Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to follow up on my Member’s statement earlier on the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link as well as the Inuvik Satellite Facility. I have questions for the Minister of Finance.
It’s been in the newspaper and on NWT Days we had a delegation going over to China and Japan. We had a delegation go to Sweden as well as Germany, I think last year.
I just want to know what kind of talks and, I guess, commitments are we getting from other countries to look at putting up antennas or satellites at the Inuvik Satellite Facility. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This whole initiative has been one of acceleration that the federal government and other countries were very interested when we started talking about this project in the last government and they were giving us a lot of verbal support. As we move forward through the last government, late in the last government, but this government where we worked with the Assembly and we ramped up our interest and we’ve moved this project from the political debate to the approval of the money and project design to, as the Member said, the actual start-up of the installation and the fibre optic line, there’s been an increasing amount of business. Literally, countries are beating a path to the door of Inuvik because they know that we are committed. The money has been voted, the project is being built, it’s being built by a high quality firm with Ledcor and NorthwesTel and it’s going to give the very benefits the Member is talking about.
So we have the Swedes; we have the Germans; we have interest from the Norwegians; we’re talking to the Japanese; we’re looking and talking to the Italians; we’re looking at going back this June to go do another quick tour to make sure that we can really market this now that we have a product that is going to be on the ground in the second part of 2016. Sweden Space Agency just came out, in fact, when we’re heading to Ottawa, with a very positive press release saying they’re doubling their investment in Inuvik because of the fact that they are now very satisfied that this project is going to happen and it’s going to have enormous benefit to Inuvik, all the way down the valley, but Inuvik is the anchor tenant and it’s going to change the face of Inuvik. For this $80 million, we’re going to be transforming the economy in Inuvik away from total reliance on resource development to this type of information technology that has an enormous long-term benefit and life. Thank you.
Thank you. In the budget address the Minister announced the establishment of the Western Arctic Centre for Geomatics in Inuvik. Aside from that, I want to ask the Minister, has he been talking with the Aurora Research Institute or Aurora College in looking at developing some kind of training program so that as the Fibre Optic Link becomes in place whether or not that type of training is available for people in the Northwest Territories? This is a new, different type of industry and gives our residents a chance to become educated in something else. Has he been having those talks? Thank you.
Yes, there are discussions underway. The reason the Western Arctic Geomatics Centre is going to Inuvik is because of the fibre optic line and the work and opportunity that’s going to be created by having them located there. The college has been in meetings, there’s a working group forum. The Germans, among others, have offered up 20 percent of their volume for data processing in Inuvik. So, there are training opportunities, there’s going to be other opportunities related to service development, value added secondary industry opportunities. When you look at what happened in Kiruna, Sweden, $100 million to $150 million and 400 jobs, approximately, added to the community over the years, an advanced physics university in Kiruna, and the college is ideally situated to take advantage of that and we are hard at work to make sure that we get all the training opportunities that we can. It’s going to really give young folks some opportunities in other areas where they can use other skills, their math, their sciences and all those other skills. We’re going to work with the countries that are coming in, the college, the government to make sure that we are as ready as possible and there’s an enormous future here. Thank you.
Thank you. There are a lot of benefits once this fibre optic link gets connected down the valley here.
I want to ask the Minister, talking with his Cabinet counterparts in terms of such benefits as telehealth, e-learning, has he been doing some type of inventory to make sure that we have those type of resources in the community so that we can increase the telehealth, the e-learning and with other departments as well? Thank you.
Thank you. The communities coming down the valley are all going to have a direct fibre link or a microwave link and just about every community that I can think of has the capacity to do telehealth and the schools are all hooked up. What they don’t have is the bandwidth to be able to do it properly. So now we’re going to marry up the fact that we have the infrastructure with the capacity to, in fact, allow them to use telehealth to its full capacity, that students can log on to their computers and do work and not wait half an hour to get on. What’s going to be important in terms of opportunities for the communities coming down the valley is that final mile piece, the connection from the fibre link into the communities. It’s going to be an opportunity for businesses or communities, community development corporations to look at wiring their community to put the businesses all on the link to allow them to benefit, as well as the phones, cable, all that kind of thing.
