Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs does take a very active role in assisting community governments to decide what services they are going to need within their communities through their capital plans that we do with them, that we support them with. In this case, it was a little bit different because the Tuktoyaktuk Highway, of course, had brought a different situation.
We went into Tuktoyaktuk last March and we talked to them about some of the issues that they are facing where, of course, emergency medical responses was brought up as one of the issues. The difficulty with that, though, is that we need to make sure that we have the proper training and that the services that we provide are safe and secure, so there is more work to do with the community, and we are committed to working with the community as best we can to be able to ensure that their residents are provided safe services.
I appreciate the response. My second question for the Minister is: as we enter business planning and begin to prepare for the next fiscal year, how can the community of Tuktoyaktuk access funding the department provides to support community governments with the provision of ground ambulance services?
When we talk about accessing funding within the next fiscal year, it makes it a little difficult, as, like I said, there are some needs, there is training, there is capacity, there is equipment that needs to be built, so it will not be a short-term strategy. It will be a longer-term strategy that we need to look at. We have not forgotten the community of Tuktoyaktuk and the issues that they face now, with having the new highway that will be opening, but, like I say, we need to make sure that any provision of support that we provide is done in a comprehensive, accountable way to ensure that the residents are provided the best services that we can, in a safe manner.
My final question for the Minister is: what role will the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs take in respecting potential highway rescue on the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway?
The highway rescue, actually, on the road to Tuktoyaktuk is a concern, as is highway rescue on many of the highways that are in the Northwest Territories, so across departments we have committed to actually taking a look at doing a review of all of the services that we currently have in place and the gaps that we are experiencing. That review is actually currently happening. Tuktoyaktuk is part of that review, as well as every other community, so until we finish that and decide what services are needed, then we will define what action we will move forward with in, like I say, a comprehensive method so that we ensure that, as best as possible, all residents of the Northwest Territories are provided safe services.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Lands. Earlier today I spoke about what appears to be, by all observations, an abandoned barge that is located out on what is known as the point of Rotary Park, located, in fact, in a nature preservation. Both the City of Yellowknife and the Rotary Club have put significant investment into the trail and boardwalk that goes out to this beautiful point. It attracts a lot of tourists and visitors as well as locals. My first question to the Minister is: in circumstances like this, can the Minister clarify for the Assembly what exactly is "ownership?" What defines "ownership" in a circumstance like this? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Lands.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. I can advise that the Department of Lands and Justice are well aware of this problem and are attempting to resolve it through the courts. I cannot comment on the case that is currently before the courts and, as the Member opposite alluded to in his question, there are perhaps some unusually complex issues concerning Aboriginal claim. However, I understand that we are also looking at alternative legal steps to have the structure removed, and it is anticipated, and I hope this comes to pass, that the structure and other debris will be removed prior to freeze-up.
I am absolutely pleased to hear that news. I am not sure that I have to continue down any further line of questioning, quite frankly, because I am pleased to hear, as I am sure the residents of Yellowknife and visitors alike will be happy to note, that the Minister is making a commitment, to the best that he can, that this what appears to be abandoned barge will be removed, and removed hopefully before freeze-up.
I just want to thank the Minister for informing this House of that, and I'll be sure to let residents know.
That sounded like another Member's statement. I just want to remind Members that this is oral question period. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll be asking questions of the Minister of Health and Social Services regarding the level of medical travel services received in Hay River. As I stated, my office receives more complaints about medical travel than anything else. I was only able to touch on a few areas of concern during my statement. As I mentioned, I understand that when patients are sent to Edmonton they must take what flights are available, but when bookings are constantly being made at the last minute there are just no decent flights left. I want to ask the Minister: how does the department justify sending sick people and elders on flights that arrive in Edmonton late at night or in the wee hours of the morning, especially when those patients have early-morning appointments? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I hear the Member's concerns, and I've heard the concerns from residents as well. Usually, the medical travel officers throughout the Territories work with patients to develop a medical travel solution that meets the patient's needs.
