Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to highlight the work of artisan craftspeople in the Great Slave riding and commend the government on its recent commitment to enhance funding up to $500,000 for art, as outlined by the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment yesterday. This money will go to the NWT Arts Council, to cultural organizations such as the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, to heritage centres where northern artists’ crafts are showcased and to new program planning, development and evaluation throughout the NWT.
As an avid supporter of the arts and culture I am happy to see this government taking these steps. I look forward to continued and enhanced investment in these areas over the years to come and continued partnership between Education, Culture and Employment and Industry, Tourism and Investment.
The Great Slave riding is home to many artists whose creative work provides just a small section of the artistic talent in our territory. Knife maker Edward McRae, photographers Alice McLeod and Bronwyn Watters live in the riding, as well as musicians Moira Cameron and Steve Goff of Ceilidh and Friends. The Great Slave riding is also home to Bill Gilday of the Gumboots, visual artist Rae Braden and painter Brian McDonald. Bonnie Madsen’s murals can be seen on Franklin Avenue, and she also operates a gallery out of her home in the riding that showcases her excellent paintings. The many accomplishments of constituent Keira Kolson, a hip-hop artist and aboriginal youth advocate, show that homegrown artists are capable of great achievements alongside their counterparts in the South.
The Northern Arts and Cultural Centre is the only performing arts centre in the Northwest Territories located in the Great Slave riding. NACC continues to host local, territorial, national and international talent and is an integral part of the territorial arts community. Many young Northerners have discovered the love of performing arts there, and many performers have inspired audiences to pursue their creative goals.
The enhanced funding will support a proposal to administer a new northern theatre arts program, and I look forward to the opportunities that this initiative will offer Northerners.
The Northwest Territories arts community has a great potential and continues to grow. However, as artists in any discipline can tell you, success requires hard work, perseverance and support. We as a government must be sure to encourage and develop northern talent to continue to offer emerging artists as many opportunities as possible.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment for his department’s commitment to the arts. Creativity is a renewable resource, and few groups of people celebrate our unique northern culture and identity as vibrantly as our artists.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under today’s fiscal and environmental challenges we need to be doing things in a more financially efficient and environmentally benign way. With the intake and delivery of water to residents of Dettah, there is a clear opportunity to reduce both financial and environmental costs.
Currently Dettah has to send a truck 16 kilometres two to three times per day to get water from the City of Yellowknife’s pumphouse at the Yellowknife River. They have to pay a full time driver and maintain and operate the truck on challenging road conditions. MACA is funding this at $170,000 annually, supplemented by the Housing Corporation’s indirect contribution of $160,000. Fuel consumed is about 9,000 litres, generating 20,000 kilograms of carbon emissions last year, which flies in the face of our recognition of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The City of Yellowknife is currently in the process of examining its own system with the option of eliminating this pumphouse and pulling water directly out of Yellowknife Bay. It will no longer make sense to keep the pumphouse just to supply water to Dettah. The energy costs for the pumphouse won’t make sense. The energy costs for the water tanker won’t make sense. If the city can pull water directly out of the bay, there’s no reason why Dettah can’t do the same.
Building a small pumphouse in Dettah would save the cost and time of trucking water all the way from the river and would radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It would ultimately provide a cost savings to the community and to those such as the GNWT that fund their current system.
Right now Dettah is paying $160,000 a year to the City of Yellowknife for water. Because they have to truck it from the river, they have to pay the full time employee. Although maintenance and fuel costs for the truck are around $30,000 a year, altogether, if Dettah pumped their own water directly from the bay, there is a potential savings of at least $200,000 a year and possibly much more. Even if a pumphouse were to cost $2 million, a very generous estimate, the financial payback would be less than ten years, and the reduction in environmental impacts would be significant.
