so we can do a better job there?
Mr. Speaker, clearly, those are responsibilities of the federal government, but we share the concern that there are things like cumulative impact work that are identified and are not properly funded. There are other concerns that some of the boards aren’t adequately funded, as well. We’ll be looking at all those issues as we come forward.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you again, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for those comments. Probably everybody agrees to the recommendation that we get some land use planning and land use frameworks underway. I want to compliment the Minister and this government for getting that started. Hopefully, we’ll see some results there.
I want to stress that to the extent we are in deficit here, that these regulatory programs are underfunded. While we seek devolution, we will be left with those deficits, because along with devolution and responsibility come all those deficits in funding. We need to get these gaps filled before that transfer happens.
I’d like to hear again what the Minister will do to ensure appropriate levels of funding so they can do their job and participants and communities can participate in the process as required under the legislation and as the federal government has committed in that legislation.
We will fund the programs we are directly responsible for to the best of our ability. As well, we’ve taken on new initiatives like the water strategy and the proposed land use framework that’s currently under development. Those are all being dealt with under our new strategic initiatives. We, of course, are committed to working with the federal government and all the other stakeholders to make sure we continue to work, once the election is over, for adequate funding for the regulatory regime that’s in place.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in follow up to my Member’s statement and are directed to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
During the May–June session the Minister committed to following through on the development and finalization of the Stanton Master Development Plan and made it one of the priorities of the newly appointed public administrator for Stanton. Today in the 2009–2010 Capital Estimates there is no master development plan. The Stanton Master Development Plan is completely missing.
I was wondering if the Minister could tell me why the Stanton Master Development Plan was eliminated and how she intends to move forward with finding some of the solutions required for Stanton.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to update the Members on this capital project.
In May, when the new public administrator of Stanton was appointed, one of the tasks he was given by me was to look at the master development plan and report back to me on it. What I found out when he came to me is that they are working on a $200 million plan for Stanton. Obviously, that was not a workable plan. I sent him back to work, and he and the deputy minister and the planners went back to work.
They came back in September with something that’s more manageable at $50 million. It will address all the seven areas we have asked them to address: emergency, ICU, diagnostic imaging, rehab, medical daycare, the aboriginal wellness and spirituality centre, as well as working out the issues surrounding the specialty services. We have a much more workable and affordable plan, and I’d be happy to share that information with the committee and the Members.
Secondly, the Member is aware that at the wishes of all the Members here, we are doing a different capital planning process, where only projects with a very specific plan are making it into the capital plan. That’s what’s reflected in this year’s budget. But with this new plan for Stanton we expect that it will make its way back into next year’s plan as we move forward.
I thank the Minister for that information. The $210 million sounds a little excessive — almost enough to build a new hospital — so I’m kind of glad we’re not going forward with that.
At the same time, Stanton is facing challenges, both physical and practical. To remove Stanton from the capital plan now seems a little short sighted. We need to move forward with Stanton. We need to move forward pretty quickly in order to ensure that we have the best facility. That will lead to things like good morale and whatnot in the facility itself. If not here, when can we expect it?
I’m happy to advise the Members that the new plans, which are a lot more affordable and workable, are being shared by the public administrator with the employees. It would involve short term measures of moving admin offices out of Stanton, which will create a lot more space. We are doing work in the emergency facility there to deal with confidentiality and privacy issues. Building of the dementia centre will address the crowdedness in extended care. And there’s new work being done in the consolidated clinic that will deal with primary care services.
There’s a lot in the mix that would impact the space needs of Stanton, and all these puzzles are working together to address the basic needs of Stanton in the most economical and efficient way.
Once again, that’s all great news. I’m actually quite happy to hear that. I’m curious as to when these things are going to start to happen. Are these things imminent, or are they in the 2009–2010 plan? When are we actually going to see some movement on some of these space issues? I’m glad to hear they’re happening. I think they need to be done, but can you give us a bit of a timeline?
As the Member is aware, the dementia building is being built. The consolidated clinic has gone to tender, and I believe the tender has been awarded. The administrative offices, with about 35 staff, are going to be moved out of Stanton into what’s now known as the old Extra Foods building as of December. There is other work being done to maximize the use of the building and to concentrate the renovation of the building on what’s most necessary and what has to be at that hospital, which is supposed to be an acute care facility.
We are looking at lots of other measures, and we are doing that in conjunction with the staff and management of the hospital. They’re on board with that. I’d be happy to give a full briefing on that to the Members if they would like.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to the briefing. If we can get some idea of when that briefing would be, that would be great.
Planning is ready, and we have the presentation material. Any time the Members would like to have it, we’ll be happy to provide it.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is time we get the renovation on the Diamond Jenness Secondary School done. This school is long past its mid-life crises. We need to make this project happen so that the children of Hay River, the students — and a couple of them are right here in the Chamber today — our young people, can have a healthy and safe learning environment and our teachers can have a healthy and safe workplace.
Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I talked about how the capital plan has been pushed back. I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment why the renovations for Diamond Jenness Secondary School were deferred, delayed, postponed.
Thank you, Ms. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. At this particular school, the Diamond Jenness, there’s been some work on the technical status evaluation report that was worked on in 2003, 2006 and 2008. There’s also an educational plan that is underway.
We do have our consultants going through the community tomorrow to meet with the DEA to go over the materials that need to be discussed on the educational plan. That report will be available to the community DEA and to the Member as well. Those are the works that have been undertaken with the capital projects we will be discussing here. We need to have a plan in place before we proceed with a major project.
We’ve had many years to study this problem and get a plan in place. The fact is that this government has a large capital budget going forward. A document was tabled yesterday in this House showing what the priorities of that capital budget are. I want to know why Hay River is not being treated as a priority.
I can remember at the candidate forum in Hay River reassuring the people that this was in the capital budget. How can we go back and face our community now? They ask why. Why is Hay River not getting the attention it needs?
To the subject of the volume or size of our capital budget, I have a couple of questions about some of the other educational facilities in here. Has a contract been awarded yet for the Samuel Hearne/Sir Alexander Mackenzie School project in Inuvik? Has the contract been awarded?
Yes, there is a contract that’s been awarded to work on the Inuvik school.
I’d like to know how much the contract that has been signed and awarded is for.
I can certainly share that with the Member. I don’t have it in front of me today. But it does break down on whether it will be the foundation, the actual structure of the building itself. There are many aspects of the project itself, so we need to have the breakdown of the actual cost of the capital project.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister: isn’t it true that the capital project for the Inuvik school is a negotiated contract in the neighbourhood of $140 million?
I’m not sure where that $140 million is coming from, but I can provide that information to the Member. I need to go back to my department to get the actual figures of the negotiated contract, if that’s a negotiated contract in the community of Inuvik. We need to have that information before us to know if it’s $140 million or if it’s another number.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today getting back to my Member’s statement from earlier to the Minister of ITI. Earlier I was talking about the new SEED program and how, in my estimation, it’s the old BDF and Grants to Small Business dressed up under a new name called SEED, topped up with some dollars.
The first question I have for the Minister is: has ITI got any targets for the SEED program, and how are we going to measure success from that program and that additional funding?
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
