Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two hardworking people that I know from the Department of Transportation: Steve Loutitt and Michael Conway. I would also like to recognize the students doing a great job for getting a good, strong message out in the community. Thank you very much. Of course, I want to mention Bronson, Mr. Dolynny’s boy. A good chap. Your dad is working hard, Bronson. And of course, Emma, who has also just been recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the list I have, it looks like a couple people were missed. First off, I want to recognize the St Pat’s Students Against Drinking and Driving, so the St. Pat’s students. Although I’m not sure if Sir John has their own students, but these are the St. Pat’s students that I’m aware of. The few that were missed off the list are Ryan Lu and Savannah Lane, as well as the staff member they have with them is Anne-Louise O’Brien, who I know works very hard with them, and we cannot forget all the hard work brought to making SADD so important, the hard work brought to us by one of the hardworking teachers, Michelle Thoms, who is a St. Pat’s teacher.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’d like to welcome here Ms. Erin Jelanik and Daphne Lamontagne, the office of the Auditor General, and also Ronnie Campbell and Glen Wheeler, who are not in the gallery right now, but for tabling of their report into the House today. Thank you for coming and welcome.
Also, I’d like to welcome all our visitors here in the public gallery. Thank you for taking an interest in our sitting here today. It’s always so good to see our youth in here, because you’re our future. It’s good to see you guys.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I’m looking at two sections. The first one is the Inuvik-Tuk road and, of course, the other one the Minister and I personally had experience on from Fort Good Hope to Fort Simpson.
My question is directed to the Minister of Transportation. If the project is approved by both governments, do you think that we’ll be able to get the people in the region working right away? We want to see some action.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our expectation is, should the project move ahead, that work could start there potentially this season, which would mean people would be put to work almost immediately.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about is the training programs. Would there be training programs in place so that if this project, again, is approved and the project is taking off, would there be training programs for the people to take advantage of?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Kind of a hypothetical question but, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’d be working closely with ECE on any training initiatives associated with the construction of that highway.
Has the Minister had some type of an idea as to when we would know for sure that this project is going to begin some actual groundwork in that area?
We’re awaiting approvals from the federal government and word from the federal government on funding. As soon as that happens, we certainly will be moving things along.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The winter season is coming to closure and soon it will be warm. Does the Minister have some plans in place, once the federal government has given us the permission slip to go ahead on this section of the road, do we see any type of difficulties due to the warming of the seasons?
We’d have to act very quickly in order to see construction start this season. As Members know, we’re already into March and the season isn’t too much longer. We’ve probably got another five or six weeks in the Beaufort-Delta to actually get a lot of that work done, so we’d have to work quickly.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today as a follow-up to my Member’s statement on the legislative gaps in our dated Real Estate Agents’ Licensing Act as pertains to dual agency. Admittedly, the North is faced with unique challenges where we may have limited agents available to fully represent a given area. Therefore, a real estate agent may be forced to represent both the seller and the buyer. In reality, how can one agent place the interests of two separate and distinct parties first in the same transaction? This is tricky yet not impossible as the proper legislative roles around the simple use of representation disclaimers could still legally protect both the owner and the seller.
My questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs responsible for the Real Estate Agents’ Licensing Act. As I indicated earlier, this act provides the basic governance for real estate agents in the Northwest Territories and has not kept pace with the development of real estate practices. Can the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs indicate why we have not looked at this act since its inception in 1991?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were a couple of minor amendments made to the Real Estate Agents’ Licensing Act. There was a minor amendment made in 2010, and another minor amendment that came into force in April of 2011. However, the Member is correct; this is a very outdated piece of legislation and it’s one that could benefit from a full review. I will weigh this against our other legislative priorities and see where it fits into the legislative priorities of the 17th Assembly.
I appreciate the Minister’s response. I wasn’t aware of the recent, I guess, the changes in legislation and I’ll make a note of that. Can the Minister indicate as to what work the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has done to review the gaps of legislation that are currently in the Real Estate Agents’ Licensing Act? Has the department identified those provisions found in real estate law in other jurisdictions and looked at responding to increasing trends in real estate in the Northwest Territories?