With the city currently in the process of revamping its own system, now is the perfect time to look at a solution for Dettah as well. All that’s needed is the commitment and a wise investment from Municipal and Community Affairs to get this done. I have no doubt that our Minister will have that wisdom to move on this opportunity; nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, I will be asking the Minister questions on this. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to read into the record a motion that passed back in the 14th Assembly, which I moved, seconded by Mr. Leon Lafferty, the Member for Monfwi.
“WHEREAS the stated mission of the Department of Health and Social Services ‘is to promote, protect and provide for health and well-being of the people of the Northwest Territories;’
AND WHEREAS residents in small communities do not have access to the same level of health and social services programs as residents in large communities;
AND WHEREAS services vary between health authorities meaning that some residents are being better served than others by virtue of where they live;
AND WHEREAS services available in small communities can be restricted to emergencies only or withdrawn completely with very short notice due to staff shortages;
AND WHEREAS some of those staff shortages are related to vacancies or training and can be anticipated and planned for;
AND WHEREAS only providing emergency medical services has serious health consequences for the very young and the very old who need access to preventative health programs;
AND WHEREAS preventative health programs such as diabetes clinics, well baby clinics and other preventative programs are essential to the continued health and well-being of a community;
AND WHEREAS many smaller communities do not have access to such core programs as mental health and alcohol and drug workers and cannot begin their road to recovery without such assistance;
AND WHEREAS one of the foundations of the Canadian health care system is universality and the Department of Health and Social Services and its subordinate health authorities are choosing to ignore this principle;
AND WHEREAS the Minister and the Department of Health and Social Services are ultimately responsible for the provision of these services to the Northwest Territories residents….”
Mr. Speaker, my point is that this motion was passed in the 14th Assembly, and we’re talking about the same issues now in the 16th Assembly. No one should have to have an issue outstanding for that long period of time and should realize that this has to have some unique responses. It’s got to be essential by way of programs and services, and it is affecting the lives of people in the small communities with regard to health care and core services.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
Unanimous consent granted.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. These motions that are passed in Assemblies time and time again have to change. We have to ensure that motions really mean something when we pass them in this House with regard to services to our people. It is affecting the quality of life of our residents, the quality of life in our communities and the well-being of those communities to sustain themselves and have healthy communities.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I will be asking the Minister of Health and Social Services about this particular motion and those aspects of this motion, because we have to do something. This is an urgent matter. If we’re not treating it as an urgent matter, we may have to take some urgent steps.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Mark Bogan of the Great Slave riding. He’s an advocate for fathers’ rights.
I would like to recognize the pages from the Hay River Diamond Jenness Secondary School who have been working with us this week: Michelle Babiuk from Hay River North and Brette Jameson from Hay River South. I’m not sure if they’re here, but I’d like to thank them for a job well done.
Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure today, much to my surprise…. I have a stepsister from Ontario who’s here visiting. I just saw her for the first time here. Her name is Karen Viaene, and her daughter is Amy Switzer, who is a schoolteacher here in Yellowknife. They’re in the visitors’ gallery today. Good to see you.
It’s my pleasure to welcome the group of students who are up there behind me. They are a grade 6 class from William McDonald School, from the riding of Frame Lake, and they are accompanied by their teacher, Amy Switzer.
These students have been studying Canadian government and have been working with the Federal Election Student Vote Program. They will be voting tomorrow. Word is that if all the kids in Canada voted, we’d know who the Prime Minister would be. I’d like to just mention their names, and these are in no particular order: Clayton Ashlie, Craig Pike, Isaiah Martin, Nicolas Berube, Nicholas Hayward, Peter Palfrey, BJ Coomber, Jamie Le, Joel Haward, Donovan Worsley, Drake Saunders, Perry Tologanak and Jeremy Stannard. I hope you guys are having a good time up there. Welcome to the Leg.
I’d like to recognize the two pages from Fort Resolution: TJ Fordy and Morgan Unka.
