Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are cost of living issues here. There are decisions being made in a community that’s interested in lowering those costs of living challenges, and it’s an issue for the territorial government. The Power Corporation is a vehicle for all people in the Northwest Territories, a Crown corporation with 42,000 shareholders. That’s the underlying impetus here. Thank you.
I will let that stand for itself. Government has decided to support communities in opening their franchises for power delivery and distribution, suggesting that there is money to be saved, as the Minister just said, and that the cost of living will be lowered significantly through competition. The cost of power generation is as significant, or more significant even, than distribution.
Is the Minister now also prepared to give communities the discretion to open power generation to competition in order to fully address power costs for both our consumers, the environment and our communities? Mahsi.
We already have the practice of entertaining power purchase agreements and buying power from folks who are generating it. For example, the people of Lutselk’e.
There wasn’t an answer there, but I do congratulate Lutselk’e by taking the bull by the horns and finessing a power purchase agreement, a rare animal indeed, from the Power Corporation.
Cabinet has severely restricted the power of the supposedly arm’s-length Public Utilities Board to protect the public by restricting their ability to adjust power rates by more than 1 percent per year. This change means correction to the 30 percent excess NTPC charges South Slave Power was assessed in 2008, the last time they did a cost of power study, could take decades.
As the government has arbitrarily taken this regulatory power away from the PUB, are they similarly prepared to arbitrarily roll back this unfair windfall for the Power Corporation at the expense of power consumers in the South Slave? Mahsi.
Nothing has been arbitrarily taken away and we provide a role, as government, in an orderly measured way when we think it’s required to make sure that the system that we have before us functions to the best efficiency possible.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
I will take that as a no, they won’t protect the people of the South Slave from that excess power charge.
This government seems willing to make decisions in a policy vacuum and without input, any input, an iota of input from Regular Members or Aboriginally owned communities, companies and consumers or communities, for that matter. As a Regular Member, I am acutely aware of the lack of such a policy and am uncomfortable, to say the least, to leaving such decisions to Cabinet’s most recent whims.
My question is: When can we expect a rigorous, comprehensive and collaborative process to develop the umbrella energy policy on which to base the decisions, transparent decisions, that so greatly affect our communities, our cost of living, which the Power Corporation has never addressed, and our environment? Mahsi.
I would suggest that for the last eight years now, we’ve been hard at work with our evolving energy strategy, from the time we put $60 million in our last government to a serious investment, $60 million towards alternative energy that we’ve come up with an energy plan. We’ve had energy charrettes that have helped structure and focus that energy plan. We’ve had another energy charrette last November and there is going to be a response tabled in the House this week. We have a power system plan from NTPC power as it was looking at infrastructure for the transmission line expansion to see if that was a viable option. We have a Biomass Strategy, a Solar Strategy, all of which have involved MLAs, have involved committees with regular briefings. So, the Member is erroneous in his assertions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources with regard to how we hire our summer students. Every year we get summer students who come up from post-secondary school, whether it’s in Alberta, BC, Yukon, even here in the Northwest Territories, Aurora College.
My first question is: How many government summer jobs are filled with post-secondary students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of May 28th, we had hired 249 that have signed offers, 242 of those people are either finishing first year, second year, third year or in the fourth or fifth year. Seven of the 249 students will be starting university this fall. Thank you.
When putting out these jobs for competition with the students, has the Minister been working with the other departments or even with his department and looked at doing a coordinated start date for all post-secondary students so it creates an equal opportunity for all students who come back up to the North and for northern students, as well, to have the equal opportunity of applying on these jobs?
As we know, some schools, some colleges, some universities let their students out sooner than others. Obviously, those ones who are let out sooner have a greater advantage of putting their resumes out and possibly securing jobs while others are still in studies.