We haven’t started any work yet, as I’ve said before. This is one aspect that we’d probably benefit from a full review. We look at our legislation based on the basis of risk, and we look at the potential risks and benefits of a number of persons that are affected by legislation, and we do have some pieces of legislation that we’re working on right now and we need to weigh that against looking at future legislation.
I do agree with the Member, though, it is one that would benefit from a full review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, my question today is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. As I mentioned, many residents of Hay River who are involved in agencies for helping people have been very busy putting together ideas and suggestions or initiatives to continue on our path of community wellness. I’d like to ask Minister Beaulieu, through you, Mr. Speaker, if he is any closer to knowing how much funding Hay River would be getting. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the breakdown by community right here just on the wellness funding, but how we funded the project is, we were looking at the federal funding for community wellness funding. In 2011-12 we carried over $500,000 from the federal funding to start this project, start to initiate the wellness plans across the communities. This fiscal year that we’re currently in, we’ve brought another $350,000 into this fiscal year to complete more wellness plans across the territory. Thank you.
So I’m hearing $850,000 in total. How many communities will be participating in applying to access that pot of money? Thank you.
Our intention is to try to develop wellness plans for all of the communities. I think there will be wellness plans developed. Even in Yellowknife, it will be more complex, it will be working with non-government agencies. In some communities we just work with one body in the community where it’s simpler for us to do wellness plans. But the intention is for us to do wellness plans for all 33 communities. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, people in Hay River who have participated in this consultation, were canvassed for ideas for specific initiatives that could be carried out in the community. I’d just like to ask the Minister, wellness plans are one thing, initiatives within those plans is another matter. For that reason it would be really nice to know approximately when this funding is going to roll out. Is there a target date like April 1st? Just so the community knows, because they’ve put a lot of work into this. Thank you.
We get annually in excess of $12 million from the federal government on wellness funding. So what we’re hoping to do with the wellness plans to stay within the confines of bad budget, and as the wellness plans are developed and hopefully we do just a bit of internal movement, and we will be funding the wellness plans as we go. But the intention is to complete the wellness plans and then fund them as they’re completed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the community wellness plan for Hay River has already been completed. That being the case, I understand it may be ahead of some other communities, but when could Hay River expect to receive funding? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, like I’ve indicated, I don’t have the community-by-community breakdown of that budget, but I suspect that if the wellness plans are completed that on April 1st they would be able to start funding the plans. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are in response to the Minister of Transportation’s Alcohol Ignition Interlock Program. I’m just wondering when the Minister and the department expect the regulations to be in place to implement these units.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Within the next three months. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, has the department looked at other regions where they have implemented these units? Have we re-introduced or re-created the program? I know some of the issues that the department had in the past, they’ve basically created their own system and then we found out there were flaws because we never looked at other jurisdictions. Has the department looked into the other jurisdictions?
Mr. Speaker, a great deal of consultation took place with other jurisdictions across the country. I mentioned in my Minister’s statement Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador. In other jurisdictions, they see reductions in impaired driving being reduced by 50 to 90 percent. We are very hopeful that once the program is put into place here in the Northwest Territories that we will see a reduction in impaired driving here in the NWT as well. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the department has been in contact with some of those people that had the infractions already and maybe they’re having to work through Justice, but they informed them that this is a program that is coming forward and will be implemented within the next three to six months.
Mr. Speaker, the program will be piloted at first in Yellowknife and in Hay River. We will start things in those two centres and move the program forward from there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, not that it’s that important, but I’m wondering, because I think this is an important issue, but not that the cost is an important issue, but does the department have any estimates of what the rollout cost of this program would be to start?
Mr. Speaker, I can get that detail for the Member, but for the program itself, for somebody to enrol in the program, as I mentioned, it is $125 a month. That’s the cost for the individual. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
