Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’ll have questions for the Minister of Public Works and Services. Last week I had questions in the House about the Net Metering Program and some questions around energy. I know this department has taken over the responsibility for energy. I’d like to ask the Minister, in regards to supporting small businesses, I understand there’s a business support program within his department and I want to ask the Minister, when was that program last reviewed in terms of supporting businesses in the Northwest Territories?
Under this program, this program is designed to help businesses in the NWT implement renewable energy and energy-efficient projects. As we know, the cost of doing business in the North is fairly high.
I’d like to ask the Minister, first of all, when was that program last reviewed, and is there an increase in dollars projected for the future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Public Works, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Business Incentive Program is an ongoing program that is administered by the Arctic Energy Alliance. Last year we had $200,000. It was not fully subscribed at that point; however, we’re going to continue with that funding, and if there’s more uptake we would consider looking around for additional funds to fund that program. It is considered to be very important. Thank you.
It’s a shame to hear that the program wasn’t fully utilized in previous years, and I do understand that the department does have a partnership with the Arctic Energy Alliance.
I was wondering when was the last time the Minister met with the Arctic Energy Alliance and looked at this policy to see what barriers and challenges are preventing our businesses from actually participating in this program that can potentially help businesses succeed, get a higher revenue but also cut down on our carbon emissions.
I’d like to ask him, when was the last time that his department and staff met with Arctic Energy Alliance to review this policy and address any barriers that might prevent businesses from accessing this funding? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The department is in regular contact with the Arctic Energy Alliance, as they deliver quite a few programs for the Government of the Northwest Territories. Specifically when this particular program was last reviewed, I don’t have that date. It seems to be a program that is working well. It is almost fully subscribed, so we expect that when we start our energy division and we start to have more communications with Arctic Energy Alliance and its clientele, we expect that all of the money that we give to Arctic Energy Alliance will be fully subscribed. Thank you.
It’s possible that there might be limits on the amount of dollars that a small business can access. We all know that when you’re putting in infrastructure such as solar energy, that high cost of shipping materials up to, let’s say, the Beaufort-Delta region and then installing them, it does come at a very high cost, and with the amount of sunlight we get during the summer there’s a short window to get any kind of profit on that.
Would the Minister also look at a solar energy program, a program that promotes the use of solar energy technologies in the NWT and work with Arctic Energy Alliance to address those challenges and how we can make it better for the small businesses to actually invest in this type of project? Thank you.
The Alternative Energy Program, which looks at all of the alternatives to energy, is a program that is currently being delivered by Arctic Energy Alliance, and that program has $800,000 to look at a lot of various programs. An example is there is a more energy-efficient hot water replacement program so that it cuts down on energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and so on. In that program alone the Arctic Energy Alliance expended $300,000 last year. There are other programs that are available under that program and also looking at the various technologies under alternative energy, also programs that Arctic Energy Alliance delivers for the GNWT.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under the energy department there is an area under solar energy, and for the last couple of years it has received funding in the area of maybe about $625,000.
Can I ask the Minister if that funding has been fully utilized throughout the Northwest Territories as well?
I don’t have that information here with me. I can have that information specific to the utilization of the solar energy budget given to me and I can provide that to the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The pilot program in Dauphin, Manitoba, showed that the guaranteed basic income saved money in the long run through decreased costs in health care and provided better outcomes for clients. We have all the same issues as were prevalent in Dauphin, only in spades.
Given our ongoing record of failure of income support to save money, reduce health care needs, improve graduation rates and reduce unemployment rates, all things that the Dauphin five-year pilot turned around, why is our present system failing to address these same issues here in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My department provides income security to those individuals who are in need of subsidy, we’re not failing those people. We’re providing subsidy to those individuals. When the Member talks about Manitoba, the Mincome, in 1974 they subsidized 1,000 families with monthly cheques. At that time the federal and provincial governments collectively spent $17 million in 1974. Just imagine the cost factor today.
This is an area that my department will do what we can to provide the basic needs to those individual clients based on their needs. There has been a request for an increase in our funding, so that’s what we’re after right now. In 2007 we made substantial changes, and we’re going through another round of changes in 2015-16.
The Minister failed to address the savings and the cost benefits of that program. They did invest money, and that’s what I’m suggesting we do instead of $20 million without getting any results.
In his ’13-14 review of income assistance, the Auditor General noted that in half of the NWT files examined, client eligibility was not confirmed. In half of the files, income was not verified. In 20 percent of the files requiring Productive Choices were not committed to, and in 30 percent of the files the participation in Productive Choices were not monitored. In one-third of the files, payments made to clients were inaccurate. The system is unwieldy, inaccurate, inefficient and intrusive.
Will the Minister thoroughly explore the opportunity for these issues to be resolved through the implementation of a guaranteed basic income program instead of the current approach and report back to this House?
Obviously, if we had $20 million or $30 million today this is an area we can possibly explore, but we don’t have that kind of funding available to us to date. At the same time, as I stated earlier, we are making some changes effective April 1, 2015. We are proposing to increase our overall food benefits under income assistance programming. This is from a recommendation and also suggestions from the clientele, the general public that it’s time that we change our programming, and we’ve done that in 2007 and again in 2015 to meet the needs of those individual clients. That’s what we’re doing as a department. We provide directly to those individual clients with a subsidy that’s available to them.
I greatly appreciate that move on the part of the Minister, but what we are committing to here is an ongoing, ever-increasing subsidy, as the Minister said in his own words in response to my first question.