Has the Minister looked at creating a coordinated start date for all post-secondary students so that everyone gets an equal opportunity for these jobs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The government starts accepting applications from university students, post-secondary students, any time after December 1st. We run the application phase right up until August 15th, when some of the students are not starting back immediately at the beginning of September. So, we try to coordinate it so the first group who usually finishes university for the year, end of April, we hire a few of the students, a majority of the students then, and we realize there are more students finishing at the end of May and at the end of June. We try to coordinate it so those students are given opportunities as well. Thank you.
I think the Minister mentioned earlier that there were about 19 pending applications out there, job offers. I don’t know what process they are in with these offers.
It’s June 1st already, so I know some students would have gotten out of school at the end of April or even mid-April. We’ve still got some job pending offers here. As I mentioned, we still have Grade 12 students who are still taking studies, so they aren’t going to have the equal opportunity to get some of these government jobs.
What is the Minister doing to speed up the process so some of these jobs get filled a lot faster, giving our post-secondary students more time in the job so they can save their money for when they go back to school in the fall? What is the department doing to speed up that process to ensure our post-secondary students get into the jobs a lot sooner? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Last year we hired 212 students at the GNWT. This year, as I indicated, we have 268 students working, plus pending. So, if you compare it to last year, we are slightly ahead of the number at this point than we were last year.
What we’re doing is we are marketing ourselves in several ways. We have the e-mail messenger that goes out. We have a website. We looked at the human resources centres. We advertise in band offices. We talk to government services officers – we have 19 government service officers – and they are also involved. We have newspaper advertisements, et cetera, as an attempt to try to bring the students in as quickly as possible. So, we are fairly happy with the pace at which the students are coming in. We anticipate that we’ll be at least around the number that we were last year, or maybe a little bit better than that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Within our public service system there are jobs that we have that are hard to fill, and I know at that meeting with Aurora College last week we talked about how do we look at creating programs for those hard-to-fill jobs. We talked about mentorship for our post-secondary students.
What is the Minister doing to address our mentorship problems when we have jobs that are hard to fill? If we have jobs that are hard to fill and we have a student that is trying to get into that program, what is he doing to accommodate those students to practice what they’re going to school for? Should we not have somebody in a position to mentor them?
We have been reviewing our vacancies and we have what we consider hard-to-fill positions of around 60 to 65 positions in the GNWT. Although not specifically targeted to those actual jobs, we do have some internship programs the government provides to the various departments, depending on the size of the department, a certain amount of money to get interns, and we provide enough money to have 32 interns in the GNWT. We usually end up filling all of those jobs. We also have a Progressive Experience Program within the student hires. We have 80 of those positions and currently we have 69 of them filled. The Department of Health and Social Services has the relevant experience programs for students and they have 24 of those positions in the department and currently they have 15 of those positions filled.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions, as well, today are addressed to the Minister of Human Resources. I’d like to start off by asking him about an event that was held about two weeks ago, not that long ago. It was open houses that the Department of HR held in seven different communities across the NWT. I haven’t heard anything since they were held as to what sort of success there was from these open houses, what were the results of the initiative, so that’s my question to the Minister initially.
Were these open houses successful? Does he have any results that he can share with the House as to the success or failure of this initiative?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; there were open houses held across the North, and the idea would be to try to provide information to individuals who are interested in coming to work for the Government of the Northwest Territories. I don’t have the matching amounts for the number of individuals that have come to the open houses and whether or not that resulted in us hiring more individuals as a result of the open houses. I know that it has been a good avenue for disseminating information from Human Resources and several departments that do participate to getting people in the communities who are trying to get work with the GNWT.
So far the information I’ve got is it’s been successful, but I don’t have the particular numbers on each of the open houses that results in actual people coming to work for the GNWT.
I look forward to seeing the numbers that the Minister can pull together at some point in time. I’m not surprised he doesn’t have them. It was only two weeks ago, after all.
