Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in my Member’s statement I spoke about the Grade 6 class in Bompas Elementary, so I would like to recognize them here today. It gives me great pleasure that they have taken the time to drive over to Yellowknife. I just want to say, as well, to the students there that their names will be in Hansard, an historical document. Your names will be in Hansard for the next hundred or more years. I would like to welcome teachers Leanne Josie and Bernie Leader, chaperone Martina Isaiah, and the students: Fayth Sibbeston, Etanda Hardisty-Beaverho, Tamara Lennie, Grace Day, Charlene Brown, Stevie May Gargon-Lacasse, Abigail Pasqua-Matte, Tamara Deneyoua, Seneah Allen, Kylan Antoine, Jeremy Larter, Marie Anderson and Kyra Sanguez. I’m glad you made it here today. Welcome.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very proud as the Member for Hay River South to have had two constituents from the Hay River South riding who are inducted into the Education Hall of Fame today. Doris Camsell, who has been a big contributor to traditional language and culture for her First Nation that she comes from in Fort Providence. She has been a wonderful asset in Hay River in the education field, and I would like to recognize her husband, Doug, who is also with her today. He is also a well-known mariner in the Northwest Territories.
I would also like to recognize Bruce Green, who taught high school for many, many years. He is the father of the famous Brendan Green – I had to mention that – and Bruce’s wife, Marilyn, who is also here today, who is Brendan Green’s mother. Mr. Green was well known for his science teaching at Diamond Jenness Secondary School and had a particularly outstanding knowledge of mushrooms. I am sure he is watching this morel mushroom harvest, this rush we are having in the Northwest Territories, very closely. Welcome to the House and congratulations on a well-deserved recognition today.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize members of George Braden’s family here today. George was a couple years ahead of me in school. I appreciated the Premier’s tribute to George today. I know the family did too. George was a couple years ahead of me, but he always seemed miles ahead of me in terms of leadership. He was a very thoughtful guy and always far ahead of us. So, recognition to Carmen Braden, his niece, and Eli Purchase and Andrew Robinson, who are with us today, and my heart goes out to the whole family, of course.
I’d also like to recognize other constituents, particularly and joyfully there’s a great energy in the House today with all these young folks, but the Education Hall of Famers. There’s a couple of Weledeh residents in particular. Congratulations to everybody, but Lea Lamoureux for her attendance initiatives out at Kaw Tay Whee School in Detah, and of course Reanna Erasmus for her amazing decades of dedication to early childhood and inclusive education. So, a real tip of the hat to those constituents.
I’d also not like to forget about our Pages today. They always do such great service for us. I know Emma Willoughby here is from the Weledeh riding. So, welcome to our Pages. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to also recognize a couple of the recipients of the educational award. First to my sister-in-law Doris Camsell, congratulations, Doris. Behind every good woman is a real good man, so also to Doug Camsell. I’d like to recognize Doug, also, my brother-in-law, and also to Ted Blondin and Violet Camsell and to the other recipients of the award.
Also to the Braden family and my colleague at one time, Mr. Braden. Also, I’d like to welcome the young... I think I see my niece up there, Mahalia. |I’d like to welcome her and wish her well with the Government of the Northwest Territories internship, and she’s one smart cookie.
I want to also recognize the young people in the gallery. I hope that one day you’re down here. Stay in school. Help us out here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize and acknowledge all our inductees into the Education Hall of Fame. I appreciate all the work you’ve done over the years in your position as an educator, as a volunteer, as a contributor to your community.
Ms. Marja Van Nieuwenhuyzen wasn’t able to join us today because she is in Holland attending her mother’s 90th birthday celebrations with her family and friends. So, on her behalf, I’d just like to say thank you to the Department of Education, as well, for recognizing her. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too, like others, would like to first acknowledge the Braden family and thank him for his individual contribution to the Legislature in its day and certainly to the path that all of us have enjoyed. He’s helped us along the way through his wisdom and guidance in his early years as our first Government Leader or, as we refer to them now, as Premier.
I wish we had more time today, but I’d like to recognize just a couple of the Education Hall of Fame winners here today. Dean MacInnis is a constituent of Yellowknife Centre and it’s quite fitting that he’s received the significant contribution to safe and caring environments for students. I know of his reputation at Sir John, and it’s certainly one of great esteem, not just with students but with his colleagues who work there. So, people do think very highly of the work, and it shows. He’s recently been made principal of the school, a school I happened to graduate from one or two years ago. More like 26, unfortunately, but that’s the truth.
