Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sorry, I didn't make my question more clear to the Minister. I am not asking him to index the minimum wage. The methodology for calculating minimum wage is something entirely different than calculating the living wage. What I'm asking him to do is index the NWT Child Benefit. Is that possible? Thank you.
Not at this time. As I said, we are in our first year of the NWT Child Benefit. We need to look at the evaluations, look how this has affected our families right across the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned, any families or individuals who do need that extra support for the basic needs, our government is always there to support and help and provide the most basic needs for our families across the NWT, and we will continue to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if you pay attention to the news, it seems like major drug busts have become common place in the NWT. Despite the hard work of the RCMP, the market here is so robust that there appears to be no shortage of money to be made. In addition to the social problems that the drug trade brings, it also brings a lot of Southerners, many of whom have ties to gangs and organized crime. What happens to these people? When they are arrested, they are put into the North Slave Correctional Complex in remand along with the general population. What I am concerned about is because what's happening is we are putting a lot of our young troubled youth. If you are in your 20s, you are still a youth. You are putting them in a remand unit with hard criminals and gang members, and correctional centres are proven to be excellent recruiting ground for gangs. A lot of these Southerners bring the mentality, a level of violence that isn't traditionally seen in northern correctional centres.
I would like to ask the Minister, because this is a relatively new problem compared to other places, it is not out of control yet. Does the Department of Justice have any sort of policy in place to deal with the influx of gangs into the correctional system in the Northwest Territories?
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can advise that Corrections is aware of this problem which the Member opposite has alluded to. I can advise that gang awareness is covered for new recruits in the Corrections training program, so staff are aware of the problem involving gangs; they are able to identify and deal, hopefully, with those issues. Thank you.
Maybe I will look for some more details in a minute, but I'd like to know: does the department do anything to basically get the gang members out of the territory? Maybe send them back to their home jurisdiction, or to a correctional facility that might be better able to handle them?
I can advise that those on remand, which would cover many of the gang members who are in the facility, people on remand are held in the jurisdiction in which the offence has occurred. Now, once they're sentenced, particularly if they are sentenced to a federal term of incarceration, they are generally sent south, but we can't do that with remands.
I read the news. I see a lot of these people who are arrested from the South. They are on probation. They have other charges. If they are importing pounds of cocaine and firearms, they are looking at significant time.
What they do is they try and do as much time as they can at North Slave because it's easier time than doing it at Bowden or something. What has the department done to look into sending them back? I know he says we can't send them out of the jurisdiction, but have they tried? Have they tried anything?
As I mentioned previously, those alleged gang members really fall into two categories. Those who are on remand, we don't have the ability to send them back to the jurisdictions from which they came.
Also, too, that would be difficult financially. For example, they might have many court appearances, and if they were sent back, say, to Ontario, then we would have to bring them back at our cost each time they appeared in court. However, once they are sentenced, and often they do receive lengthy sentences, many of these gang members are charged with narcotics offences, and sentences have been increasing in that area. Once they receive a sentence, if it is a federal offence, that is, two years or more, my understanding is most of them are sent back to penitentiaries in the South.
I guess when they are identified as having gang affiliation in remand, are they separated from the general population, or are they left with people who are in there, maybe just because they have addiction issues?
The staff manages the inmate population based on risks, security, and safety to inmates. In some cases when inmates, gang members or otherwise, become dangerous, have a security concern, or are dangerous to other inmates, they can be housed outside the general population in the same facility.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am interested in this topic because I think we are at a point where we can stop this from getting worse like we have seen elsewhere. I would ask the Minister: would he be able to share the department's policy with me so I can have a look at what they are doing to deal with this gang issue? Thank you.
I will speak with corrections, and if there is a written policy regarding gang awareness, I will ask them whether they will be prepared to share that with the Member opposite. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my statement today, the second largest expense for a family of four in Yellowknife is childcare, amounting to $16,000 a year to provide full-time care for a child and after-school care for another child. To that end, I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about the recent study of childcare in the NWT that revealed that families had difficulty accessing childcare subsidies. I am wondering what the Minister is doing to make it easier for low-income families to qualify for childcare subsidies? Thank you.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any constituent's issues that the Member has coming by, I encourage you to come and see me at my office, and we can do it on a case-by-case basis. Our government has made improvements to subsidies that we give to all of our daycares throughout the Northwest Territories. We have 11 communities that currently do not have daycare services or access throughout the NWT, and that is a focus and a priority to try to get childcare and daycare services to those 11 communities that currently do not have that.
We do have a junior kindergarten program that we have implemented territorially this year, and we are continuing to monitor how that is working out, but any concerns that the Member has in terms of families that have approached her, or any Members in this House, I encourage them to come and see me at my office or send me an email, and we can work on addressing that.
Our client service officers also work very hard with our income assistance clients to give them the services that they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I just want to reiterate that the living wage is to enable to families to earn enough money to stand on their own feet. We hear all the time in this House that the best remedy for a social program is a job. These are people who have jobs, but they are not earning enough money to make ends meet, unless they are getting $22.24 an hour in Yellowknife. To that end, how is the Minister going to reduce the secondlargest expense that these families have, which is childcare? What can he do to help working families afford the cost of childcare for their families?
As I mentioned, we have made changes to our childcare subsidy programs. Myself and the Member from Yellowknife Centre actually attended the opening of the new daycare here in Yellowknife and increased spaces that allowed for more of all ages that can access the daycare programs.
