Masi. Minister of Justice.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to read the excellent story in The Globe and Mail several weeks ago. The Globe gathered its analysis from 870 police jurisdictions and found there was a very large number of claims that were dismissed as unfounded across the country. It was between the various numbers, but generally it was between one and five, or 20 per cent of claims had been dismissed as unfounded. It has been found also, and I read this in the story, that looking at independent research from around the world only 2 to 8 per cent of these claims are actually false.
It was also surprising to see the wide variation in the number of claims that had been dismissed from as low as 2 per cent in the City of Winnipeg to a high of 36 per cent in Yellowknife. Even more surprising was that sometimes adjoining police forces had very different statistics. While there may be some issues as to how the information was gathered, the statistics are clearly very disturbing.
As a result of this study, the various police forces across the country, including the RCMP, have re-evaluated procedures. I can advise that I have met with the commanding officer here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate that the Minister read the article, but he did not respond to my question. So I'm going to ask again what he is going to do as Minister to bring these unfounded sexual assault complaints down? There are a number of very specific practical actions that are being taken by his counterpart in the Yukon, where the police are also on contract to address this problem directly beyond just having a meeting. What is his response?
I simply wanted to give some background before I entered into a discussion with the Member opposite about what the RCMP here are doing. I'm pleased to advise that, in my meeting with the commanding officer, he advised me that all sexual assault files from the period 2010 to 2014 were being reviewed. As I mentioned, it was found in The Globe and Mail study approximately 36 per cent of the cases were dismissed or found to be unfounded.
Now, this is at the investigatory stage, not at the court stage. A closer examination of the figures, that figure of 36 per cent, the RCMP found that 21 per cent were actually found to be unfounded. The other 15 per cent was found that it was insufficient evidence to proceed to court. So they did a careful examination of the many files over the last five years.
I appreciate all the homework the Minister has done on this topic, but I'm not hearing a robust response to these findings beyond what the RCMP has already committed to do itself, which is to review all of those unfounded cases. I'm not hearing he is going to take proactive response to what is clearly a crisis in sexual assault complaints here in the NWT as it is across the country.
In addition to what I've already mentioned with the police reviewing all of these cases, it has been decided that new policies are required so that if a file is found to be unfounded by the investigator all of those files will now be reviewed by a senior officer. So the police are doing something. In addition, they are increasing their training in this area to further sensitize investigators to this issue.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and, Mr. Speaker, that's excellent news. I think the other side of this is to make sure that police officers have better training to deal with complaints as they come in. I'm wondering if the Minister can tell us what changes might be made in training police officers to respond to sexual assault complaints? Mahsi.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can advise that there will be additional training provided to investigators. As recently as January there was some additional training provided. So the police are very aware of this issue. Additional training will be provided, and hopefully the rather shocking figure that has been mentioned by the Member opposite will decrease. I can advise the police are treating this matter very seriously.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of the Department of Transportation. I spoke earlier today about the airport infrastructure funding and that I'm aware that the Yellowknife Airport does, in fact, generate revenue through the forms of leases and rents and services provide to tenants and other users. Can the Minister tell us how much the Yellowknife Airport does currently earn from rents and fees and services charged to tenants and users of the airport? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have that level of detail at the top of my head, so I'll have to get back to the Member with that number. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'm going to move forward to another question because my second question would have relied on that answer, so I appreciate the Minister getting that back to us as soon as possible. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please describe how the determination was made to charge the amount of this user fee? How was the amount determined?
I'm assuming the Member from Yellowknife North is talking about the airport improvement fee. We had a consultant do a review of airports across Canada, similar size as Yellowknife Airport, and it was concluded that the fee that the airport improvement fee of $20 and $10 was justifiable to airports of similar size to us across Canada.
Then I think in order to determine what that fee would be and then using other airports to help determine that information that it would have also been known, and at least have been fairly up to date, as to what the current leases, rents, and service charges are being currently charged to tenants out at the airport. That said, Mr. Speaker, we know that we're in economic difficult times; we're in an economic downturn. Can the Minister describe if the department has done any work to determine what the induced effects of such a user fee would have on Yellowknife and the NWT economy?