Lastly, under the Education Hall of Fame folks, I do want to say a special hello to Reanna Erasmus, a lady who I truly cherish. Her vibrancy and excitement and passion for children is certainly infectious. She’s done wonders and amazing things with the Aboriginal Head Start and certainly her early childhood education, and I thank her for that.
Finally, I would like to note a deep personal hello and certainly a welcome to the children of Fort Simpson. I went to school there, and Mr. Menicoche talked about the old track in the old days. Well, I’m just a little bit older than you and I remember running on it in the old track and field days, and I hope one day you too will enjoy that experience and have that memory of your own. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a few Hay River residents who were distinguished Education Hall of Famers, as well, Ms. Camsell and Mr. Green. Mr. Green taught me Grade 10 biology and I didn’t have the stomach to go on dissecting frogs, but he’s also a wrestling coach. He helps out in the community quite a bit, and Mrs. Groenewegen talked about he’s involved in morel mushrooms now.
I’d also like to recognize Ted Blondin, an alumni from U of L who I went to school with. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I’d like to welcome also here today Doug Camsell, Captain Doug Camsell, from my old working days up in Tuk before coming to this Assembly. A lot of good times. Welcome to the House, Doug. I’d like to welcome also Ms. Mahalia Newmark, raised in Tuk for a lot of years. It’s always good to have people from back home. I’d like to welcome everybody here for taking an interest in the proceedings here today.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. In my research, I understand that there are 71 positions within the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority. Thirteen of these positions are vacant. The following communities have vacancies: Deline has three vacancies, Tulita has one, Norman Wells has eight vacancies, Fort Good Hope has one vacancy.
Why are these important vacancies not filled, some of them since September 2014 of last year?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; there are a significant number of vacancies in the Sahtu and we recognize that it’s a problem and we’re working closely with the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority to find ways to fill these positions. There are active recruitments on a number of positions, and in some cases until we can find somebody on a more permanent basis, we have been filling some of them with casuals, but that doesn’t change the need to find permanent staff.
There’s a number of reasons that we may be having difficulties. Some individuals, some of those positions require real solid knowledge, skills and ability and some statutory requirements, but the Sahtu Authority has held discussions with community leadership on more effective approaches to providing a range of culturally appropriate mental health services, because one of the larger vacancies we have is around mental health services in the Sahtu and they’re in the early stages of designing a pilot project in partnership with one of the communities to see if there’s a more innovative way or a better way to involve local people to provide some more stability in the Sahtu. So, we’re looking forward to seeing how that goes. In the interim, we continue to actively recruit, and hopefully we’ll be able to fill those positions in short order. Thank you.
I look forward to the pilot project partnership study. The communities of Deline, Tulita, Norman Wells, Colville Lake, the mental health and addictions counsellors positions have been vacant since August 2014, September 2014. These positions have been vacant for well over a year. I want to know from this Minister and also from our Health and Social Services Health Board about these positions. We have given the Minister some creative ideas, solutions.
Why are we not having these positions filled? Can we not do something different? We seem to be running up the same old issue of credentials and academic credibility. Well, we have another method using the Aboriginal context of looking after ourselves. Why is the Minister not exploring that issue?
I hear the Member, and that is exactly the type of thing that is being done with this new pilot study, looking at new ways to involve communities and find alternate ways to provide services in communities and looking at local solutions.
I have also had an opportunity to travel around the Northwest Territories and talk to leadership, and every time I meet with leadership, I talk about the vacancies that we’re seeing across the Northwest Territories, and I ask them to work with us to encourage youth to pursue some of these professions.
As a note, some of these professions do have statutory requirements, so it does tie our hands a little bit as far as who we can put into those positions. But I do take the Member’s point. We are going to be working with the Sahtu. I know the CEO in the Sahtu has been running a number of competitions and is looking forward to this new relationship to see if we can have some success through this pilot.
There are some very well-educated, culturally credible people in the Sahtu who can be working with the health board.
I want to ask the Minister, within our own health board there are some people who are either on sick leave or are on extended leave because they are being overworked within the Health department. Some of the workers are even complaining to me that there aren’t proper support mechanisms within the health board. Some of them need to be recognized and be honoured by their experience, and yet they’re being overlooked. There are other people coming to the health board that are taking on the managerial positions, who are actually being trained by these qualified social workers or mental health workers and they’re not given the credence, I guess, or the recognition that they deserve.
