These numbers are set on a methodology that’s negotiated with the UNW, but I’ll ask the deputy to provide more information. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, as the Minister said, the methodology was agreed to at the time when the Collective Agreement was negotiated and in the methodology there are numbers that are as of April 1st that year. So, the methodology doesn’t change. The numbers or the components that make up the northern allowance do change from year to year depending on what happens with the inflation as it relates to those factors. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Aumond. Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering if we’re able to get that information or is it available on a public website where we can get the new northern allowance adjustments or the new allowances and which communities went up and which communities went down.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can provide that information to committee. Thank you.
I’ve just got a question about the ones that are going down. Is that based on the fact that the cost of living is going down in some communities? I would assume most of them or all of them would have gone up. So what would the differences be and why would there be a negative?
The one thing that comes to mind, and I’ll ask the deputy to speak further to this, is things like if you put in a bridge across a river, possibly, I’m not sure of the methodologies there tied to cost of living, inflation and location and those types of things. But I’ll ask the deputy, Mr. Aumond, to speak further. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s a basket of goods that the proxy for cost of living and Yellowknife is the base rate. So, some communities may rise or fall in their cost of living differential compared to Yellowknife, and that varies from year to year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bouchard.
So if we’re using Yellowknife as the base and also using the calculations of the community, it could be the price in Yellowknife went down or the price of the community went up or vice versa I guess. Is that the factor or, I guess, how do we keep that stable in the fact that the greater the northern living allowance adjustment to a community, the cost to the community may have gone up, but if Yellowknife was affected then everybody gets affected?
Thank you. Yes, by Yellowknife being the base, Yellowknife is recalculated every April 1st and then every community is calculated compared to Yellowknife April 1st. So, depending on what those factors in that basket are compared from which community to Yellowknife, some communities go up and some come down on any given year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Committee, we’re on page 5, Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $84,000; income security, not previously authorized, $1.332 million; labour development and standards, not previously authorized, $226,000. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am in the right section. I wanted to ask a bit about the $215,000 here to provide funding for increasing immigration to the Northwest Territories in support of the NWT Growth Strategy. I’d like to ask the Minister where this strategy is. I don’t believe that Members on this side of the House have seen that strategy. I would like to know what it is that ECE is doing that will contribute to this Growth Strategy to increase immigration. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The update on the NWT Growth Strategy is on its way to committee. I just signed the letter at the break and we will be tabling it before the end of session by Thursday.
What is contemplated here is to deal with the increased number of seats that we have, spots that we have with the Immigration Program and to be able to ramp up the recruiting and the advertising and getting the required immigrant staff or folks who are interested in coming or immigrating to the Northwest Territories to get them into the system, through the system under the new Express Program that has been set up and to make sure that we have every position that we have available for our nominees filled. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. It’s difficult for me to feel comfortable in approving a fund, sorry, and to approve this funding in the absence of knowing exactly how it’s going to contribute to a plan that I haven’t seen yet. So, I appreciate that the Minister says that it’s coming, but it certainly would have been helpful if we had had that strategy before we had to approve these expenses.
I just want to say, in my limited experience with trying to get somebody through this Nominee Program, it’s not an easy process. It seems to be fraught with bureaucratic red tape and much of it, part of it is imposed by the feds, some of it is our own red tape, but the Minister mentions the express, I forget the title, but an express route, I guess, through the Nominee Program. Does that mean that some of these roadblocks through red tape and through requiring this document and that document and this evaluation and that evaluation, are some of those going to be waived so that we will be able to get people here quicker or better? Thank you.
Yes, the intent is to look at a six-month timeline. It’s geared to economic immigration where you can go in and reach into the lists that identify people who have the skills, if you need to bring in, to offer employment to. We had a base of 150 spots and we’ve received an additional 100, so we are very keen to get those all filled and operational as soon as possible. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. That’s all well and good. It sounds good, but what is the department going to be doing to fill these 250 spots? There’s money here and there’s also money in ITI, so it ends up to be about $314,000. What are we using that $300,000 for? Thank you.