We’ve held open houses or career fairs, job fairs, whatever you want to call them, in the South as well. I would like to know from the Minister, my understanding is that when we hold a career fair or a job fair in the South that the staff that are attending these fairs are able to offer a job on the spot to applicants who they think are credible and could take a job. I’d like to know from the Minister if I’m correct in that assumption, and if that’s the case, was the same ability given to staff at the career fairs or the open houses that we held in the NWT? Were they able to hire people on the spot?
We are looking at the hard-to-fill positions, as the Member refers to the open houses in the South. We are looking at jobs that have been vacant for at least 18 months and have been advertised at least two times in the North and still with no success of filling the positions. Now we are trying to develop a team that will go down there and make job offers on the spot in those hard-to-fill positions. In the NWT, our open houses, we’re not dealing with the same group of people. These jobs are not considered hard to fill. We will go through the regular process of the departments working with HR to go through the advertising process. The people who are attending the open houses do not have the authority to hire people on the spot at open houses in the NWT.
To the Minister: That’s rather unfortunate. We have so many jobs in the GNWT which are unfilled, whether they’re hard to fill or whether they’re just “regular jobs,” so I fail to understand why the department wouldn’t want to hire as many people as possible, fill as many positions as possible, particularly in the North, but whether they be hard to fill or not.
One of the things that we have heard much about but have yet to see written on paper is the Population Strategy that this government is working towards bringing 2,000 bodies to the NWT to try and beef up our population.
I’d like to know what the Department of Human Resources is doing. What is their part in this Population Strategy to contribute to bring more residents to the territory?
The Department of Human Resources works with all of the departments and we are thinking that reducing the vacancy rate is something that will increase the population in the Northwest Territories. I referred earlier on in my response to hard-to-fill positions that where we will be actively trying to hire individuals from the South and giving the people the ability to hire on the spot. In those positions we’re expecting to increase the population by that.
As far as vacancies go, a year ago we had over 1,100, well, 1,175 vacancies six months ago. We’re down to 1,038 vacancies, and today we’re at 917 vacancies. Each time we do a vacancy we actively try to reduce the amount of vacant positions in the GNWT, and I think that we’re being fairly successful.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I totally agree. It seems like a no-brainer that reducing the vacancy rate is going to bring more people to the Northwest Territories. But I guess I would like to know from the Minister, if we’re trying to reduce our vacancy rate – and I have to say, I have to give credit to the department for reducing the vacancies by 200 or so, as the Minister mentioned – or we’re trying to fill jobs, why would we not, at these open houses, albeit we’re giving out info, but why would we not give our staff the ability to hire on the spot to fill as many jobs as possible with Northerners?
To give them the authority to hire at the open houses within the Northwest Territories would not really be something that would be necessary. That’s the reason we’re not doing it. We could look at talking to departments that may want to go there and be prepared to look at applicants of certain positions that they may talk about in the open houses. But at this point we find that the departments are being relatively successful in trying to reduce the vacancy rates and do the hiring using the current method of how we are hiring people in the Northwest Territories. For that reason we had not contemplated the idea that individuals who are attending the open houses, we had the ability to hire on the spot.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about poverty and its impact on seniors. To better set the stage, in Yellowknife we have at least 55 seniors on the waiting list to get into Avens. As a matter of fact, there’s not a week goes by that I don’t have a call from someone who says they can’t even get on the list, they fear, maybe even their lifetime.
So, knowing that the last investments at Avens was 2007 where they were able to build eight units, and in 1992 where they were able to build 24 units, I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing when was the last investment invested into seniors housing in the Northwest Territories, more specifically in the Yellowknife area.
Can he describe the amount of housing provided to seniors and what investments in Yellowknife? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of NWT Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In Yellowknife alone we’ve provided some money to the Aven’s Working Group to help with their new plan that they have going forward. Sixty-four percent of our homeownership projects in the last year have been utilized by seniors. So as far as the actual investment in seniors housing in Yellowknife itself, there hasn’t been much other than the programs that we have for repair, but across the Northwest Territories we have four seniors units that we’re building and one seniors unit that we’re replacing in some of the smaller communities. Thank you.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing why they’re not investing into more housing for seniors in Yellowknife. In my Member’s statement I pointed out that in the age category between 65 and 74 we’re going to see almost a 400 percent increase in growth, and further, at the age category of 75-plus we’re seeing over 400 percent growth in the next 11 years in seniors. So, clearly, seniors need housing. They need housing options, and these housing options will keep them out of poverty. Avens is an able and certainly a willing partner.
