Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to recognize two Pages today, Kaitlyn Ring and JD from Hay River. I’d also like to thank all the Pages for their hard work this week, especially with extended hours. Also Myrtle Graham, my CA for assisting with the Pages there this week. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to recognize Miss Annie Goose from Ulukhaktok, who’s doing translating service and all the other translators who are providing services for us this week, I really appreciate it, especially during the long hours. Also to Mr. Reid, I know Mr. Moses mentioned that three of us here I think, Sonny and I kind of gave him more of a hard time in school than…
---Laughter
Than all the good boys. Thanks, Mr. Reid for putting up with us. Welcome.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize your interpreter for the last couple of weeks from Tu Nedhe, Mary Rose Sundberg. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased to congratulate Camille Rourke, Josee Martin, and Nadia Wood on their graduation from Ecole Allain St-Cyr. I wish them all the best with their future studies and encourage them to be ambassadors for the francophone language and culture of the Northwest Territories. Masi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I made a eulogy, but today I have questions for the Minister responsible for Homelessness. In many cases, NWT residents lose their homes to fires, mould, and in my region, soil-line erosion, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my first question to the Minister of Homelessness is: the Homelessness Assistance Fund provides only one-time funding, which means that once you’ve used it, you can’t use it again. What other options are available for residents experiencing housing crises? Quyanainni, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for Homelessness.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Homelessness is a serious issue that we don’t take lightly. The HAF program, the Housing Assistance Fund is meant to provide one-time assistance so that people that are at risk or in homelessness situations can get the assistance needed to provide them with support so they can get into secure housing. However, within that, we recognize that there are some issues, so we really try to do counselling for people because often when people get to the point where they have lost their houses, there’s underlying issues. It could be poverty, it could be addictions, it could be a multitude of issues. We provide counselling for people as well that are in those situations so that we can address underlying causes that so to ensure that they won’t be in that situation again. People are really encouraged to seek assistance from your community social workers to deal with any kind of mental health, trauma, addictions or any kind of concerns that they may feel are that are not able to maintain them in housing, as well as the counselling support that the LHOs within each community will provide. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the response from the Minister. Mr. Speaker, my second question is what is the status of planned work to enhance the women’s shelter, women and emergency shelter care in Tuktoyaktuk for 2016 and 2017?
The corporation realizes that the shelters and the foster care shelter is really important and vital to our communities as it provides a safe place for our children in this case and for women that are experiencing family violence. In order to do that, we try to maintain them as best as possible. The NWT Housing Corporation did receive federal funding for renovations for family violence shelters and we’ve met with the, we’ve got together with the five shelters and we’ve put all the money on the table and we’ve asked them to kind of prioritize what they see as the needs. On top of that, the Housing Corporation has gone into each of the family shelters and done an assessment of what they think the needs are and what we see that what we can look at fixing for them. Within the shelter that we’re talking about, however, there is, both of them are really likely to require replacement. The renovations in that shelter would be substantial. ’We’re just trying to review what the best course of action would be to provide another alternative for that shelter.
I appreciate the response. Mr. Speaker, my final question is: what is the status of planned work for the Nunakput communities, Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, and Ulukhaktok, to help these communities to access homelessness funds?
Working with the communities and getting the communities to actually prioritize their own needs is something that the Housing Corporation is working towards and will be a big focus within our community surveys that are coming out lately. Within these regions actually, we did get their priorities. Currently, we have two multi-year agreements to support the homeless priorities of the Nunakput communities, Sachs Harbour Community Corporation. We have funding in the 2016-17 budget for food programs, community homeless planning, community kitchens and food banks. The community itself identified that their specific focus is on a food bank for the homeless and the less fortunate. ’We’re working towards that. The hamlet of Paulatuk, for our 2016-17 monies, the funding will go for teaching people who experience homelessness and who are at risk of homelessness, learning how to cook healthy food, working with Nutrition North and so far, it’s been really successful in that community. We’re looking at community-driven solutions and working from where they want us to go.
Masi. Oral Questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Masi, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. Anyone reading the government’s Report on Contracts over $5,000 will see that sole source purchasing is sometimes for very large amounts of money. In 2013-14, the Department of Executive awarded a contract for $457,000 for organization design services and another $187,000 was awarded sole-source for hiring an Ottawa lobbying firm. It would be interesting to know why the delay in these, in two service needs would have not have been known so far in advance that they would, that they could have planned ahead for a competitive process. My question for the Minister is to ask him what kind of oversight, audit and challenge is applied to ensuring the requirements of urgency and unique source are met before the contract is awarded. Is there any oversight applied before the contract is awarded? Thank you.
Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, in the Members’ statement, she makes some very strong comments and used very strong language. I think it’s unfair to those within the government system that administer a lot of these contracts to hear such language. I can assure the Member and all Members that there is oversight and in this day and age, with all the checks and balances in place, that type of, if any of that type of activity went on, it would be detected quite early and it would be unacceptable. There is oversight. The sole-source negotiated contract was the change in the numbers was one that was well received by the business community and we had their support. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, my question again for the Minister of Finance is: what kind of oversight is provided in this area to ensure that these sole-sourced contracts meet the requirements of urgency and unique source of supply before they’re awarded?
Mr. Speaker, when they’re going out for a sole-source contract, the policy states that if it was something that we had to do right away, then we would go to a sole-source contract. In the smaller communities, this is one that’s well-received because the price for goods in a lot of smaller communities is $5,000 and once it was raised to $25,000, that gave them an opportunity to be able to land some of this work and not have to go to a public process or a tendering process, which for $5,000 is a lot of work and a lot of administration. I can assure the Member that a lot of due diligence goes into these contracts before they’re awarded.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like the Minister to tell us, what oversight is applied to ensuring the requirements of urgency and unique source of supply are applied to sole-source contracts before they are awarded.