When we looked at this, the big part of the improvement fees and landing fees for the Yellowknife Airport is to help turn around the operating costs of running the airport. We presently subsidize the airport by $4 million annually, which comes out of general revenue that could help support other initiatives in this House that we believe that we need to move forward; but the big thing with introducing this revolving fund to the Yellowknife Airport, it's also the largest airport in the Northwest Territories. It has 58,000 flights a year that land and come and go from this airport. There are a half a million people who go through the airport every year. So there is a possibility to raise substantial revenue that would help offset that $4 million, but also generate revenue where we would not have to subsidize the Yellowknife Airport.
With that being said, though, we can move on with having that additional revenue to create other opportunities at the Yellowknife Airport that would increase potential: more traffic through the Yellowknife Airport through direct flights from Asian countries as such; business opportunities. We've had a number of people approach the department already about the opportunities that lie ahead with us implementing this revolving fund and be able to improve the full facility of the airport from parking to making the terminal larger, to make it easier for security clearances so people aren't lined up all the way to the north end of the building, and these types of factors. So I believe as the Minister of Transportation that bringing the revolving fund forward for this airport is going to bring nothing but good for the Yellowknife Airport and the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the sales pitch that the Minister gave us; it relates to looking at the airport in a silo, but the question was more to do with the induced effects of such a charge and the effect it will have on the local economy and the cost of living. Has the department done any work to check into what kind of effects that this is going to have, a charge such as this will have on the local economy, including the cost of living? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First, he's asked a couple of questions there; I'll answer the last one. The landing and the improvement fees are going to change a south-bound ticket by 3 to 4 per cent. On a north-bound ticket it's going to change it by 1 to 2 per cent, which is very minimal. The upside of this whole thing is the economic opportunities that this is going to bring to the City of Yellowknife in particular and to the residents of the Northwest Territories, and the economic potential outweighs any negative effects that I believe will happen to the citizens of the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I talked about poverty. I'd like to ask the Minister responsible for Poverty a couple of questions on that.
The federal Minister of Family, Children and Social Development has said that provinces and territories have provided ideas on how to engage the federal government differently. How will the Minister, our Minister, ensure the needs of the Northwest Territories are represented in the new Poverty Reduction Strategy under development at the federal level? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think it was about two weeks ago I had an opportunity to attend the federal-provincial-territorial meeting with the Minister that the Member opposite is referring to, and we did have an opportunity to discuss the work that the federal government is doing on a federal anti-poverty initiative. They're currently out doing a number of stakeholder engagements across the country.
At that meeting, we had an opportunity to talk about what's happening in every jurisdiction, and I clearly outlined the work that's been done around anti-poverty work here in the Northwest Territories and our desire to do more. We shared with them the different action plans prepared over the years, both the territorial action plan as well as the government's action plan, and I strongly encouraged the Minister and his staff to engage front-line people, people who have actually lived in poverty, rather than just relying on input from NGOs. So we shared our information. We've getting them as much information as we can. We're looking forward to seeing what they come forward.
At this point, there has been no indication that the federal government is going to put any money into this anti-poverty plan, but they do have some levers that we know they can use, whether it's taxes or other mechanisms, that we hope will be able to support residents across Canada who are struggling with poverty, but also in the Northwest Territories.
As for all FPTs that we attend, we try to encourage understanding of the realities of living in small rural and remote communities in the North and how that might be different than somebody who is living in poverty in Toronto. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'd like to ask the Minister how he is exploring options to leverage funding for increased investment in anti-poverty initiatives?
I appreciate the Members during Committee of the Whole are very passionate about increasing our allotment to the Anti-poverty Fund, and obviously if money were available this is certainly an area that we would like to invest, and it is part of our mandate. So hopefully in the future we will be making some additional investments, but in this particular budget we did invest money in helping seniors who are living in poverty do some renovations to their homes. We have made some other changes that are clearly beneficial to residents who are struggling with poverty to the Northwest Territories, and we continue to work with our partners to allocate funds through the Antipoverty Fund which can be leveraged for other dollars.
