In addition to being in good standing with WSCC, the contractor has to have a copy of the safety plan on site. Also, they have to have regular meetings on safety through the process. Depending on the size of the contract and the nature of the contract, if there are hazardous materials such as asbestos, they have to have an abatement plan for those items. For the real large projects, even our own project officers who go on site, need to have job-specific orientations before they get on site and work with the contractor. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I made comments earlier about the Youth Ambassador Program. We get a lot of youth who go through that program, but we also get a lot of youth who go through various programs through the Northwest Territories. We do have the successes but we also have some youth who fall through the cracks.
I want to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, what type of follow-up does the department do, or the division, in following up with students after they have successfully gone through the program? As I mentioned, there is a mentorship program, but not everybody makes that mentorship program. What are we doing for the youth who don’t make it to that second level? Is there a follow-up component to this Youth Ambassador Program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think of all the programs that are run through the GNWT, the Youth Ambassador Program is one of the best. This is one program that’s going to have long-term benefits for the people of NWT. A lot of these young people are going to be our future leaders. In my time in interacting with them, I think the future of the NWT is in good hands.
To the question, the sport and recreation youth staff are constantly in contact with a lot of the youth ambassador alumni and potential youth ambassadors just to support and encourage them to pursue a healthy lifestyle and set goals and work hard. There is some follow-up with the former youth ambassadors, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
I know the department does a great job. As I mentioned, they have developed a lot of life skills and job skills. A lot of questions we’ve heard through this sitting of the Legislative Assembly are the human resources issue and vacancies in some of the jobs.
Does the Minister and his department work with the Department of Human Resources to look at how we can get some of these youth ambassadors, who are fairly young, anywhere from the age of 18 and 24, to fill some of these vacancies? Has the Minister had these kinds of discussions with the Minister of Human Resources, or any other department for that matter? Thank you.
My information is there are 11 youth ambassadors who have been hired as summer students and have completed internships. There are six former youth ambassadors who are actually employed within the GNWT, and some of the successes you can measure. We have some youth ambassadors who are holding councillor positions within community governments, and there are some that are executive directors of NGOs. We’ve had some that have taken international volunteer placements and many have had academic scholarships and bursaries. Many of them are in volunteer roles in the community. We’ve had four youth ambassadors who have actually won the Outstanding Volunteer Award for the youth category. So, there’s a lot of opportunity for them there and the department tries to do what it can to ensure that there are opportunities for them within the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It’s great to hear all those successes. Aside from asking questions about the success of this program, can the Minister possibly commit to work on some sort of success story on the website? I know on the NWT website there’s a blog where youth ambassadors can post things, but would the Minister be willing to create a success story on all the years that this program has been going? Success stories that we’ve had among our youth ambassadors to showcase how successful the program is but also encourage youth that are coming up to look into the program and also join in the successes of that program? Thank you.
This program has been in effect since 2007. We’ve had about 250 youth ambassadors go through this program. There have been 27 youth ambassador projects. We’re coming up on 10 years here soon, and we’ve had some discussions of maybe doing a 10-year anniversary booklet or something to do exactly as the Member stated, just to measure some of the success we’ve had in the program. But we also have the proud2bnwt youth website, and that suggestion has some merit to it. We could possibly post a lot of the success stories on there, because this is a program that we as a government should be quite proud of in the development of our young people across the Northwest Territories. Any chance we have of highlighting their successes I think will go a long way in the development of them plus future youth who are coming up through the program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister offer an explanation for the wide discrepancy between the NWT’s self-reported health status, which scored an A plus, and their actual health status, which scored a D minus?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are large health disparities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations in residents across Canada. Poor health outcomes in the proportionately larger Aboriginal population here in the Northwest Territories, compared to other jurisdictions, is influencing the overall results in the NWT.
To be clear, the Conference Board of Canada’s report, How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada, measures health outcomes based on 10 indicators which evaluate health outcomes as opposed to health care systems. Health outcomes are primarily influenced by socio-economic conditions, such as education, housing, income or employment, which are the responsibilities of multiple departments here in the Government of the Northwest Territories. To that end, the government, in cooperation with the social programs as well as economic development, have been working on a number of action plans including the Mineral Development Action Plan, the Economic Development Action Plan, the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, the Action Plan on Anti-Poverty, following up on the NWT Anti-Poverty Framework as well as early childhood development. A number of things are being done in this area to help improve these outcomes over time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The only one that the Minister left off the table was devolution to help people’s health.
Can the Minister explain what areas under his responsibility, under health care indicators, why there is such a discrepancy between the report and the D minus received, rather than blaming other departments and referencing other proposals by departments? We’re talking about health care indicators and health.