If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the House. We hope you’re enjoying the proceedings.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I talked about infrastructure needs in the Tu Nedhe riding. I talked about how there seems to be a lack of attention to the riding. As a follow-up to my statement I’d like to ask questions of the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Mr. Speaker, it’s been three years since the implementation of the New Deal. Can the Minister provide me with a detailed evaluation of how the New Deal has been working in Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have to provide the detailed evaluation at a later date, as soon as I can get that from the department.
I can tell the Member that MACA is working with the community of Fort Resolution in particular. They are initially looking at changing their status from a settlement to a hamlet, which will enable them to own assets. They will be able to get a lot of money from the New Deal. They’re also planning on going into Lutselk’e later on this month to meet with the community there to see what options they can put together for them.
Will the Minister commit to reviewing the situation and working with other Ministers to see what can be done as far as the whole deferred maintenance for community infrastructure?
MACA is working with the communities to identify negative impacts of lack of maintenance. They are working with the communities to develop capital plans so that the funding will be allocated to take care of those impacts as required.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister conduct a meeting with me and each of the communities to discuss the development of the new community specific infrastructure strategy? There seems to be a vast difference between the smaller and the larger communities as far as community infrastructure goes. If the Minister could commit to that.
Certainly, I will commit to meeting with the Member and each of the communities to discuss it. In my initial briefing and meeting with the folks from MACA last night I did give them the direction that when we look at allocating infrastructure funding, I’d like to try to find the balance where all communities receive their fair share of funding.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I raised a matter that I take very seriously and I find very important. The matter really is about student safety while they’re travelling.
I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment: would he look into the matter of making sure there are safety guidelines for all travelling students, and would he work with his partners at the school boards to make sure something could come forward as soon as possible?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, we do take safety as a first priority in any trips that are going on, these sports trips for students or community trips. Most of the time they go on a school bus, and as you know, the school buses are regularly maintained. Those are the factors that come into play.
It’s the students’ lives we have to deal with, and they are the first priority. I can provide that information to the Member. Whether he wants the schedules of maintenance or information pertaining to that, I can provide that to the Member.
Mr. Speaker, when they travel by school bus, I certainly hope that they are well maintained, et cetera. What this really comes down to is small teams. All big schools can afford big school buses, but when you send a small team…. As I recall very intimately, when I travelled in a small group, we used to take small vans and cars, and they sometimes went without any formal guidelines for safety.
Really, what I’m asking is: would the Minister look into things like guidelines that reflect making sure we have a first-aid kit, making sure the driver, who may be the coach, has a certain amount of downtime, and maybe even making sure they have a satellite phone just in case something happens during winter travel. That’s the type of issue I’m trying to raise, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister look into that?
Mr. Speaker, for the transporting of students, whether it be by bus or van, we take the safety precautions of inspecting those vehicles, maintaining those vehicles. We are fully aware of the incident that happened in another jurisdiction. We are taking safety as a priority. Certainly, I can come back to the Member with the information he’s requesting. There are certain guidelines on the safety aspect. Each school board could provide that, and I can have that available for the Member.
I am well under the understanding that some school boards have certain guidelines. I just want to make sure that the Department of Education is taking some leadership on this issue and some guidance on the bigger issue. I want to make sure that all school boards have a full understanding of the complexity of this problem and that the territorial government supports those complex problems by making sure they have the appropriate equipment so all kids travel to their events and homes safely.
I’m asking the Minister: would he take the initiative, garner what guidelines some schools have, what some don’t have, and create some general guidelines that would be applicable to all schools?
Mr. Speaker, within the education system, with the Education Act and also the guidelines and policies that we follow, those do come into play even before the trips go out. Identification of the maintenance of the vehicles…. If there are any problems with the vehicles, then they need to work on those vehicles, as well, before they hit the road.
Certainly, most of the school boards and also school authorities have a common practice of regular maintenance on the buses, and they have school vans as well that they maintain on a daily basis. There is a common understanding that there are guidelines in place and that there’s a safety factor. It does come into play as the first priority of our educational system.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve heard I think three times that the schools take care of maintenance, and I appreciate that. That’s not the only issue. It’s an important issue — don’t get me wrong; it really is — but there are more issues. There are issues such as if the coach is the driver. The coach has been coaching all day, all weekend. Then what they do is they drive the team back in the dark, maybe on a cold winter’s day, and they’re exhausted.