When is the department going to look at our own Sahtu homegrown labour force?
As a government, we’re always looking for ways to train local people for local work, and if we have individuals who are in the system who would be appropriate for succession planning purposes, we often look at those individuals. But in some situations, I mean, it is frustrating, and I understand the Member’s frustration. If there is a statutory requirement for a job, when you need that in order to have a licence to perform the duties articulated within the job description, that can be a barrier, which is why we have to look at other alternatives such as this pilot project that we’re talking about in the Sahtu region.
But at the same time, there are programs available to us, such as the Regional Recruitment Program to bring local people into local work. But we are looking at a number of ways to train local people. For example, we are hopefully going to be opening up the long-term care facility in the Norman Wells area in the next year or two, the next two years, and we’re working with the Gwich’in, the Sahtu and the Inuvialuit to arrange training for local people to take on many of those roles.
I hear the Member. I support what the Member is saying. We’re looking for creative solutions. We’re working with the Sahtu. The chief executive officer in the Sahtu is constantly working with the leadership in the communities to try to find ways to encourage youth to pursue careers, and we’re looking for ways to train local people, where possible.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would strongly suggest to the Minister and also to our CEO, go to the homegrown, qualified statutory social workers in our communities, sit down with them and say, “what’s the issue,” because certainly they aren’t being heard. This has been told to me. This is not happening. They’re telling me directly. I’m saying right now in this Assembly to this Minister, if they can do that we would certainly clear up a lot of issues that will put people in good positions within the Sahtu health board. There are some issues that we cannot speak of today in the House that need to be addressed. I’m asking the Minister if he would do this with our health board and CEO.
I’ll pass that message along to the chair of the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority and have him strongly encourage the CEO to meet with the individuals the Member is referring to.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This spring we had an early spring up in the Mackenzie Delta, about a week early actually, and over the last few days the water has dropped a lot, there’s no more ice on the river, and as far as I know, the ferry is supposed to be launched tomorrow.
I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation, will the ferry be launched tomorrow? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The plan is to launch the ferry tomorrow, Thursday; at the very latest, early Friday. Thank you.
Just over lunch today I got the latest update from Tsiigehtchic and the water level is very low, you can see the landing.
What is the status on the landings right now? Are there people working on it, building it up, getting it ready for the ferry? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The water is subsiding and the slipways are ready. Equipment is now working to improve the landings, so yes the landings are ready. We are expecting the service of hauling vehicles to actually start on Sunday. We are trying to speed it up to try to coincide with people wanting to travel over to Inuvik for the graduation. We have put a bit of a rush on it, so the department tells me that they are hoping to resume service, but safety is very important. There is some welding that has occurred while the ferry was on land, so we have to ensure that those things are taken care of before we are able to haul the public. Thank you.
That was going to be my next question, but the Minister answered most of it. What is the holdup on the ferry? Is there welding still needed? I didn’t really get that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When we put the ferry into the water and start to run the ferry across the Mackenzie River, we have to ensure that there are no issues. We don’t anticipate issues; we just need to do a test before we actually let the public onto the ferry. There is no real holdup. It is going as we initially scheduled for the ferry to operate. Generally on average the ferry has started on June 1st. We’re hoping that we’re able to at least meet that day this season as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned, the graduation is on Saturday, and I would like to ask the Minister, does he think that the ferry will be ready for people to travel on Saturday? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The information I have right now is that the service will begin on Sunday. As I indicated, we would like to try to get the ferry running on Saturday so that we can accommodate people wanting to go to watch the two graduates from Tsiigehtchic. We recognize that that’s something that the community wants to see, so we are working hard to try to make that happen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Finance. I would like to start by noting that the new debt limit of $1.3 billion contributes to financial potential. We need to move forward as a territory, but we certainly have to use this potential wisely, focusing first on our people and communities rather than servicing the global corporations that rarely are yielding the economic development we seek.
With this new flexibility, and recognizing the dire issues our people face, what are the Minister’s priorities in the allocation of these newly authorized opportunities? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The increase to our borrowing limit, the second one of this government, is part of the legacy that the 17th Legislative Assembly is going to leave for the 18th Legislative Assembly, the ability to have flexibility and choice. We went forward with the request and justification for the increase of the borrowing limit on the basis that we needed to be able to make critical investments in economic infrastructure that will help create the conditions for development that will help spur the economy and increase our tax base and give us more money into our coffers in terms of revenue.