Once again, to be clear, health outcomes are measured using 10 indicators that evaluate health outcomes, not health care systems. We are making improvements to the provision of health and social services here in the Northwest Territories. We’re moving forward with the health transformation with a focus on all residents of the Northwest Territories.
I just want to point out that the report from the Conference Board of Canada provided several recommendations for the NWT to improve health outcomes such as using a tailored approach including Aboriginal traditional knowledge and health policy, creative programs focused on Aboriginal youth, and developing culturally appropriate measurement tools and indicators to evaluate health and wellness programs. We’re evaluating and considering these recommendations and seeing how we can incorporate them to improve the health outcomes of residents of the Northwest Territories.
I would also just like to highlight that we have created the Aboriginal health and community wellness division which is working very closely with Aboriginal governments and partners throughout the territory to improve the outcomes of all residents of the Northwest Territories.
The Minister cites the MDS, that’s Mineral Development Strategy, and the EOS, the Economic Opportunities Strategy, as the solution for this. I’d like to actually hear what the Department of Health is doing when it comes to improving the outcomes of life expectancy, premature mortality, infant mortality and mortality due to cancer specific to health.
I understand the Member’s point but I do have to continually remind everybody that health outcomes are primarily influenced by socio-economic conditions and it’s going to take all of us working together, all of the departments working together.
With respect to the Department of Health and Social Services, we are the lead on the Anti-Poverty Action Plan; we are a partner on Early Childhood Development Action Plan; we’re the lead on Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan. We’ve also got a number of different cancer strategies that we’re partnering with the Government of Canada to implement here in the Northwest Territories, and we’re working on the development of a cancer strategy. We also have focused programs on chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes and a number of things, and we’re working closely with our partners and the Aboriginal governments through our Aboriginal health and community wellness division, because many of the solutions, we recognize, are out in the communities and the people want to be involved in their solutions, which is something we heard very clearly during our Weaving our Wisdom Gathering here last week.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
My final question is I’m curious as to what the Minister’s briefing note will read as to engagement on a pan-territorial strategy as to improve the D minus across the three territories as we work towards a partnership for improving Aboriginal health and the health of all Northerners across the NWT and our two sister territories.
We already work with the other two territories on a number of initiatives. I had a conversation with the two Ministers last week and we’ve agreed to get together and have a tri-territorial meeting later this spring to discuss other areas where we can work together to improve the wellness and health outcomes of residents of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions for the Minister of ITI. Earlier this fall there was a forecast that the fur prices would drop this year. It’s been a little over a week now since the February auction. I’d like to ask the Minister, were the fur prices as low as expected this winter?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Prices of fur did come off last year. As the auction was just held recently, I haven’t got the information back from the department on what prices fur was fetching at this auction, but I would be more than happy to provide the Member and other Members with an update as soon as I get that information.
I’d like to ask the Minister, what affected the fur prices this year? As the Minister may recall, last year we had some of the highest prices for marten and other furs.
Obviously, we’d like to see a return to the very high prices for fur. The more money our trappers across the territory can earn from the sale of those furs goes directly back into the smaller communities and the local economy, so we’d like to see prices back where they were last year.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister responsible for the Status of Women Council. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement. I also want to follow up and ask these questions following a very excellent campaign school that was held in February and because International Women’s Day was just yesterday.
Both men and women acknowledge that there is a need for equality, and I talked today about gender equity on boards and organizations, but I’d like to ask the Minister, first of all, about the vision of he, as Minister for women, but also the GNWT, the government, what is the vision of this government in regards to the advancement of women towards equality in our society?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government, we see equitable participation of women in all aspects of the government. As well, we would like to see improvements made in a number of areas in the communities. Right now we’re working primarily with the Status of Women Council and the Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories and we would like to see more representation in this Legislative Assembly. I think that as a government, 64 percent of our employees are female and 50 percent of our deputy minister cadre are women. I think that certainly we want to see more women advance into the senior management of our government, but also we feel that we need to find additional resources to help support the two main women organizations that we work with.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. I am very proud that we have a lot of senior managers who are women and I’m glad that the government recognizes that as an accomplishment.
The fact that the Minister says that we want to get better, I need to ask the next question, which is: How is the Minister, how is this government going to affect that vision, going to effect that change?
As my colleagues have been saying, I think we have 260 days until the next election. Obviously, an important thing for us to do is to make sure that women’s issues are provided for through the transition process both at the departmental level and at the highest level of this Legislative Assembly. We are also looking at gender-based analysis that’s been around for a long time. I think we want to revisit that to make sure that it is a lens that we run our programs through as we go forward, and it would be nice if we could find ways to increase the funding for the women’s organizations.