Even Tuk, once the road is built we’re going to go back up and we’re going to put that fibre link into Tuk and it’s going to have all the same connectivity that Inuvik does, or Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Maybe some short responses.
---Laughter
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have a delegation that’s travelled around the world looking at investments. Would the Minister be looking at possibly creating or hosting some type of conference in Inuvik so we could get a delegation from all over the world and it would boost the economy in the North and boost the economy in the Beaufort-Delta to see the potential of the Fibre Optic Link and potential of the satellite facility? Would the Minister look at hosting a conference of some type? Thank you.
Thank you. The role of a Minister is very difficult, that fine line between fulsome responses and being accused of not answering the question, so we try to err on the side of answering the question so that we can remove that complaint.
In regard to the Member’s specific question, the community of Inuvik has indicated to us in writing that they would like to see a very major gathering of this type that the Member talks about in Inuvik. Instead of the oil and gas show, they would like to convert it, not this coming year but next year, into a gathering that’s going to bring together all the folks.
About a year or so ago we invited all the university presidents, for example, up to Yellowknife to have a discussion about the possibilities of how we do business with our research agenda, traditional knowledge, the remote sensing that’s going to happen. Now that we’ll have the satellite station up and running, it enables a whole different kind of conversation and we’re going to be working with the Town of Inuvik to have that very meeting. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in the day I spoke about the planning study for the replacement of the Fort Simpson Health Centre. I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services what is the current stage of the planning study. I am aware that they’ve done an initial visit to Fort Simpson I think at the end of November. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Public Works, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The RFP for a planning study for the Fort Simpson Health Centre will be released this month. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I guess I was mistaken, because there was an initial visit to Fort Simpson by Public Works and Services staff. So maybe the Minister can indicate exactly what that initial visit was about. Thank you.
Thank you. More of the consultation portion of the work that Public Works is doing is determining what type of items would be associated with planning studies. We’ve looked at the needs assessment, operational plan, functional program and feasibility analysis for the specific health centre. So that was what the initial meeting with Public Works was about and then from there the decision was made to release the RFP to complete the planning study.
The community is certainly interested in exactly what type of building is being planned. I think there were several types. I think there is a B/C that is currently being built in the community of Fort Providence. I’d just like to try and get a handle from the Minister what guidelines or parameters or design plans does he have from the Minister of Health and Social Services to develop the replacement health centre for Fort Simpson.
The departments of Public Works and Health and Social Services are at the stage when they are determining what design for the type of community. It’s almost like a little bit of a regional centre. In Fort Simpson that health centre can provide some services to the small communities in the immediate area, so the design will be a little more complex than just a community health centre, which is something that is being built in Fort Providence and Fort Resolution next year. I don’t know the letter associated with this particular design, but it would be a design that is something that fits the community and it would be an increased service from what is available now.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, I was just trying to get around if there is a standard design plan that would offer Fort Simpson, like, I think there was a standard design for Fort Providence, and I think in, oh, I forget. I think it was Lutselk'e. I don’t know if there’s another specific design that’s being offered there, or is it all the same design? What I’m getting at is that many years ago I went to Alaska and I saw their Aboriginal-built hospital. It was very welcoming. It had lots of Aboriginal culture attached to it visually as you go through.
I would just like to know what is the department’s view of designing a new replacement health centre to take into account the cultural needs of over 60 percent of the Aboriginal population that are in and around Fort Simpson.
As the Member is aware, back in 2011-12 we put a bit of a delay on the planning study so that we could complete the planning study for Norman Wells as Norman Wells also provides to sort of a regional health centre. Some of the designs that we get from our consultation in Norman Wells will be incorporated into Fort Simpson. We would also be specific to what the community wants in Fort Simpson, as well, so there is certainly room for consultation from the community.