We’ve got $100,000 identified for a communication campaign. There’s $30,000 identified for communication materials for the campaign strategy; $15,000 for website change, revisions and ongoing maintenance; French translation, website and all other materials is $20,000; immigration, legislation and regulatory training is $10,000; travel and transport, NWT and national, is $20,000; and international travel and transportation is $20,000. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for the detail. I accept it at face value, but I just have to reiterate that it’s hard to know exactly how this is going to fit in with a strategy we haven’t seen yet. Thanks. That’s all I have, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. More of a comment, but I will allow the Minister an opportunity to reply. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We note the Member’s concern and hopefully the proof will be in the pudding here in the not-too-distant future. If we can fill those hundred spots and each spot that is filled is calculated to bring in somewhere in the neighbourhood of potentially three people or a shade more, depending if they’re married and how many children they have, it’s an investment that I think we need to make. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to follow up on my colleague Ms. Bisaro’s comments. I’m obviously uncomfortable with this without the context of what the strategy is, something we’ve heard talked about for years but have never seen the pudding.
Did I hear that we’re going to spend something like $100,000 on communication materials? And if I did, maybe I can get some explanation, in this day and age of busying your thumbs for a couple of minutes and being able to communicate across the globe, exactly what that $100,000 is going to.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a highly competitive area, especially economic-based immigration, so we have to look at what’s available in Canada, what may be available elsewhere, and we have to be able to make sure that the people who have the skills we need are where work’s possible, probable and available in the Northwest Territories, and all that requires some of the seed money to do that. Thank you.
Again, not something I can support. We have extreme unemployment in parts of the Northwest Territories, and we’re travelling, there are international programs here and so on, and I’m all for immigration, but my understanding is there’s a lot of people trying to get here, and I don’t see how we’re spending over $300,000 on this when we have already so many people who, with some training, could start to fill in these sorts of things. We’ve got the students graduating. The schools in Yellowknife are some of the best in the country, so we know we’re producing capable people. What are we not doing to bring those capable people back home?
Mr. Chairman, as we have discussed and we have been taken to task for, the population is flat or declining. Everybody in the Northwest Territories who has skills, qualifications, that is available to work, for the most part is working. We have a very high employment rate in that area.
We know that there are job requirements in the North that aren’t being filled. We are investing money, as well, to do a better job to make sure that northern students are given every opportunity to return home with employment with the government or anywhere else that employment may be available. We’re making changes to SFA to provide more incentive for that to happen. We’re going down south now with the Human Resource folks to job fairs and such, sometimes in conjunction with partnership with industry, where we can now hire while we’re down there and make interim job offers pending reference checks.
So, this is not just that there’s only one level to pull or there’s a silver bullet. We know that we need to look at all these different areas. We know that many of our own students when they come home, even if they get jobs here, especially if they’re in the fly-in/fly-out, may go south anyway.
So, we have all these challenges and we’ve been tasked and we set out a goal of 2,000 in five years, four now, and we need to leave no opportunity unexplored in order to bend that trend. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s comments but, I mean, many of us take a completely different view. It’s that we’re not doing the right things to retain our people. We are training some of the best people in the world, very professional people coming out of the Northwest Territories and they’re leaving, or not returning, after education. Why is that?
I wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question, but we have people coming and going all the time. We have some of the best benefit packages, lifestyle issues that we think would attract folks, as do the private sector. But the reality is we have a fly-in/fly-out population that is fairly large. We have our birthrate that balances out, but on the exodus side we have some folks leaving, a few more leaving than are coming. So, those are questions, one that Mr. Bromley raised, that we are trying to deal with, with incentives to come here and to stay here and to bring folks from other places where there are jobs that are going unfilled because there’s not available skilled labour in that area that want or can do that job. Thank you.
Again, Mr. Chair, we’re doing all these things and they’re not working. Is there not a lesson to be learned there? I mean, we hear over and over again that people want real supports, not big money going to big multinational companies and subsidies and $300 million highways, you know, that are going to cost us to try and maintain. People have real needs right now, and if we were delivering those properly, we’d be retaining people, we’d be giving them the quality of life that will make them want to be here and we will be attracting those skills. So, without that reasoning laid out in a strategy that supports expenditures like this and programs like this vetted through committee, I can’t support this sort of thing.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’m taking that more as a final comment. Is there a question to that, or is that the end of your questions, Mr. Bromley?
