Question.
Question has been called. Motion is carried.
---Carried
Bill 69, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, No. 2, has had first reading.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that Bill 68, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, No. 2, be read for the second time.
This bill amends the Child and Family Services Act to remove all references to the Child and Family Services Committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Bill 68, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, No. 2, had had second reading. Mr. Abernethy.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 69(2) and have Bill 68 moved into Committee of the Whole.
---Unanimous consent granted
I’d like to call Committee of a Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee, Ms. Bisaro?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We wish to deal with Tabled Document 324-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2015-2016; and Tabled Document 325-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 3, 2015-2016, and, Mr. Chair, we’d like to start with the capital estimates, which we did not conclude yesterday. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Alright, committee. We’ll commence after a short break.
---SHORT RECESS
Order, committee. I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. With that, we’ll continue on capital estimates as agreed upon earlier. With that, I’ll turn it over to the Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services to see if he has any witnesses that he’d like to bring into the House.
Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you can please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Thank you. Minister Abernethy, for the record, if you could please introduce your guests.
Thank you. Here with me today are Debbie DeLancey, the deputy minister on my right; and Derek Elkin, the assistant deputy minister on my left.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. DeLancey, Mr. Elkin, welcome back to the House. Committee, as I indicated, we’re on page 37 with the Department of Health and Social Services. With that, we’ll start with general comments. Is committee prepared to go to detail?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we’ll defer page 37, capital estimates. I turn your attention to pages 38 and 39, capital estimates, administrative and support services, infrastructure investments, $44.134 million. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of questions here. First of all, I wonder if I can get an update on the Child and Family Information System. I’m sure a mass of information was provided, but for clarity this is something we’ve been trying to get done since midway through the 16th Assembly. I know we’ve tried a couple of times and failed during this Assembly, even though the money was budgeted. I would be concerned if this was a modification of the current system, which we know is not worth the paper it’s printed on. So I’m just looking for an update on what exactly is involved here with this. I think it’s our third attempt during this Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We’re not looking at rebuilding the existing system in any way, shape or form. We’re actually moving forward with an all new system. I know that we have begun the internal work, have started on this particular project, the project planning. Working groups have been assembled, including professionals that will be utilizing the system. Communications and change management work has begun. I can also say that we have actually chosen a preferred vendor and we’re currently in the process of negotiating the contract. I believe the contract negotiations will be concluded in December, at which point we will be moving forward with the work on the new system.
Thank you for that update to the Minister. I appreciate that and I think it sounds like we’re getting after it here. So, this is spread over two fiscal years. This will be finishing up the system, if that’s what we’re approving here today. Thank you.
There’s money in the current fiscal year that we’re in today and this is money for ’16-17 that will take us through, hopefully, to conclusion of that project.
Just moving on, and I know, as a P3 project, the Stanton Territorial Hospital, I’m not sure if it’s a renewal project, but a new project, is a P3 and, therefore, probably involves Finance as well as Public Works and Services. So far we don’t have a good record for finishing our large infrastructure projects on budget. Most recently, of course, is the Inuvik-Tuk Highway, which is half built and already 15 percent above the promised cost. I guess one of the things that we hear about a lot and that we’ve seen with the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Line, for example, is what’s termed in the analysis literature on P3 projects as “cost creep,” where the government keeps shifting what the cost is and says they’re meeting those costs.
So, what checks and balances are in place to ensure that the cost of this facility does not go over, like has been our experience to date with large infrastructure projects? Thank you.
I hear the Member’s concerns around P3 projects and we have, before moving forward with this particular project, reviewed other P3s that were done for the construction of hospital facilities across the country and there have been some that have worked out not particularly well, but we also know that there have been some that have worked out. We’ve also reviewed the Auditor General’s reports and other reports that were conducted on some of those P3 projects and we’ve moved forward, recognizing the number of the recommendations that were put forward in those particular projects. One of the recommendations, I believe it was in one of the facilities in Ontario, is that you need to have a hard cap on the construction component of the P3 project and we have a hard cap of around $300 million, maybe slightly over $300 million of the P3 project to replace Stanton facilities. We also have checks and balances and teams put together to monitor the progress to make sure that we’re getting what we want when we expect to get it, and some external reviews that will help us obviously ensure that we are meeting our commitment and the contractor’s commitment moving forward to make sure that we get this facility that’s going to provide high quality services to all the residents of the Northwest Territories over the next 30 years.
Thanks to the Minister. Perhaps just a quick follow-up on the monitoring teams. I think it’s clear that we have a record of non-inclusiveness from the government for Regular MLAs with timely information.
What will be the responsibility to get the reports of the monitoring teams in a timely manner to all Members of the Legislative Assembly? Thank you.
I know the Minister of Finance has indicated they will be providing updates to committees moving forward. That will be in the life of the 18th Assembly. I’m sure that the standing committees responsible and whoever happens to be on Cabinet will be able to set up a protocol to make sure information is being shared in a timely and appropriate way.