In Hay River, when we built the health centre, there was opportunity for community input, so this will be the same thing. Fort Simpson will certainly have input in how the health centre is designed and built in Fort Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on some of the questions today around the population growth strategy, the questions that were already asked earlier. I have never seen the population growth strategy. Since there doesn’t seem to be one in writing, I’d like to suggest some subtitles: Get People, Keep People, Make People, Extend People.
Now, I seriously have some suggestions under each one of these.
Get People: When it comes to getting people, does anybody actually keep an eye on labour markets? Like, we talked about the commercial fishery closing in Alberta. There is a group in a specialized industry. We’ve got two million pounds of fish, a sustainable harvest floating around in Great Slave Lake every year which never seems to get brought in. I mean, are there any people in any department? Like, where are the people that are working on the growth strategy, population growth strategy? I mean, are there people who are working on specific initiatives such as looking at labour markets in other jurisdictions? The oil patch, they’re laying off tens of thousands of people. We need people up here in different disciplines. Is anybody actually working on getting people? What are you doing?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a committee of Cabinet that includes ECE, it includes ITI, Finance, Environment and Natural Resources, just about every department is represented around the table. We’re working on those types of things, the labour market information. We’re tracking the work on the Nominee Program being shepherded and looked at by a Minister. Minister Lafferty will be making an announcement in the House. The commercial fisher piece, we’ve got the money in the budget. The question of are we doing stuff, yes, we’ve also set up a committee that involves all the key industry players, members of the chamber to look at ways that we can collectively pool our efforts and combine our efforts to hit that target of 2,000 in five years.
I’m sensing that some people on this side of House would like to help you out with that, and if they could see something in writing, perhaps we could make some valuable contributions to that initiative, to that strategy.
Now, on to the topic of keeping people. Seven hundred people left the Northwest Territories last year, but because of a high birthrate, that was offset to a larger extent.
Is there any way of tracking why people are leaving the Northwest Territories? I don’t know. I know you can’t do exit interviews, but is it possible there’s any way to find out why people are leaving? I mean, we can guess. The cost of living, we can guess. But do we have any way of collecting that data?
Yes, we do track that, and we have some ideas and we get some feedback. A lot of it is the issue of family; some of it is the cost of living; some of it is retirement.
In regard to the Member’s earlier comment of an interest of committee, we’d be happy to get all and any suggestions that committee members have in terms of their suggestions, and if there are other suggestions in terms of involvement in the work we’re doing, we’d be happy to look at what they would propose as well.
Under the topic of making people, we have some young families in the South Slave that are having, like, four and five children, and I have a guess that there would be more people having larger families if we had something comparable to the child tax credit, but something made in the North.
Has the Cabinet ever contemplated a way of supporting young families who want to have larger families in helping them in some way financially through something similar to what the federal government does with the child tax credit, something made in the North?
That issue of some type of enhanced encouragement to address the issue the Member has referred to, increasing our population through birthrate, we’ve had some initial looks at it. We haven’t reached any definitive decisions yet of how we would do that in a way that would really promote that and it would actually show value. We know that in Quebec, I think they offered $3,000 per child. It’s something that’s on our to-do list. We’ve been focusing on some of the more immediate things, but it’s something that has been brought forward.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under the topic of extending people, we all know about the demographic bubble of the baby boomers and the people are aging, and we just heard a statistic this week that if people actually make it to pensionable age, the now anticipated age of people who are on a pension is like 89 for men and 91 for women. Anyway, we have got to address that demographic, that growing demographic of seniors who would stay in the Northwest Territories if there was a wider variety of options for them in terms of accommodation. Not just public housing but accommodation with caregivers that people could actually, who could afford to, contribute financially to.
Where are we at in working to try and find ways to accommodate older people to keep them here longer so they don’t have to go south to those types of accommodations that they would like?
