Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just have a few questions for the Minister of Health. As I mentioned earlier, we need more on-the-land treatment programs, and I am very happy that the department is moving forward.
I would like to ask the Minister, when will the department have a schedule that people can actually fill out for these programs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re not actually the ones who are delivering the programs. The programs are being delivered by the different Aboriginal governments and organizations throughout the Northwest Territories, but we are working collaboratively with them.
What I’ll commit to do here is actually talk to the individual groups that are providing these online programs and get the schedule so that we can share that information, understanding that they’ll be sharing the information as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I’m glad the department is working closely with the Aboriginal groups, but these on-the-land programs I believe need to be taken on by the department.
Moving forward, will the Minister ensure that they have some sort of schedule on a yearly basis that our constituents can apply to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I do hear the Member, but that actually does contradict what we heard from the Aboriginal governments, which is they wanted to have the ownership of these programs; they wanted to be the leaders of these programs. We’re partners. We’re participants in helping ensure they have the resources they need.
We do recognize that there’s a real demand for these programs, and more so, which is why we’re working with the Aboriginal governments to pursue other funding partners so that we can hopefully expand the number of programs in the Northwest Territories. But given that these are community-led initiatives, I will again commit to getting the information from the different groups who are delivering online programs so that we have a good timeline that I can share with Members and, assuming that the different groups agree, we can make that information available to the public at large. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I’d like to ask the Minister, are we providing any specific programs here, any specialities that will be needed? I don’t believe a lot of the Aboriginal groups have the expertise, whether it’s mental health or other issues like this. Are we providing any assistance to those Aboriginal groups? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Member is right; I mean, the different Aboriginal governments and organizations have the expertise, clearly, for the on-the-land portions, but if they are looking for more of the clinical stuff, they may not have that expertise.
Every program is actually quite different and some of them may actually want some of that support, and we’re absolutely willing and we have been partnering with those different groups, depending on how they design their programs and the goal they’re trying to accomplish for that program. They’re different in every case. But when they want us, we’re there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were a lot of recommendations that were brought up from standing committee in terms of meeting with students and staff at the Yellowknife Campus here. I guess my first question would be to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
What is the status and update of making any types of renovations or work to the Yellowknife Campus to make sure there’s enough space for our students and staff to do their work in and study in and get a quality education in a safe environment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There are 44 recommendations that have been brought to our attention, and 42 of them are either worked on or some of them are completed, and two are still outstanding that we are diligently working with the college. Since that recommendation came to our attention, we’ve been working very closely with the president of Aurora College, the Board of Governors and, more specifically, to deal with those matters that the Member is referring to, and other factors as well. Those are in the works and we will continue to keep the Members informed of our progress.
I was making references to a letter that the standing committee had made to the Minister.
In terms of the 44 recommendations, can the Minister describe what report he’s referring to in terms of the 44 recommendations?
The 44 recommendations are from the Aurora College assessment report that was completed in May 2013. Those are the recommendations that my department is working very closely with the college to make sure that all the recommendations are followed through.
I can get more into the report, but I want to just focus on a couple of the issues that some of the students not only at the Yellowknife Campus but at campuses in Smith and Inuvik also had. That’s just paying market rent during the summer. Some of our students find jobs in the communities that they work in while they’re going to school and they want to continue working in their jobs, or their significant other has a full-time job in the community and would like to stay in that community. One of the concerns that were brought up was the terms of market rent during the summer when school isn’t in.
I’d like to ask the Minister if they’ve changed their policy or are looking at changing their policy for market rents when school is not in session for the summer.
The market rent has been brought to our attention on a couple of occasions from the students and also directly from the MLAs. It was even brought up in this House. I did inform the Board of Governors that this was a concern that was brought to my attention. The Board of Governors came back and so they are looking at these areas as well. They know the pressure they’re on with the market housing. Once we complete our question period today, I will be addressing that again, the status of where we’re at with the market housing today.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really glad to see some of the progress that is being made but also commend the Board of Governors in terms of reaching out to standing committee and allowing members of standing committee to come to their Board of Governors meetings and bring up some of the concerns that we hear as standing committee and as individual Members of this Assembly.
I’d like to ask the Minister, in terms of a concern that I have with the Inuvik campus and looking at programs being distributed equally across the three campuses, has the Minister met with the Board of Governors and the executive to see how we can distribute these quality education programs across all three campuses in the Northwest Territories?
This is a very fundamental question that has been addressed to me, but we need to address being equally distributing programming into three campuses. My staff and my department are working, again, with the college to make sure that that happens. Not only that but we have been reaching out to the general public, what their real concerns are, and there’s been a lot of feedback on various programming that should be happening in some of the small communities. Beaufort-Delta is one prime example, and also the learning campuses that we have in the communities that we have. We need to expand on that. These are just some of the recommendations that have been brought to our attention and we will be following through with them.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. I’d like to ask the Minister some questions about the Rent Supplement Program. It’s been about two years now, I think, since the program was put into place. At the time that the Minister advised committee of the program, I do believe that he said there was going to be an evaluation at some point.