I appreciate the 18th Assembly will have that role as do we. We are, right now, talking about the 17th Assembly as we set this up and discuss this budget. I would like to know there will be a commitment to get timely information from these monitoring teams to all Members of the Legislative Assembly.
I believe the Minister of Finance has already made that commitment and we will live up to it accordingly.
Maybe I could just ask the Minister to commit to finding me where that has been documented.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll turn our attention to Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will make it on the record here that we will provide that information. We will be monitoring closely the system designed with checks and balances to ensure compliance and a high level of implementation. We will commit to share that with committee now and on an ongoing basis.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger, for that clarification. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Minister for that. I would like to know how many GNWT personnel are we letting go as a result of this project and do we have any indication of how many of them will be picked up by the new provider. Is it possible to get a breakdown of those according to the various areas? I know there is building maintenance and so on by a very committed bunch of staff there, part of our GNWT staff that we’re losing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s projected to be nine positions that may be affected by this. I will not give the names and the specifics at this point because we want to give the CEO at Stanton the opportunity to talk to the staff and make sure they are fully informed before we release their position which will, in fact, identify the individuals. It is nine facilities maintenance staff. BHP will be taking over the facility’s maintenance of the project effective 2018 when the facility officially opens.
So there is no other staff, just the maintenance staff. It will be all GNWT staff that will be taken over, just for confirmation. Thank you.
That is correct. There are positions in the facility today that are contract staff, whether it’s laundry services or food services, dietary. Those are going to be part of BHP’s facilities management and building management in the future, but they are not GNWT staff. Only nine GNWT positions will be impacted.
I would like to add, Mr. Chair, that this is a significantly larger facility than the one we have available to us today and we actually anticipate, in order to provide the full scope of services that are going to be in that building, requiring additional positions just like we needed additional positions in Hay River and other facilities when we’ve constructed them, there will be a number of new positions created as a result of this build.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Bromley, if you want to be put back on the list, just let me know. Getting back to questions on pages 38 and 39 on administrative and support services, I have Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions about the Stanton Project as well. Obviously, there is a bit of a balancing here. We, obviously, as Regular Members, had an opportunity to walk through Stanton, and there is definitely a need for improvement to the facility, and talking to some of the contractors that were bidding on it and were talking about bidding on it, a stand-alone building is probably more efficient and a more effective way to do this project.
I guess the difficulty comes in the fact that in the communities in the regions we kind of often see that and say, okay, well, Yellowknife’s getting a bigger health centre. I know it’s a territorial facility, and I appreciate that, but I guess some of the difficulty that I’m hearing is what’s going to be done with the old hospital. My understanding was that when we build our new facilities, we build them for the health care only, and then our own facilities, I’ll use Hay River as an example, we’re going to use our old medical clinic for office space. I was thinking, in Stanton’s case, we’d be building a hospital just for the essentials, using the old hospital probably for the administration, just like we’re planning to do in Hay River with the medical clinic, but it seems like we’re doing a bigger project than that, which is difficult for us who are continuing to look for things in the regions.
I understand we’re building a new hospital, but it’s going to be a “have your cake and eat it too” scenario where there’s a double whammy. You’re getting a new hospital and you’re getting a new upgraded facility in the community. There are probably some needs for that somewhere, but from a regional perspective, people are always looking at that and obviously criticizing it.
I know Mr. Bromley was asking those questions, and the Minister was talking about staffing, and obviously we have an issue in Hay River about our staffing. We originally started asking for 33 new positions, went down to 21 and then come back and we are about to be given a lesser amount. Before we get too far down the road, we should actually have some of those numbers of the staffing that a brand new $350 million building is going to add for staffing. I’m assuming that Stanton is probably similar to the new Hay River Health Centre where things are separated and you already need separate staff, so the numbers will maybe be different. In Hay River we’re seeing a scenario where the ER and patient care are separate right now, where they were together before, so we’re seeing that type of increase for that at that facility. But we should know that going into Stanton right now. We should be doing some of those operational assessments right now so that Regular Members can understand the pressures that we’re going to see in that health care.
The other question that I have, and I see the portable ultrasounds are in two areas in this budget and I’m not so much concerned about ultrasounds, but I’m just talking about equipment. I know in the South Slave we have a situation where we have a lot of people travelling from Fort Smith to Hay River and a lot of them are taking cabs and a lot of them are travelling there, and even some of those people in Fort Smith are talking about moving to Hay River because they’re on a dialysis system. I know Fort Smith used to have dialysis. I don’t know if it’s an operational thing or we got it and they didn’t, we took it from them or…
Why can’t we run two dialysis systems in the South Slave? We’re spending a whole bunch of money transporting people, forcing people who are on dialysis who are ill to travel three times a week. It’s probably costing us an arm and a leg. It’s definitely affecting the care and concern of public because those people are actually talking about moving to a community where they’re getting that service.
I think we need to look at that as far as getting dialysis back in Smith for the residents of those communities. Obviously, we appreciate the economic driver with those people coming into the community, but it’s getting to a point where it’s beyond that and beyond just a small economic driver. It’s actually affecting people’s lives. If we could look into that process, I think that’s definitely a difficulty we have.