To the Minister: yes, nice indeed, but I think we need to get beyond nice and we need to say yes, this is something that we’re going to do. I’ve spoken about this before. Both the Status of Women Council and the Native Women’s Association have a very minimal budget and in order for us to effect any real change we’re going to have to provide more resources. I would like to see an annual campaign school, not one every four years, because there are women in elected positions at other orders of government as well as the territorial that need this assistance.
I know there’s no funding in the ’15-16 budget. We’ve already been over the budgets and there’s nothing in there at this point for increases for those two organizations.
Will the Minister commit to me that he will do what he can? He has mentioned transition, but will he do what he can to provide for greater resources for these two organizations in the ’16-17 budget? Thank you.
I’m very pleased to point out that we were able to provide for a $25,000 increase to a combined Status of Women Council and Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories. It may seem like a small amount, but when we’re holding the line on new initiatives on forced growth, I think that was an accomplishment, and we’ve been able to work with the Status of Women Council on an ad hoc basis and certainly, as part of that transition, that would be something we would identify for the next government that should be a priority, is to work the funding for women’s organizations that we work with. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Yes, $25,000 is not a heck of a lot of money. However, it probably barely covers the increases to salaries and so on for those organizations, but it’s a bit, so I appreciate that.
The organizations that are doing this work, particularly the Status of Women Council is a group of three people, there are only three employees and in order for us to make advances, particularly in our small communities, there needs to be a much greater infusion of cash. So for us to expand activities throughout the territory as opposed to keeping it in Yellowknife and or regional centres, there needs to be a bigger infusion.
So, to the Minister: I know things are tight, but if the government is truly behind women’s equality, will you find the money to do that? Thank you.
Thank you. We will make sure that we set the foundation through transitional arrangements for the 18th Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Justice. About two years ago in the House I made some comments and asked some questions about possibly looking at getting some archives on the history of the RCMP in the Northwest Territories. The Minister, back then, mentioned that it would be a good idea to look into this and see the possibility of creating some type of dedication at the museum or some room that would highlight the history of the RCMP in the Northwest Territories and how it pertains to Canada.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice if there have been any updates on creating that type of exhibit. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, the RCMP has a long and historic significance to the Northwest Territories and to the people of the Northwest Territories. We have moved forward and I’m glad the Member is asking me these questions today. There is a need to preserve and share the extensive history of “G” Division here in the Northwest Territories. We’re currently working with a number of partners to develop a display and travelling educational pieces commemorating special constables and the seamstresses and interpreters and the guides that helped the RCMP officers survive here in the early days in the Northwest Territories.
A steering committee comprised of the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and the RCMP “G” Division has been working to develop exhibits and to display the history of the RCMP here in the NWT. So I thank the Member for his question. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s comments and response. In terms of creating some type of exhibit to take on the road, I think it would be a great opportunity for this government to do that. It would not only talk about the history of the RCMP but it would create a stronger partnership between the RCMP and the communities and actually get the RCMP engaging with community members and especially the youth in the schools. So, I was wondering if he has a timeline on this exhibit that might be going out into the communities. Thank you.
The preservation of oral history, the gathering of artifacts, stories, photographs and mementos will flow from the work that is going to be done. Communities and elders will be engaged and they’ll be able to provide valuable insight into how we’re going to do this. As far as timeline goes, in early April the first team will be heading to Fort McPherson to start the interviewing process and record memories for generations to come to hear about those early days as part of a unique interactive display that we’re going to be putting together.
This committee is targeting Canada’s 150th Anniversary in 2017 as a national milestone for unveiling the projects. So the work is going to continue to happen in anticipation of 2017 and Canada’s 150th anniversary. Thank you.
That was leading up into my next question in terms of 2017. I was speaking with some people at the Wellness Conference last week and we got around to discussing 150 years come 2017, and I’m glad to hear that this project will be unveiling that.
Would there be others, possibly special presentations to our long-serving constables, especially Aboriginal constables who have done a lot of work with the Lost Patrol, the Mad Trapper, those kinds of things? Is something in the works to create that? Thank you.
The context is going to be on the special constables and the role that they play here in the Northwest Territories, many of which are now elderly. The committee is reviewing options to conduct oral interviews that will preserve the valuable stories that all of these individuals would have. We’re also examining the possibility of producing a travelling display that could reach every community and be available in schools across the Northwest Territories. This would allow the history of the RCMP to be shared across the Northwest Territories, and we’re also exploring the option of a dedicated website as well. We also are looking at other ways that we can enhance the educational component of all the exhibits and artifacts that we’re going to collect.
The Member is correct; in 1903 the first Mounted Police post north of the Arctic Circle was established at Fort McPherson. Horseback and dogsled teams were the mode of transportation at that time. So we’ve come a long way, but it’s important that we record the history and all of the good work that the RCMP have done here in the Northwest Territories.