In 2013 the Auditor General’s report found that 90 percent of the income assistance files they reviewed did not meet one or more key system requirements. Not only is this a huge administrative cost, we are not getting value for money. The system is broken and we are no longer closer to the considerable improvements required. We have an opportunity to start from square one with a guaranteed basic income that will save money and has better outcomes, according to the research that’s been done.
Will the Minister commit to researching the feasibility of a guaranteed basic income, streamlining the system and freeing up money, freeing up money wasted on administration that could be put to better use helping the people who need it?
Our system is not broken. We still provide funding. We still provide subsidy to those Northwest Territories clientele on income security, and we will continue to do. We always make improvements as well.
Again, I have to reiterate, in 2007 we made substantial changes to our food programming and we will continue to do so. Again, in 2015 we’re going to have another increase. I’m not sure. The Member is referring to a feasibility study. These are the changes that we heard and we’re moving forward on the changes from the recommendation of the general public. We’re making changes to our policy every now and then and this is one of them.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, indeed, we will continue to pour money down this drain ad infinitum without achieving what we want to achieve as opposed to the Dauphin study which the positive benefits lasted eight years after the money stopped. What more can you say? What we are doing now has not worked for some time and shows no promise of getting better. This government needs to admit that the welfare system has no future and, more importantly, that the clients who depend on it have no future either. That’s the point that’s being made here.
When will the Minister begin to move towards a system that is proven to work: the guaranteed basic income?
We are indeed pouring money into where it’s needed. The most clientele necessity, the most basic needs we’re providing funding towards that. That is our overall goal and objective to look after those who most need it. The ones who are in poverty, we’re providing a subsidy to them. We’re making changes to our programming, as I stated. This is what we’re doing as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment responsible for the Income Security Program. This is an area that we’ve made some considerable improvement, as I stated before, but we are putting money where our mouth is to the clientele who most need it.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to ask him some questions around a strategy which has been under development for quite some time. We all know that our health costs are very high. It’s the largest department that we have within this government. We also know that within that department that drug costs are probably the highest or it’s a very large percentage of that total budget. Both nationally and provincially people are looking to try and reduce those costs.
Members have been hearing since January of 2013 about the development of a pharmaceutical strategy from either the current Minister or the previous Minister. About a year ago the Minister advised committee about a number of things that they were doing in terms of the development of a strategy, that they were hiring people, they were looking into this, they were looking into that. Last month Mr. Dolynny asked some questions and we were advised the same thing. We were looking into this, we were looking into that.
So my first question is, where is the development of a pharmaceutical strategy as of today? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The pharmaceutical strategy isn’t completed at this point. We have had difficulty finding permanent pharmacy or a pharmacist to actually participate in this in the department and we have actually done some contract work with pharmacists to actually start moving on this. So it’s not done. We are continuing to move forward. I don’t anticipate the pharmaceutical strategy will be fully 100 percent concluded in the life of this government, but many of the components will be well on their way to being completed during the life of this government.
Thanks to the Minister. That’s unfortunate because on February 6th the Minister said to Mr. Dolynny that the final report is expected this winter. Now I just heard the Minister say that we’re not going to get it within this Assembly, so that’s disturbing. It’s more than two years that we’ve been waiting for this pharmaceutical strategy. I can appreciate the difficulties with getting expertise to deal with it, but that seems like a very long time.
The Program Review Office has been involved somehow in developing this strategy and assisting the department. I’d like to know from the Minister what the role of the Program Review Office has been in this development. Thank you.
A pharmaceutical strategy and the research and analysis are two different things. We will have a lot of that information prepared during the life of this government, but the full rollout of a comprehensive pharmaceutical strategy will take a little bit longer.
The Program Review Office has been doing some analysis into the costs and the implementation of distribution of pharmaceuticals through the health care system and they’re going to continue to do that work. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. So, we’re going to have some work done, and I appreciate it’s going to take longer to roll it out, but when can committee expect to see a report or a draft, some kind of concrete progress on a pharmaceutical strategy? Thank you.
We have been working on it. I can’t remember the exact date that we plan to have something available for the committee, but I will review my notes and talk to the department to get a concrete date for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I wait anxiously for that information on timing.
There are going to be many components of a pharmaceutical strategy and they don’t necessarily relate directly to the extended benefits that we provide at this time. Previously, Mr. Dolynny was talking about a catastrophic drug program for those large, expensive pharmaceutical treatments that we don’t provide support to now. Those will cover those for residents of the Northwest Territories who have incredibly high costs. We need to do the financial analysis, but many of those costs are hard to predict because many of these particular drugs or treatment programs are very rare or not used on a regular basis. But just as a note, they are not part of the Extended Health Benefits Program at this time, so it will not adversely affect that program. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 47, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, be read for the first time.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Bill 47, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act has had first reading.
---Carried
Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act; Bill 36, Health and Social Services Professions Act; Bill 46, Deline Final Self-Government Agreement Act; Committee Report 10-17(5), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2013-2014 Annual Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories; Tabled Document 188-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2015-2016; Tabled Document 205-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditure), No. 5, 2014-2015; Tabled Document 206-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditure), No. 3, 2014-2015; and Tabled Document 207-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 1, 2015-2016, with Mr. Dolynny in the chair.
I call Committee of the Whole to order. Ms. Bisaro, what is the wish of the committee?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to deal with Tabled Document 188-17(5) today, the NWT Main Estimates for 2015-2016. We’d like to continue with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and, time permitting, the Department of Lands. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. We will commence after a short recess.
---SHORT RECESS
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, as per earlier today, we’re going to continue with the main estimates for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. With that, we have the Minister responsible. Do you have any witnesses you would like to bring into the House, Mr. McLeod?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