Anti-poverty is a big issue in the NWT. What new money is being invested and targeted to anti-poverty in 2017-18?
There are five pillars that were utilized to help us address poverty in the Northwest Territories, and this is being used by our stakeholders as well, and that's the Children and Family Support, Healthy Living and Reaching our Potential, Safe Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities and Integrated Continuum of Services. In this budget that is before us today, we are investing $750,000, new dollars, to provide services for homeless people in Yellowknife. There has been a commitment to fully fund junior kindergarten. There's $3 million to enhance small community employment support, which is something we've continuously heard from the Member opposite. There's $750,000 to extend the NWT Child Benefit, and there's $500,000 to provide a home repair program to low-income seniors. This is on top of the dollars that we're providing in housing programs that meet the pillars, some of our education dollars that are helping to address the pillars, as well as many of the other things we're doing in the government; these are new dollars.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to increasing work and continuing to meet with the other social development Ministers of the GNWT to reduce poverty in the NWT?
Mr. Speaker, we have a number of different committees in Cabinet that we get together to work together as Ministers to help break down silos. Our deputies also work on similar committees to break down silos within the Government of the Northwest Territories. I'm continually raising the issue of poverty, as it is one of the areas I'm responsible for, and trying to find ways to work together to offer our residents more options to help lift them from poverty as opposed to just providing handouts, and we're working to that end, Mr. Speaker. We appreciate the Member's commitment to increasing and supporting anti-poverty and we look forward to making improvements over the term of this government.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of MACA on gas tax funding and small community funding, as they complement each other in a very meaningful way. These programs truly contribute to the small community economy and leave behind an upgraded image to better beautify the community.
The Northwest Territories has seen over a hundred projects and approximately $68 million from these programs. My question is: what is the information being shared with Sahtu communities as well as other communities from the regional office in preparation to access this funding during the season of? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs actually works quite closely with the municipal governments to access the funding, the infrastructure funding that is provided by the federal government, so we work one-on-one. We help them do their capital planning throughout the year; we identify areas that they might need to build more infrastructure on, and then we actually will sit and help them fill out the applications as needed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As a benchmark of progress and production, will the Minister guarantee the House 10 per cent of the applications that access the program from last year?
I am a bit confused with the question being asked, but I can say that, in the Sahtu area, all the communities except for Colville Lake have actually applied and received confirmation of their funding, and we are working closely with Colville Lake within the Sahtu to actually submit their application, as well.
I wanted to see if we can set a target for production for this year on 10 per cent of the funds accessed by both programs, but that was the previous question. My question now is: is the department holding communitybased workshops to work with the local governments to help design a funding program to support the wishes and projects identified by the respective community?
Yes, as stated previously, the department actually goes in and works with each community to develop a capital infrastructure plan that is used to apply for funding. We don't actually have public meetings on it, but we are available to each community as needed to go in and actually help them fill out their application process.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question is that, taking advantage of the low mode of transportation in the Sahtu called the winter roads system, is the department or the regional staff going to the communities currently? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, all of the communities in the Sahtu region have applied and successfully applied for the infrastructure funding. We will be going into Colville Lake within the next two weeks to actually help them with their application. They are the only community in the Sahtu region that hasn't yet applied successfully.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today in my Member's statement, I was talking about income security. During my tours and talking to people, they are trying to understand it better, and I am not maybe doing the best job, so I guess what I am asking the Minister of ECE is: what factors are taken into calculating income support? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a few factors that are taken into consideration when we are calculating income assistance. As you know, income assistance provides financial support to anybody who is over the age of 19. Some of these factors include such things as where the person lives, the size of the family, as well as the income that is in the household. The IA program also has fixed food rates for each community. Therefore, the amount of assistance that a recipient receives for food depends on where they reside. In August 2016 the department introduced a new IA benefit called the community cost adjustment, which provides additional assistance to help offset the high costs of living in smaller communities. I encourage any residents in the NWT that live in small communities, if they have concerns, that they go and speak to their client service officers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