I’ll just wait for the Minister’s answers on that.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A lot of questions there. Just to be clear, the RFP for Stanton was prepared to ensure the broadest potential options for bidders to develop the most affordable and efficient proposal. The procurement process that we went through does not limit the redevelopment solutions. A full range of proposals were considered for Stanton, including renovation of the existing building and provision of a completely new hospital. A new build proposal was considered, provided that the proposed solution did not include demolition of the existing hospital, and addressed the GNWT’s requirements with respect to the future development and long-term maintenance.
The BHP proposal included an opportunity to repurpose the existing Stanton Hospital at no cost and no risk to the GNWT. The developer in the BHP proposal assumes a 30-year commercial redevelopment marketing and tenancy for the redevelopment of this old hospital under a separate lease agreement with the GNWT. The GNWT will retain ownership of the facility, land and parking at the end of the 30 years. The agreement to lease includes revenue sharing with the GNWT over the 30-year life and also provides limits to ensure that any redevelopment is not incompatible with the delivery of health care services from the overall Stanton site. All security for the redevelopment is being provided by the developer’s project company.
At the end of the day, when we were initially looking at the redevelopment of Stanton, we recognized that the bones of that building, the existing Stanton building, are still good and there’s still an opportunity for the building. But, as I indicated, the RFP process was such that it allowed for options. The option that is before us came and it was the best proposal as far as efficiency, value for money, and it is the proposal that we’d be moving forward with.
I hear you on the staffing. The building is larger and it will require some additional staff. But as we are seeing with all expansions in all program delivery areas, there’s the “I wish I had,” there’s the “I would like to have,” “it would be nice to have,” “I need,” and this is what actually is required in order to ensure that we don’t go backwards. We look at those numbers. We try to assess those numbers, program areas. This isn’t about program expansion, so we’ve got to make sure that we’re not putting in positions in light of this incredibly tight fiscal environment that are expansion services but required to meet needs.
We are doing the thorough analysis of Stanton and future Stanton, recognizing that the building has room for growth over the years dependent on changes in populations, changes in demographics, all those types of things. So some positions might come later, but we anticipate there will be some positions that are going to be needed right out of the gate. We’re doing that work to make sure that we can present a case that will be accepted by the future Assembly to support additional required physicians in that facility.
With respect to portable equipment, the ones on this particular page are related to the evergreening of equipment that has basically reached the end of its useful lifecycle. But I do hear the Member on his desire for two dialysis units in the South Slave. I will say that the Fort Smith facility, when it was built and designed, there is a room where a dialysis unit could be placed, and we are always monitoring and always evaluating to see when and if it’s going to be appropriate to move a dialysis unit back to Fort Smith. There will need to be a certain level of demand in order to justify positions and the intense training that dialysis nurses have to undergo. A nurse from a regular unit untrained cannot provide dialysis, so we need to make sure that there’s nursing coverage to meet the expectations of our clients, which requires a certain number of clients to make it happen. It’s probably going to have to be a couple nurses. A dialysis unit is not one nurse and it can’t run with one nurse.
Keeping all those complications and difficulties in mind, we look at our numbers. I hope we never get to a position where we meet those numbers in Fort Smith, but it could happen, and we are prepared to go that direction if and when we reach those numbers. In the meantime, we have to work with the residents who are affected, whether they’re going to Yellowknife or whether they’re going to Hay River, to find solutions that work for them for their health and well-being, recognizing that being a distance from dialysis can prove difficult.
I think I answered all the questions.
I understand the proposal and the concept of building a new building. I guess no cost and no risk sounds a little scary to me in the fact that obviously the P3, there’s got to be something in it for the private part of the equation, and at no cost. Somewhere along the line we’re paying extra somewhere to retrofit that building or we’re paying in a long period of time for extras. Somehow that retrofit to the current facility, once we build the new one, is being paid for somewhere down the line. The GNWT has got to be on the hook somewhere. At no cost, I can’t believe that would be true.
Another area I appreciate is in this project we are also talking about extended care. I am glad they planned for a place to put their extended care in a new building. I know in Hay River that process wasn’t thought through by the Department of Health when they designed the new Hay River facility. We had to get that into the budget to extend that. I will be asking questions about that in the next section. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think the extended care unit is a good example. We do learn from past mistakes and there is, on the next page, a request for money to build the extended care unit here in Yellowknife that would ensure we don’t run into the same problem we ran into in Hay River.
Coming back to the management of the new building, the management of the old building will be taken over by BHP. They are responsible for leasehold improvements and tenant management. We don’t have a cost related to any construction in that building. We do have an opportunity, depending on the tenants who are brought in, to have some revenue sharing on that. However, if we choose to utilize some of that room for our programs and services, there will be a discounted rate or discounted rent that we might have to be pay. So, there might be some future cost to leasing those buildings.
As far as the upgrades, that is on the facility maintainers and managers which will be BHP. Was there another question?