No question.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. As convention presents itself, I will let Minister Miltenberger have the final comment here. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have a challenge ahead of us and it does require some investment. We can’t just turn our back on trying to address the issue. I know the Member’s position is that we can somehow find all the talent we need in the North and if we keep it here it will all be well and good, but first we need an economy.
We have diamond mines that add $1.6 billion to our GDP every year. They have a significant fly-in/fly-out population. We are working with the mines. In fact, there’s a meeting this week to talk about this initiative, as well, from the private sector’s perspective and the things they’re doing to try to keep and encourage their workforce to stay in the North, and it’s a long-term commitment.
You can’t just, after 18 months, throw up your hands and say it’s not working and let’s not do it anymore and then wonder why our population keeps dropping. We have to make decisions, make choices, and we have to make investments, and that’s what this is.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Committee, we’re on page 5, Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $84,000; income security, not previously authorized, $1.332 million; labour development and standards, not previously authorized, $226,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $1.474 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 6, Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, conservation, assessment and monitoring, not previously authorized, $1,000; corporate management, not previously authorized, $9,000; environment, not previously authorized, $206,000; forest management, not previously authorized, $15,000; water resources, not previously authorized, $519,000; wildlife, not previously authorized, $59,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $809,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Turn to page 7, Executive, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $575,000. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some concerns with the two items of funding on this page. The first one is under the directorate and it has to do with funding for costs associated with the communications functional review. Five hundred sixteen thousand dollars is itemized under directorate and then $335,000 under Ministers’ offices. I know we’ve been back and forth with the government a bit on this between Members and Cabinet. We have had some information about what this expenditure is for. I’d like to, first of all, I guess, ask the Minister, since this is an additional cost and I don’t believe it’s being offset by any funding that we already have like federal funding or devolution money or whatever, but I’d like to know what this $516,000 under the directorate is going to be used for.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This funding is coming from transitional funding tied to devolution, and there are two things at play here. One is we have taken over about $63 million worth of new programs and services that we’ve integrated into the government with many new responsibilities, mandates and authorities. We’ve integrated them into the Government of the Northwest Territories. As well, we have a communication infrastructure that’s 20 years old and in need of enhancement prior to devolution, even more so now after devolution. We’ve taken on, for example, significant regulatory functions. We need to be able to manage those and other communication responsibilities. This money is going to go towards identifying what needs to be done and then putting in some funding to in fact address the communications issue, an issue I would add that, once again, we’ve been taken to task for time after time by Members of the Legislative Assembly, in terms of things that should be done better, that need to be done better, and we’re attempting to do that in a reasoned way.
I would ask, as well, if the Premier wanted to add anything further to that particular issue.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. We’ll go to the Premier. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, we feel that it’s important for us to fulfill our new responsibilities by having better communications, functions and structures, and in order to meet these requirements we’re requesting funding that has been through the devolution transitional funding which will provide for three additional positions, three in the corporate communications and two in the Cabinet communications. This is an opportunity to provide communications that would respect our unique northern cultures and also fulfill a lot of the principles that we’ve talked about, to ensure the public is informed on a timely, accurate and consistent manner, that it’s managed in an orderly and planned function, that the public is informed about government policies and activities and that the concerns and the views of the public are taken into account and ensure that the government is visible and accessible and that adequate information is provided.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to both Ministers. I hear that this money is going to be used for five new positions, and I can appreciate two things. I can appreciate that we’ve taken on greater responsibilities, and I can also appreciate that our communications have been seen to be lacking. I am certainly one of those who has suggested that we could do things a heck of a lot better. But I’m wondering where the decision that we needed five PYs has come from. Minister Miltenberger indicated that this money is going to be used to look at things and determine where to go. The Premier indicates that there are five PYs, so how did we come to this decision that we needed five PYs?
