Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know with the overhaul of the hull, the engines, all the work that has been done to the engines, I believe it's up for replacement myself; it has over 25,000 hours as I've been told. That's almost $2 million there that could have been put towards a new vessel.
We have to start planning out how our spending or maintaining our equipment rather than replacing. I know a lot of that work has been done to a lot of our buildings, but, you know, we have to start planning properly here. Will the Minister ensure that a planning study has been taken on the Louis Cardinal?
As I've stated, we use management tools to make strategic operational decisions on our equipment and our assets and we will continue to use that, and moving forward, I will update the Member where this is at in the queue. But, as I've said, we have very limited funds moving forward and we need to stretch these out across the whole Northwest Territories.
Masi. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke about Northland Utilities and opportunities for partnering with them or at least a development of our upcoming energy strategy. I was just on the Public Works website, there's a plethora of energy strategies, energy discussion papers, energy information papers. It seems like maybe this time we should be doing something different. If Northland is -- if their claims are true and this government won't return their phone calls or return an email, how are we going to engage them in this energy strategy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is going to the Minister of Public Works. Thank you.
Minister of Public Works and Services.
I believe there's two questions; I'll answer both of them. First of all, the returning of phone calls to NUL. The first phone call I believe to the Premier was based on the Hay River franchise, and that's in arbitration right now, and I wouldn't be doing anyone any good to engage in a conversation when that process is going on. My other recollection is that ATCO phoned the Premier about getting out of their franchise agreement for ATCO gas in Inuvik. So that's the two phone calls; first part of his question.
The second part, NUL is free to any time submit material to the Government of the Northwest Territories towards a hydro strategy in the NWT. The department is going to be introducing and developing an energy strategy, a long-term vision for the NWT, and NUL has been invited to participate in the Yellowknife closed meeting on that for stakeholders. But, as well, we're also planning on an electricity stakeholder workshop for regulators and utilities, and ATCO and NUL will also be invited to participate in that sector in specific conversations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Nine months ago there was no arbitration going on in Hay River and that's the first phone call that the Minister is referring to. Doesn't the Minister see the value in having a corporation that's been here for over 60 years supplying power to the two largest communities in the territory; isn’t there value in maybe a greater engagement? Maybe reaching out a little more, being a little more proactive. I'm not saying giving them favour but recognizing the fact that they have a lot more skin in the game; they have a lot more knowledge than pretty much every other stakeholder in the territory.
I just had to clarify in my head what your whole question was. ATCO is a big outfit and they do have a lot of money, but the problem moving forward for this government is that - it's not the money it's our borrowing capacity moving forward. We need to have engagement with the federal government. If we decide to expand the Taltson Project, we need to have a buyer at the end of the day. This government is engaged in consultation or conversations with other end users who will purchase this power and to do that at the end of the day we believe that the Taltson project is going to require a subsidy and that's why we need to have federal engagement moving forward. ATCO has capital but that doesn't fix our borrowing limit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
ATCO has capital and they're also used to doing things economically. They've done very well for themselves by completing projects; they're very cost-effective. The Minister stated that we need a buyer for Taltson. I can understand that if you're talking about sending power down to somewhere like Saskatchewan, but we're talking about building a road to the Slave Geological Province.
I don't know, who's the buyer up there that we're building this road for? We're building it in the hopes, you know, if you build it they will come. We know there's minerals up there. We know that if we build it people will probably come to explore up there. The same thing with hydro, that's a place where we can expand hydro to or we can look into. I'm going to find a question here. I don't want to just make a statement, but - I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I think I just went on a little rant. He answered all my questions, so thank you to the Minister.
---Laughter
Masi. I'll take that as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I was asking the Minister of Transportation a question and we didn't seem to get an answer, so I'm going to try something a little bit different this time and hopefully I'll get a yes out of him. Will the Minister with the street portfolios be able to come to a constituency tour, including Wrigley, Trout Lake, Jean Marie, Nahanni Butte, Fort Liard and Fort Simpson? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes. Yes.
Masi. Minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has asked me a couple of times previously to do a constituency tour and in all fairness to him I was booked up solid. As long as I have enough lead time I have no problem doing a tour in his region. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his answer, and I understand he has a busy schedule so I appreciate that. Will he be able to make a commitment to potentially do this tour, work permitted, do it in January?
Yes, I will have a look at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a little follow-up to my questions I asked earlier. You know, as I mentioned the Louis Cardinal, it's pretty clear that the vessel has had its time in the waters; it's time to replace this unit, you know, before we have any incidents. We always have to try to avoid these. Always prepare and make sure we have the proper infrastructure. Will the Minister at least commit to doing a planning study to be prepared in case we do have to replace the unit? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Transportation.