Mr. Speaker, with those types of guidelines I’d like us to sort of take a formal approach, bring them together. It’s the guidelines of making sure there’s a satellite phone, which I know there isn’t. Yes, it’s goodwill to have a first aid kit, but making sure everyone does it…. That’s the question I have for the Minister: would you take on leadership of drawing up general guidelines that would be applicable to all schools?
We can certainly gather the guidelines we currently have in place to see if we need to improve in certain areas, whether it be the satellite phone for a long journey from here to Hay River, that type of deal, or Smith or isolated communities, for that matter. Those need to also be taken into consideration.
At the same time, these are important issues we’re dealing with. On these trips and journeys it’s not only one coach who goes. There are always chaperones. There’s always an assistant coach and the students and the peers of the students. We have to keep that in mind as well. It’s not only one person who drives. There are other teammates who are going on these journeys as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d just like to follow up on my Member’s statement in regard to inspections of wood stoves and pellet stoves in our smaller communities.
I know that in larger centres like Yellowknife and perhaps even Inuvik they’ve got access to certified inspectors. I’d just like to know the government’s position in getting inspectors out to the smaller communities. There’s certainly assistance needed for this important matter. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure about Yellowknife, but I don’t think there’s a wood stove inspector in Inuvik. The insurance company — I know from experience — requires that very stringent inspection process. We have the gas inspectors and the boiler inspectors in many of the regions. I did some checking, and I know that the Office of the Fire Marshal is not qualified to inspect wood stoves. So this may be something we would have to have a look at and see if it’s something that’s feasible to bring into regional offices.
I’m glad to hear that the Minister is responsive to the needs of the communities. As I said in my Member’s statement, on one hand, we’re encouraging the use of wood stoves and wood pellet stoves and alternative fuel energy, and on the other hand, we’re not making it easy by providing inspectors. People are actually at a great risk level, because there are no inspectors for their homes and they need insurance. House insurance is important for many, many different factors, Mr. Speaker.
Once again, it will fall under MACA, so I’d like the Minister to really have a good look at this. Can the Minister come up with some kind of strategy to provide inspections for wood stoves in the regions and communities?
I totally agree with the Member that we do try and encourage the use of wood stoves, so we should have mechanisms in place for people who want to install wood stoves. I know for a fact that existing wood stoves have to almost be opened up to be inspected. With new wood stoves, new construction, it’s a little easier.
But the Member’s asked if I would look into a possible strategy, and I assure the Member that I will ask the department to have a look at a strategy and see what options we can come up with that would be of benefit. Because we do encourage people to burn wood, I guess we should have mechanisms in place to back that up.
I’m sure glad that we’re going to take care of the long term need, but the needs that people can knock on my door and my office are for today.
I’d like to know if the Minister can look at doing some type of travel assistance to get these inspectors out to the communities, because their home insurance policies have now expired. It’s just not fair for them to individually pay $1,400 when government’s here and they can make some travel assistance to the inspectors, Mr. Speaker. Can the government look at that?
Yes, there are a few qualified wood stove inspectors, I believe, and it does, as I think the Member pointed out earlier, cost approximately $1,400. I’ll assure the Member that I’ll talk to ENR and the Arctic Energy Alliance to see if there’s some financial assistance that could be provided to bring an inspector into the community and maybe hit more than one unit at a time.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I, too, was looking for a commitment from the Minister. And the commitment would be just that if in the short term, in the immediate short term — October, November — they can look at getting an inspector out to the regions and communities.
I wasn’t going to try to use the word “commitment.” I think I used up my quota yesterday. I have assured the Member that we will look into it immediately to see if there’s anything we could possibly do within the next month or so.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