I understand that there have been some challenges in the Hay River area, and we have worked together to address some of those, and I do apologize for those frustrations. For the most part, we work to actually accommodate individuals' needs throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That sort of leads into my second question. There appears to be a significant lack of information-sharing and communication on the part of the medical travel office, where it doesn't seem that they're working with patients. For example, patients are often unaware that they can rest at Able House when they travel to Yellowknife for the day for an appointment, and constituents often spend the day waiting at the airport or Tim Hortons when they could be resting in a bed, which they might need.
I had a constituent in his eighties who didn't realize he could get a wheelchair at the airport in Edmonton and skip the 45-minute security line the day after his heart surgery. This would all be good information to have, so I want to ask: is there something like a checklist that the medical travel officer is supposed to go through so that patients are aware of all this type of information?
We recently released a handbook that actually has a significant amount of information available to residents who travel on medical travel, and our medical travel officers throughout the Northwest Territories for the most part actually provide the information that is necessary so that the patients know what is available to them. Whether or not, for instance, they could stay at one of the boarding homes; whether they're eligible to stay at one of the boarding homes on a daytime basis.
It doesn't appear to always happen in Hay River. I'm aware of the challenges that the Member from Hay River has raised. I've made a commitment to the Member that we will certainly look at how the services are being provided in Hay River. It's a bit of an anomaly. Normally these services are provided historically through Stanton, now the Territorial Authority. In Hay River there's a bit of a unique situation that we're exploring to see how we can actually bring those services in to be more consistent with the policies of medical travel as it's intended.
Because of this lack of communication, I've informed the Minister's office that the handbook doesn't contain the information that I mentioned. It is not very detail-oriented and it's good to know that officers are supposed to provide this information, but, like I said, we're not doing that, and so it sounds like, just like the Hay River authority is outside the territorial authority and we receive those services in a unique way, it sounds like the same thing has happened with medical travel. The Minister says he's going to work to fix these, but it's time to change it. What is the Minister going to do to fix medical travel in Hay River?
I know we have challenges with the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, but medical travel is not one of them. Hay River is not responsible for medical travel; it's the Territorial Health Authority. They currently have a contract for the provision of medical travel services with a separate organization in Hay River. It's the only place in the Territories where medical travel is delivered by non-GNWT or territorial staff.
I've made a commitment to the Member that we're certainly going to look at that. We need to make sure that we have a consistent application of medical travel for all residents of the Northwest Territories, including Hay River, and I will continue to make that a priority and we will find some solutions that work for Hay River to ensure that they have consistent application to medical travel with all residents of the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my understanding that medical travel in Hay River is unique in the territory because it's provided by a third party. How long is this arrangement scheduled to last for? Thank you
I think it was a contract that was let in the previous government prior to my time. I think we're on a year-to-year-basis contract. I think we're going to be coming to an end of that contract at some point, at which point we will be exploring options to provide medical travel in a consistent manner with different regions of the Northwest Territories, which would mean the NWT Health and Social Services Authority would be responsible for medical travel like everywhere else. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, further to my statement saluting the accomplishments of the Yellowknife Daycare Association, I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about daycare and child care.
In June the federal government announced it is putting $7 billion into creating 40,000 new daycare spaces over the next 10 years. Can the Minister tell us how this money will be used in the Northwest Territories and when it will start flowing? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to congratulate the Yellowknife Daycare Association on their accomplishments and the work that they've done to provide service here in Yellowknife.
I want to update the Members here that the GNWT is currently still in negotiations with the federal government regarding the funding agreements on early learning and child care. Negotiations are ongoing and I look forward to seeing that report and sharing that report and outcomes with this House, and I am looking for feedback. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Affordability and accessibility are the two big issues with child care in the Northwest Territories. I talked a little bit about how the Yellowknife Daycare Association will be addressing accessibility. I'm wondering what the government is doing to make child care more accessible in the communities that don't currently have it.
I'm proud to say that currently we have 23 communities across the Northwest Territories that offer early childhood programming. In the last little while we worked with some of our smallest communities to incorporate daycare programs, day home programs, and we're continuing to work with the other communities to get that up and running, and working with them on how we will do that.
We have made significant increases to the daily rates for early childhood program funding that came into effect October 1st of 2016. We do have start-up costs for people, groups, organizations that want to start up daycares, so there's a lot of work that we have done during this government on early childhood programming.