Would the Minister be willing to find some money to help invest in their project so they can expand housing solutions for seniors? Thank you.
As I said before, we have given $150,000 to help with the planning, and part of that planning, I’m assuming, is going to be a business plan coming forward with a dollar figure attached. So, we’ll look forward to seeing what they come up with.
As far as the Member’s numbers, the Member’s numbers are correct. You know, we do recognize that there is going to be a larger population of seniors down the road and we at the Housing Corporation are coming up with some innovative ways to try and address that. One of those ways is working with the City of Yellowknife on their Canada Winter Games proposal to see if there are opportunities for us there to provide something to them to use as an athlete’s village and then possibly turned into a seniors facility once the Games are done. So, we are finding innovative ways to stretch our limited resources as far as they can go. Thank you.
The Canada Winter Games, of course, is a number of years away. So, we can all hope, of course, and we’ll see if accountability actually shows up in a sense of someday that actually materializes. More specifically, the Minister says they’re looking for innovative ways.
What about being innovative by doing what the Housing Corporation’s portfolio is really about, about establishing housing in need areas? Seniors need housing. It keeps them out of poverty situations. They’re not all in that situation, but many are. CMHC facts will tell you that. So, if the Minister wants to be innovative, why doesn’t he make a decision today to say we’re going to put 50 more units in the city of Yellowknife within the next five years? He could do that by initiating that type of mandate and doing what Housing is supposed to do: build houses.
Housing does a good job of providing housing and programs, and as I said before, 64 percent of the uptake is from... Oh sorry, I thought you were…
I was looking at the Page here. Go ahead.
Sixty-four percent of the repair programs are taken up by seniors. As I said before, we are challenged again by our limited financial resources. We are trying to put together a plan to deal with a lot of the houses.
In some of the larger market areas we’re a little more challenged because we have our territorial Rent Supplement Program that provides some relief and we have a number of programs that are designed specifically for seniors and trying to help with their housing needs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Sorry about that. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A 400 percent increase in seniors in the Northwest Territories in the Yellowknife-specific region only is a serious initiative.
When is the last time this Minister of Housing has put in a request for a capital investment to have a serious impact in the housing situation directly intended to invest in seniors to ensure that they have quality housing to keep them out of poverty? When was the last time we’ve had an investment, and furthermore, what’s stopping him from putting that request in to invest in seniors, invest in population growth that would make a huge difference? Thank you.
As I said before, we have four seniors units that are going up across the Northwest Territories. We have one that’s being replaced because of the age. So we have five in total and we continue to bring forward recommendations and we continue to have a look at where we can access money. As I said to the Member before, we are trying to come up with ways where we can deal with some of the issues of seniors housing here in the capital and I brought forward one of the things that we’re looking at. The Member talked about 11 years. I know the Games are a bit away, but we need to start the work and start the planning now so we’re not rushing at the last minute.
So, we continue to do what we can with our limited resources, again, being challenged with the CMHC declining funding, to bring more and more seniors housing on board, recognizing the fact that the population is growing rapidly over the next few years. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to follow up on my statement regarding the moose ticks in the NWT. My question is to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. Recently on record, the NWT experienced major impacts on the woodland caribou in terms of their population decline. At the same time, we experienced a major impact on the Mackenzie wood bison population in terms of the anthrax outbreak. Now we’re seeing, perhaps, the vestiges of a warming climate where it’s getting warmer in the NWT.
Has the GNWT identified a risk to the NWT moose from ticks or other insect infestations? Mahsi.