As I've said, we use the management tools to have a look at all our assets and stuff moving forward. As far as a planning study goes, the only thing we've been doing so far on there to -- we know where we are for maintenance and where the vessel is at and how much life is left in the vessel. What we continue to do on an ongoing basis to make sure we have adequate capacity for the volumes of traffic that are on that river system, and we continue to say that the data that's coming in that we meet these criteria to service the region, and I don't believe that at this time that I can commit to doing a planning study to replace the Louis Cardinal as we've invested tons of money into it for an ongoing basis and we will continue to monitor it going forward as there's Coast Guard regulations that we have to abide by to service the public, and public safety is our number one concern.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister: what is the plan for the department if this vessel didn't meet the criteria for the Coast Guard?
If we were to get into a situation where the Louis be serviced in the region, we do have the backup area that the Member alluded to in his Member’s statement that we could probably put in the water and bring into service to meet the emergency needs of that, and then in the long-term, if that was the case, if something drastically happened to the boat, we'd have to look at the long-term plans of how we're going to replace one of these units. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister just said that the Merv Hardie is the backup plan, yet to get it ready to operate, it'll cost $1.5 million. Why would we spend that $1.5 million rather than investing that into a new vessel?
As the Member knows, we have limited funds. We would spend the $1.5 million versus the $10 million it would cost to replace that ferry, and plus in the short time you just don’t go buy a ferry off the shelf. They just don’t have them sitting there at the store to buy. We would have to order this thing. It would probably take a couple of number of years to put into service. So the short-term fix would be to reactivate the Merv Hardie.
Mr. Speaker, that's why I'm asking to do the planning study now, rather than wait till, you know, when we're panicking here. But, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister and the department, you know, start planning ahead and put this into the next bundle for the Building Canada Fund.
I cannot commit to putting it into Bundle 3. As this Legislative Assembly know, ours infrastructure needs across the territory are huge, and I'll say the same thing here I've said at FPT table. We could take every dollar the federal government has put into infrastructure, all three bundles that the government has proposed and this country could spend every dime of it just on upgrading the road system into Canada. So the limited amount of funds the Northwest Territories gets, we have to spread it across the complete territory to meet the needs of all residents.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's good to see the Minister of Health with us today. I was wondering if he could provide this House an update on the federal health transfer and what progress has been made on bringing more crucial health dollars into the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, I just got back from the FTP meeting earlier today. The meeting went well on many fronts. We talked about many of the areas where the federal and provincial and territorial governments are working together, like pharmaceutical prices across this country. Working together we've brought the price of pharmaceuticals down by over $700 million annually and with the new partnership with the federal government, we look like we might be able to bring it down by $1.2 billion annually. So a lot of good work on that front. When it came to the health accord, we did make a significant amount of progress.
We talked about shared priorities. I think all the federal government, the provincial government, the territorial government agree that we need to work together to put some more priority on homecare, aging in place, as well as mental health and addictions. Unfortunately, we're not prepared to move forward on that until we can straighten out the issue around the Canada Health Transfer. The federal government has reduced the amount that the Canada Health transfer increases on an annual basis by 3 per cent. So instead of 6 per cent increase, it's now a 3 per cent increase.
For us, in the Northwest Territories, that equates to about $1.5 million, $1.25 million in reduced funding available to fund healthcare here in the Northwest Territories. That doesn't sound like a lot of money, but in other jurisdictions it's upwards of half a billion dollars reduced funding. The federal government had indicated they have no intention at this point of raising back to their levels at 6 per cent, and we have now escalated as Health Ministers this issue back to the council or federation who has written a letter to the Prime Minister indicating that this is something that needs to be worked out before we can have any conversation about a health accord.
What the federal government is proposing and they have really only talked about some of the homecare funding is $3.9 split over all the provinces and territories over a number of years. We feel right now based on previous calculations, this might work out to $600,000, $800,000 a year for the Northwest Territories, but we're losing $1.3 million. So we're going to ask for, you know, $800,000 but it'll cost us $1.3 million. We need to figure out the CHT and that has been escalated to the Premiers and the Prime Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for providing that update. What is our plan going forward now that there's an awareness that there'll be a shortfall for health funding? Is there a chance we can turn this around before we move into our next budget cycle or is this going to be reflected in the next budget? When will this reduction impact the Northwest Territories?
Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day we have to provide healthcare services. Because there's less money coming from the feds, we don’t get to say, no, you're sick; we won't treat you, or you need dialysis, we won't provide you with dialysis. We will. We're going to continue to provide those services. What it means is we have less federal dollars going to it which means it's going to have to be made up in some capacity through our other revenues. But we're committed to providing comprehensive healthcare services here in the Northwest Territories. There's absolutely areas we need to do better. There's absolutely areas that we need improvement as clearly articulated in the mandate that we're working on together to try to improve those services. But we will continue to provide services.
I'm optimistic that the Premiers will be able to come to some sort of resolution with the Prime Minister of Canada and get that funding levels back up to a 6 per cent annual increase. Until such a time, all the provinces and territories are at 25 per cent funding from Ottawa, 75 per cent funding from the provinces and territories. Currently in the Northwest Territories, CHT covers about 10.6 per cent. In most provinces and territories, CHT covers about 20 per cent, so in the provinces there's about a 5 per cent shortfall. Here it's slightly larger.
Mr. Speaker, the federal government provides Community Wellness Funding as an on-reserve fund to assist with addictions and mental health issues. Currently, the City of Yellowknife has one of the -- I think it's perhaps the largest population of Indigenous people and the city can't access that funding. Has the Minister brought this issue to his federal counterparts and provincial counterparts and looked for some resolution to see if the City of Yellowknife can start accessing this so we can get safer streets and increase and enhance our preventative treatment programs for people who are suffering and in need in the City of Yellowknife?
Mr. Speaker, the fund that the Member is referring to is actually money for the community wellness for the Northwest Territories targeted specifically for Aboriginal people and communities. We are a funnel for those dollars and we work with the communities to flow those dollars on behalf of the federal government directly to those communities. In Yellowknife, it was agreed that, given that Yellowknife in itself with the community is not an Aboriginal-run community, the dollars for Yellowknife actually flow through the Yellowknife's Dene here in Yellowknife. They get the component that would address all the other Aboriginal people who happen to be living in Yellowknife. So they're proportion, compared to the Yellowknife's proportion, is quite a bit larger in Yellowknife.
I have encouraged the mayor and others to have a conversation with the Yellowknife Dene to see if there's any opportunity for partnership so that they can build upon those funds to benefit the Aboriginal people who happen to live in Yellowknife.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that there is funding that goes to Yellowknife's Dene, and they of course in close proximity, but they still have their own community and it's constituated its community. It's the City of Yellowknife that doesn't receive this funding, and the City of Yellowknife that increasingly has the needs of Northerners pressed upon it.
People come here for the services and there's always a constant and rising demand for services. So is there any way that the Minister can communicate that message to Ottawa for a direct partnership from the City of Yellowknife to Ottawa? A special agreement as we see a lot of this funding doesn't flow to the Northwest Territories because we do not have reserves. That's a constant issue. Is there any way we can start having that conversation then that we have specific northern needs? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, at a larger level, the Premier has been talking with individuals like Minister Bennett and the Prime Minister about funding for Aboriginal people in many different ways. Wellness happens to be one of the ways. The Wellness Fund is specific for Aboriginal people. There have been other communities who have tried to work and have been successful in working with the Aboriginal organizations and governments that happen to be in their communities to be partners on the delivery of the wellness funding initiatives.
In Yellowknife, the money was allocated to the Yellowknife Dene in hopes that they would work with the Aboriginal people throughout Yellowknife. Their wellness plan actually includes activities that are supposed to happen in Yellowknife and I believe, in many cases, do to benefit all the people in Yellowknife. Whether you're Inuit or Inuvialuit or Dehcho or Tlicho, those dollars are used for services here for people who happen to live in Yellowknife outside of their other regions.
I have had conversations with the federal Minister expressing our desire to work with the Aboriginal communities and find ways to make sure that as many people as possible are benefitting from these funds. But at the end of the day, these dollars are very specific funds for Aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories. Right now the City of Yellowknife isn't an Aboriginal government or organization. The residents of Yellowknife can get benefits and are receiving benefits for the services that the Yellowknife Dene are providing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following documents entitled “Inuvialuit Water Board Budget 2016-2017,” “Natural Resources Conservation Trust Fund Financial Statements for the Year Ended March 31, 2016” and the “NWT Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program 2015-2016 Annual Report.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Tabling of documents. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, Tabled Document 143-18(2), Capital Estimates, 2017-2018 with the Member for Hay River North in the chair. Before we do that, I'd just like to recognize Ms. Green, her birthday today as a Member. I'd just like to wish her a happy birthday.
I'll now call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Beaulieu.