I acknowledge that the daily rates went up in October of last year, but the fact is that child care is very expensive. In fact, here in Yellowknife it's a working family's greatest expense after they pay for accommodation. As a result, really, licensed child care in a facility is only affordable for families with two good incomes. I'm wondering what work the Minister is doing on improving access to child care subsidies for lower income working families.
We continue to try to see what we can do in terms of providing subsidies for our infants to four-, five-, six-year-olds who go into early childhood programming. Junior kindergarten I think was a very good step in terms of providing early childhood programming for families in our communities right across the Northwest Territories. We continue to see how we can address the high cost of living. I think one big one was changes to the Canada Child Benefit as well as changes to the NWT Child Benefit; I think really made a big improvement in that area.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that it is useful to have junior kindergarten, and that is it is useful also to have an increased NWT Child Benefit, but that does not really address the cost of child care that families are paying for infants to age three, that is, prior to school age. I am wondering whether the Minister will investigate the feasibility of subsidizing the cost of child care on an income-tested basis, and set it up on a sliding scale like the NWT Child Benefit. Mahsi.
Over the course of this government and the end of the 17th Legislative Assembly, a lot of work has gone into early childhood programming. This government made it a mandate and a priority during the life of the 18th Legislative Assembly, and we continue to try to address high cost early childhood program needs. I will take that suggestion back to the department and see what we can work on and look at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned in my statement, my questions were directed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment with regards to the Skills 4 Success. My first question to the Minister is: what is the progression or report since the Skills 4 Success was introduced in the Northwest Territories, more specifically in the Sahtu region? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We did release the Skills 4 Success action plan in November of 2016, so we are just coming up to about a year of having that out there in the public and in the communities throughout the Northwest Territories. We are working with our partners. We are working with schools. We are working with post-secondary institutions and CLCs to get that information out there on how we can address that. Specifically with the Sahtu region, if the Member recalls, we have four goals under the Skills 4 Success, and under each one we have a lot of priorities. To get a progress on all the priorities would take a lot of work, but I can assure the Member that we are doing a lot of work throughout the Northwest Territories in every community and in all the regions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I know it was a broad question, but as I mentioned in my statement, it is a very proactive measure to see that the department is identifying and forecasting the opportunity so that it can be shared with our students in the academic classroom world. My question is: as mentioned in my statement, what work initiatives are under way with the Department of Health and Social Services in preparation for the transitional start-up at the Sahtu Regional Health Centre?
We have a small community employment strategy as well that we are working with. We have our apprenticeship, trades, and occupational strategy that we're trying to see how we can work with our small communities in our regions. I would have to see specifically what is coming out of our regional office in the Sahtu and how they have been working to get the skill force up, and people certified so that they can enter the work force and be part of the building and ongoing staffing at the health centre in Norman Wells, so I would have to talk with my colleague as well as look at what our regional staff is doing with it at the Department of ECE in the Sahtu.
It leads me to my third question here: would the Minister work with the counterpart there, the Minister of Health and Social Services, to coordinate together both departments making community visits to share the forecasted opportunities as identified in the Skills 4 Success program?
I know our career development officers at the regional centres do a great job of highlighting the Skills 4 Success document, the action plan, as well as our labour market information needs assessment. We work with partners with other departments. We work with our partners in business. We work with our partners in education, taking it into the schools as well as post-secondary. I will make sure that my colleagues within the Department of Health and Social Services, as we look forward to having more work force in the health centre for an ongoing purpose, do understand some of the needs of staffing at the health centre.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question, getting back to the action plan or the campaign plan, if you want to call it that: would the Minister share a marketing campaign brochure, addressed to the Sahtu leadership, identifying the opportunities in the Skills 4 Success initiative? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I have travelled over the Northwest Territories and been to career fairs, NWT Skills, our department does a great job of highlighting the labour market information needs assessment. The opportunities with Skills 4 Success, immigration strategy, ATOC strategy, a lot of the good things that our department is doing, and ensure the Member that we are getting out there, giving that information to residents and to our partners. However, any resident in the NWT can access our website as well. It has a lot of good information on all of our strategies and how to apply to them, and see what kind of program services as well as funding that they are entitled to or can apply on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