So, first of all I’d like to ask the Minister, what kind of success does the Housing Corporation attribute to this program? What kind of uptake has there been from people that are renting? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The program was originally designed to help with subsidies for about 150 clients a year. Since the inception of the program, we’ve had 158 clients go through the program. We currently have 68 clients that are still in the program. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. So, if I understood the Minister correctly, that’s 68 or 70 out of a possible 150. That’s unfortunate. I would have hoped that the program would be oversubscribed.
I’d like to ask the Minister, when is the two-year anniversary date of this program and will the Housing Corporation be doing a formal review, a formal evaluation of the program at that time? Thank you.
I’m not sure of the exact date, but we are almost at our two-year anniversary now and we will do an evaluation of the program to see if the program is working as it was intended to. Thank you.
It’s no secret that many people who are renting, struggle to meet the cost of their housing and also meet their daily expenses and maintain any kind of a decent lifestyle. Some people cannot afford to rent their own apartment, their own home. They need to rent a room in a house.
I’d like to know from the Minister, as they do the evaluation of this program that’s gone over the last two years, will they consider expanding the terms of reference to the program to include people who are renting not an apartment but renting a room in a house or renting a room in somebody else’s apartment? Thank you.
That’s something I could commit to the Member that as part of the evaluation we can have a look at that. The program was originally designed to deal with affordability issues, and we’ve seen that in a lot of the market communities. I think their affordability issue was about 86 percent. So, as part of the evaluation, we could look to the issue the Member was raising. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Yes, affordability in Yellowknife is the major issue in housing and in my community. At this point, I looked at the NWT Housing Corp website. There’s no indication that this program will end.
So I’d like to know from the Minister, it’s been two years, what are the intentions of the Housing Corp? How long will this program continue? Do they intend to continue it and for how long? Thank you.
I don’t think we had a timeline on this. It was a program to help those that are living in market communities that were dealing with an affordability issue. We had originally, I think, budgeted just over $1 million. We’re down to about $900,000 now. I don’t believe we had put a timeline on this. Again, it will be part of the whole evaluation process to see how well the program is working and we’ll take that information as we move forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the legislation is presently written for the Single Use Retail Bag Program, paper bags are treated exactly the same. If you go to a store, a grocery store, you have to pay 25 cents; if you go to a restaurant you have to pay 25 cents. To draw a further comparison, polyethylene bags, plastic bags, are treated the same as recyclable bags.
Can the Minister explain for the House why these bags are all being treated the same, whereas plastic bags are not so good for the environment and biodegradable or compostable bags are good for the environment? So if he can start off by explaining why they’re all being treated the same we can then move forward to the next set of questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The paper bags have their own downside, but I listened carefully to the Member’s comments and statement and I’ve chatted with the Member about this before and I have met with the department about the need, after five years, to take a look at that particular program to look at revitalizing it and maybe fine tuning it. Thank you.
In the interim… Well, first I should say thank you to the Minister for recognizing that the program needs to be reviewed and updated, where appropriate, of course. In the interim, many good retailers are providing paper bags which are compostable and certainly biodegradable bags which are still meeting our objective, which is getting plastic bags out of the environment.
Is there anything that the Minister can do today or commit to in the near future that we can stop having these retailers have to charge the same 25 cents as if it’s a regular plastic bag that does not break down in the environment? I’m trying to get this down. What can we do today, even though we know the updates may be coming forward someday? Thank you.
I don’t have a definitive response to that question, but I will commit to have further discussions with the department to see what short-term and immediate things could be done if there is in fact a need to do that. Thank you.
Is the Minister in any position to bring to light in this House when this type of update could be considered? Because I have a lot of retailers out there that have spent extra money buying biodegradable bags and they’re paying for it, but they believe in an environment of stewardship. But they’re being penalized by meeting the objectives, which is getting plastic bags out of the environment. So they’re doing their part. They’d like to know when the government will do their part by seeing an update or revision or certainly a discussion on this particular issue. So when could we see something in the near future? Thank you.
We will look at how timely we can be. We are somewhat consumed with the budget session and such, but I will once again commit to the Member that I will be able to get back to him before the end of session with some specific timelines. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister familiar enough with the legislation to find out if it’s all in regulations? In other words, can we make changes easily through the regulations, or is it through legislative initiative we’d have to tackle some of these particular problems? For the everyday folk there’s a real big difference in timing and efforts to change these types of rules and, as such, I look to the Minister to ask, what’s the easiest way to make these changes if appropriate and certainly where appropriate? Thank you.
Through regulation and policy would be the best way, but included in my coming back before the end of session with timelines, I’ll highlight some of the things that we think need to be looked at. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. As of the fall of 2014, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had wildfire protection plans for 28 communities in five regions.
My question is: Have these plans been revised in light of lessons learned last summer? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to the Member’s question, I would like to just reflect quickly back on his Member’s statement and his acknowledgement and recognition of the foresight of the people of Kakisa, and I just want to acknowledge that I concur with his assessment that what they did was, I think, pivotal in how well they survived the wildfires.
What’s been happening is we’ve been doing a debriefing. We’ve been working internally. We’re going out to the communities now to have those discussions across many of the regional centres, but to have that discussion with communities about things that need to be done in anticipation of the upcoming fire season. Thank you.
I thank the Minister for his reply. In light of preparing for this season’s forest fire season, has the department assessed the remaining communities at not requiring a wildfire protection plan? For example, Yellowknife, whether indeed a fire protection plan is necessary. Mahsi