That has been the approach that we’ve used so far. We’ve used it consistently. We continue to use that fundamental approach that we cannot borrow money to invest in programs that are added to our base on a permanent basis, which would put us on a path that would be very quickly unsustainable, and we just have to look around at jurisdictions that have done that.
So, our focus is going to be on working, in the life of this government, with committee to have the initial discussions. There are budgeting and business plan processes already underway for the next budget, and all those discussions will take place within that process. Thank you.
I have no problem with these funds, of course, going to infrastructure, but I hope the Minister will include consideration of the evidence, which is the faltering economy and raising debt and failure in many areas with the types of infrastructure we’re putting in place, as he makes those considerations. Although we’re making some progress in small communities, housing issues, for example, continue to plague us for a much worsening trend in Yellowknife. We have never had sufficient financial headroom to adequately address housing. Yet our disabled and young single mother families wither on the waiting lists.
How will this new room for infrastructure dollars be slated to alleviate the terrible housing situation that is accumulating and that exists for our people today? Mahsi.
I appreciate the fact, the government has always appreciated the fact that there are far more needs than there are resources. There are two issues we have, two critical issues. First is we have to make sure that our expenditures don’t outstrip our revenues, and that is going to be a real challenge as we move forward, given some of the cost pressures. Then we have to make sure that we have processes to look at how we’re going to make critical investments in economic infrastructure, infrastructure that will create conditions for economic development.
Clearly, there are going to be a whole host of needs identified. In fact, the Member has raised some. Since the news came of the federal budget, the phones have been ringing with folks that all have good and well-needed projects that they want built and we are, in the life of this government, we started the business planning process for the 18th Assembly. The debate that the Member is talking about, about how will we fit these in, what choices do we make, what hard choices do we make to make sure that expenditures and revenues don’t strip each other are all things that are going to be started in this Assembly but will be carried to fruition in the 18th Assembly’s budget. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I’ve always thought that a well-served people will generate their own economy and give their returns to government. The recent Localizing Our Economies forum indicated a huge amount of interest across the NWT in creating strong local economies that benefit the people of the North through local food and energy projects, as examples. Such projects need little investment, compared to large infrastructure projects and subsidies to boom and bust resource extraction industries, yet they create relatively many local lasting jobs that return perpetual benefits to our communities.
What are this government’s plans to invest this increased capacity in localizing our community economies, such as through locally owned and controlled renewable food and energy projects? Mahsi.
I was briefly at the gathering the Member talks about, and there was a lot of interesting discussion. I will indicate two things, first that there is an enormous amount of activity already underway by ITI, by MACA, by ENR, in all the areas that we have a concern with in terms of local economies but also with the broader economic issues that we are all tasked with making sure that we manage the $ 1.9 billion budget, make sure our revenues match our expenditures. So, once again, there’s a process in place, as the Member is well aware in his eighth year as a Member of this Assembly, that will deal with the discussions through the main estimates process, the business planning process, of how do we move forward and what investments we make and can afford to make, keeping in mind this borrowing limit is not free money. This borrowing limit is money borrowed that has to be paid back, and that has to be factored in as well.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister again. I don’t disagree with many of his comments, although I think if he looked at what our paybacks are with the current interest with the investments that this government has been doing, he would find that, in fact, the costs far outweigh the economic benefits to the people of the Northwest Territories. They’d certainly benefit people outside the Northwest Territories.
To date, this government has failed to address the growing lineup for seniors care beds across the Northwest Territories. As we heard earlier today, waiting lists are longer and longer while spending years servicing the proper protocols on capital the situation worsens, forcing seniors to leave or suffer the consequences.
Within this new debt limit is the government prepared, at last, to commit to addressing the growing needs of our elders, particularly in Yellowknife?
I first think it’s important to make a note or a point for the edification of people listening, and that is that if we didn’t have the diamond mines we would be short about $1.5 billion a year out of gross domestic product, and I can tell you, if we had that big a hole in our economy that we would be in a far more difficult and bitter position than we would ever think by the loss of those types of activities.
We need to make sure we work with industry to have sustainable, balanced development. The Minister of ITI talked about that in his Minister’s statement today. We mustn’t forget that we have to do both. The local economies are good, but they won’t generate the types of revenues that we need to maintain the Northerners and the lifestyle and at the level that we have become accustomed to.
In regards to the seniors, those issues are being looked at. We have some of the best seniors’ benefits and programs in the country, and we will continue to have, and we will work on the capital requirements that are there.