I would like to repeat the same answer I gave before that significant oversight goes into these contracts. It’s just not one that they woke up this morning and decided they’re going to award a sole-source contract today. There are requirements that need to be met. If they meet the criteria, then sole-source contract could possibly be awarded.
Masi. Oral Questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Masi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if the Minister answered my question I would stop asking it. But at this point, I have no detail on what kind of oversight is provided on sole-source contracts so that we know they meet the needs of urgency and unique source of supply. Masi, Mr. Speaker.
I didn’t really hear a question there. I take that as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First, I want to apologize. At the end of my Members’ statement, I indicated that my questions would be for the Minister of MACA and in fact, it’s for the Minister of Finance. I just wanted to correct myself there. I thank my colleague, who went before me and asked some questions around this same subject matter. Quite frankly, a few of my questions have been answered. I will put this one forward to the Minister. It seems as though we are having some, these changes to the sole-sourcing limits are having some degree of impact on small business and local business and to some degree and being fair, negative impact. Will the Minister commit to developing some way in which to monitor and evaluate these impacts over a certain period of time and then be able to report back to the Members of this Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a change that has just been made recently and I will commit to the Member and all Members that we’ll monitor the usage of these sole-source contracts. Again, as I answered to the Member previous, this was an initiative that was fully supported by a lot of the small business community and a lot of business and we were actually encouraged to consider because there hasn’t been a change, I believe, since 1993. I will make the commitment to monitor and we do have to file a contract report $5,000 and under. I think the Minister of ITI tables that, so we’ll monitor and I’ll keep the Members updated as to the usage of these sole source contracts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral Questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in our last sitting, the Minister of Housing said that there was a 30-per-cent cost savings from modular versus stick-built. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please provide the House of a breakdown of how this calculation was derived? Thank you.
Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The average percentage was based on the stick-built price the Housing Corporation received as part of the public tender process, compared against the design build process, received for module homes that were awarded. The NWT Housing Corporation is not permitted, under the tendering and contracting rules to provide specific detailed information on each proposal, but we can say, that on average, the prices received for stick-built, was more than 30 per cent higher than the module prices. In some case, the per cent was actually much higher. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for her answer. Mr. Speaker, has the Minister worked with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to see if this decision has an impact on income security in the communities where modular units are being built or being brought in, instead of the stick-built process.
I can’t specifically talk about programs that are offered by the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, but I can say as participants in the capital planning process with other government departments, the government considers distribution of projects so that we don’t overtax individual communities with excess projects in one year. The NWT Housing Corporation relies on the BIP, Business Incentive Policy, when contracting projects and this process includes adjustments for local involvement. The Business Incentive Policy evaluation process was designed to support local contractors in bidding on projects. As well, all of the social envelope deputy ministers are working together to breakdown program and policy barriers that may impact our residents of the NWT. Another partnership I’d like to mention is the apprenticeship program that the Housing Corporation is involved with. It’s one example where we’re trying to train our local residents so that they can succeed in the trades and we can get more proponents within the communities. Currently, we have up to 15 apprentices annually.
I thank the Minister for her answer. It seems like there’s some work there. I would hope that the two departments, Education, Culture and Employment and Housing would start working together to see what the impact of modular homes are versus stick-built because of the income support issues. Mr. Speaker, in the last sitting, the Minister answered a question from Mr. Blake, the quote from the Minister of Housing Corp, “though in all honesty are still using our community members to do the repairs, so you’re not forgetting about them.” Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please clarify what she meant? Does she mean the repairs on these modular homes or the stick-built homes?
Repairs, renovations and minor capital projects need to be completed annually on both public housing and home ownership programs. The NWT Housing Corporation has a significant capital plan for 2016-17, $47 million, which includes repair and renovation budget of $18 million. $10.5 million is for repairs and renovations for NWT Housing Corp assets $6.5 million is for home ownership repairs and renovations. $1.1 million is for minor capital repairs. Renovation and repair work for the Housing Corporation assets and home ownership units has been consistent and predictable and represents a huge opportunity for local contractors. It provides economic opportunity for contractors that they can sustain their operations and employees year after year. In some communities, it’s been a challenge for our Housing Corporation to find contractors to do the repair work that we offer every year. Sometimes we put tenders out up to three times and not receive responses. New construction is really irregular and difficult for businesses and contractors to organize their businesses around. The repair and renovation is always there and is sustainable. Like I say, we’re really putting a focus into apprenticeships to build up the capacity in each community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I thank the Minister for the well thought out and answered question. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please advise this House if the department is looking at moving away from modular homes to a more community-based solution? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The NWT Housing Corporation is always open to cost-effective solutions to provide needed housing within our communities. Should opportunities within the communities arise, then we’re certainly open to exploring them. The community involvement is really important to the Housing Corporation and all contractors hired by the Housing Corporation are actually expected to maximize our northern and our local content whenever possible. The Housing Corporation also monitors the contractors to ensure that they meet all the agreed terms and conditions in the contract including their local and their northern context.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned earlier, my address would be circulated around the contaminated sites along the shores of Bear Lake which I think raise a huge opportunity during these times of low economic employment in the smaller communities such as the neighbouring community to the sites in Deline. My question to the Minister is through federal funding access, through a Brazilian stimulus approach, is there ongoing negotiations for those sites along the shores of Bear Lake? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. Finance? Oh, sorry. Minister of Lands.