That issue was flagged in the budget address as well. We do a significant number of things already. We are putting some money in this budget to try to extend the staffing complements in Yellowknife, Simpson and, I believe, Fort Smith for starters. But we want to and we already do a number of things for seniors.
I appreciate the Member’s concern and we are intending on looking at those longer term changes, as well, that we need to deal with as this bubble moves through their lifecycle.
The actuarial tables may have the average person living to 89 for men, for example. The folks, if you do it based on occupation, it tends to be a lot shorter. Politicians, people in high-stress jobs, so if you make it to retirement, if you can grab a fraction of that 89, we’ll be lucky, but knock on wood. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Finance and I’d like to put some questions to him on the Program Review Office.
We got notification this last week that the Program Review Office had established two standing offer agreements. They were for program monitoring and evaluation services and for program design. I look at the Finance website under the Program Review Office and it says, “The office was established to help advance the goal of effective and efficient government by conducting a systematic review of government programs and services.” The other paragraph says, “The GNWT has established the Program Review Office as an internal resource to support the ongoing review and reporting of all government and activity.”
I look at this notice of standing offer agreements, one for program monitoring and evaluation services and the other one for program design, and it makes me ask the question, what is the Program Review Office staff doing? Why do we need these two standing offer agreements? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Program Review Office I think has, if my memory serves me correctly, four people. We have 5,000 employees, about 11 or so departments, quite a number of significant sized other agencies, colleges, power corporations, Crown corporations and the sheer volume of things that need to get done require that we need to bring in, from time to time, outside resources because it’s physically impossible for that small number of people to do all the work that’s needed, the work that they’re currently doing as well as try to address some of these bigger, broader issues. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister and I guess I thought it was a rather larger little section than that, only four people. My recollection is that the budget was something like $800,000, but I could stand to be corrected on that.
So, I guess I’d like to know from the Minister, then, in the area of program design, and I presume that goes to making things more efficient and presumably saving us money, which is what this office was intended to do, what role does the Program Review Office play in program design and increasing efficiency in program services? Thank you.
When they are asked to be involved or they are involved, they work with the host department or agency and they look at being efficient, not necessarily to save money but to make sure that they are designed in such a way to put the money they do have to the best, most efficient and effective use, and that’s one of the functions they provide. They provide a coordinating function; they provide a function where they can link in and get the people they may need to help work with the departments, to do the detailed planning in terms of the effectiveness of the design, the horizontal and vertical issues with reporting relationships, communications and those types of things. Thank you.
To the issue of the standing offer agreement for program design, it’s to provide assistance with the design of new programs and re-design of current programs, so I’m still struggling to understand why this is not the job of the Program Review Office.
So, to the Minister, I’d like to know, in the same vein, what is the role of the Program Review Office in monitoring and evaluation of departments and/or their programs and services. I thought that’s why we established the Program Review Office in the first place. Thank you.
The Program Review Office was initially designed to address a need for a large corporation, an almost $2 billion corporation, to have some capacity for that internal overview program supervision in terms of design, implementation and audit type function to work with other parts of government to make sure that we do deal with the issues of efficiency, effectiveness and economy. That’s what their role is intended to be and that’s what it is and it’s evolving as we look at it. It’s a very small operation and they need to have these types of agreements or standing offers so they can bring in expertise. The four people are not necessarily experts in every area, but they are able to manage, coordinate and collaborate. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can be short and I thank the Minister for his answer. I would like to know from the Minister if he can estimate for me and this House what he estimates the cost in the 2015-16 budget year of these two standing offer agreements. Thank you.
I’ll get that detailed information for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions for the Minister of Housing, leading from my Member’s statement. As I mentioned, I have a shortage of housing units in my riding. In Aklavik and Fort McPherson, we have a waiting list of up to three years.
What is the plan to address the housing shortage in Aklavik, McPherson and Tsiigehtchic, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