As I mentioned, we have provided junior kindergarten to fouryearolds across the territory, which on average saves anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 for families that put their children into the junior kindergarten program. There is a lot of work that has been done, and we continue to work with our daycares to make sure that they get all the opportunities for the childcare subsidy that is provided to them.
As with many things in the NWT, what is required in Yellowknife is not the same thing that is required in Paulatuk. In Yellowknife, we have an affordability question. In other small communities, a third of them in the NWT, they have accessibility problems; there are no daycares. Can the Minister craft a solution that takes into account the needs of different kinds of communities in providing affordable and accessible childcare?
Yes, it is a priority of this government to provide early childhood development childcare as well, and in those 11 communities, I do agree with the Member that what is needed in Paulatuk is not needed the same here in Yellowknife. I think, with the junior kindergarten program, we have opened up more spaces here in Yellowknife. The new daycare opening last month was something that was very beneficial to families here in Yellowknife, and I will continue to work with groups and organizations to get the licensing and make sure that anyone who wants to open up daycare or childcare spaces, that we work with them to make sure that they have the opportunity to provide those services to our families across the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday during Committee of the Whole the Minister told us he had signed off an agreement with the federal government on childcare, and he didn't provide any other detail on that, except that there would be money carried over into the next fiscal year. Could the Minister please advise us what this agreement says about affordability and access ability of childcare? Thank you.
Yes, we did sign off on an agreement with the Government of Canada to provide more early childhood programming throughout the Northwest Territories. We are waiting on the signing from the federal government in order to make sure that the action plan that we are developing through that signing was agreed to by both parties. We will get information and send that to committee in a letter to give them an update on how we are using those dollars to provide affordable and accessible childcare throughout the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Premier, and they are with regard to the PanTerritorial Vision on Sustainable Development and the Arctic Policy Framework. I don't recall there being any public consultations on the panterritorial vision. Can the Premier confirm that for me? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. The Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The three northern Premiers worked together as part of the Northern Premiers Forum to develop this panterritorial vision. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to thank the Premier for confirming that there was no public consultation with regard to the development of that statement. I have had a chance to look at it. It is supposed to be about sustainable development. You could actually take the word "sustainable" out and just replace it with "resources." There is nothing in the document, really, with regard to sustainability.
The classic definition of "sustainability" is to make sure that things that we do today do not take away from opportunities for future generations. It is about intergenerational equity. The Premier himself has talked about balancing economy and environment. Why is there nothing in the document about sustainability in the PanTerritorial Vision on Sustainable Development?
As I said earlier in response to the Member for Yellowknife North's question, the three northern Premiers were very concerned about the report of the Ministerial Special Representative of the Minister of Indigenous Affairs Canada. She was commissioned to consult with stakeholders and governments through the Arctic, and the terms of reference focused primarily on conservation.
When she met with the Premiers, we felt that the request for increased sustainable development was not reflected in the report. We felt that significant work had been done in developing conservation and protected areas. We have significant amounts of parks, and the focus of the report that they worked on was marine protected areas.
We felt it was important to have this PanTerritorial Vision for Sustainable Development that we felt would balance the report which was going to be used as the centrepiece for the Arctic Policy Framework.
I want to thank the Premier for that. I am certainly more than a bit disappointed to hear that our government has basically rejected the work, then, that was done by the ministerial special representative.
Of course, sustainable development is more than just about resources; it's about people, things like cultural sustainability, Indigenous language and cultural revitalization, social sustainability, recognizing the roles and contributions of business and civil society. Is there going to be some incorporation of these ideas of cultural sustainability, social sustainability, into the NWT chapter of the Arctic Policy Framework?
When the Prime Minister and President Obama announced their parallel moratoriums in the Beaufort Sea, the Prime Minister announced that the fact that, when we raised it, there was no accompanying economic development strategy to deal with the fact that we were being asked to leave billions or trillions of dollars' worth of oil and gas in the ground, there was no accompanying economic development strategy to provide jobs for the people of the Northwest Territories. He said, "Well, don't worry about it, we're going to have a clean growth job strategy, you still have tourism, you have fisheries," and so, that's what our concern was about.
So we thought the Arctic Policy Framework would be focused entirely on jobs and diversifying our economy. The fact that the Member would like to see us in two languages, culture and so on, it was not my understanding how it would work, but if, as I said, if the round tables that we will be hosting where the primary recommendations is that the Arctic Policy Framework should be focused on languages and culture, then we will approach it on that basis.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Premier for that, of course. I'm not suggesting that that be the sole and exclusive focus of the document. I want to make sure that sustainability is incorporated into it. It's offered as genuine input, and I hope that he'll take me up on the offer of including that sort of information and perspectives into the document. It's not just about resource development, and nor should it be.
I have another question for the Minister: is he committed, then, to sharing drafts of the chapters as it is being put together with Regular MLAs and keeping us updated on progress and development of the chapters? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
We had a very good discussion at InterGovernmental Council, where all the Aboriginal governments that participated and signed in to devolution were very supportive of working together and developing the Arctic Policy Framework. We have committed to holding round tables throughout the North with all of the different stakeholders. Certainly, we will be pleased to share drafts of the documents as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is about the time of year the Standing Committee on Government Operations conducts public hearings with statutory officers who serve an ombudsmanlike role over the government. So I'd like to take the opportunity, today, to speak to the Minister of Justice, who is charged with developing ombudsman legislation: where is this proposal? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. I believe that we will be coming forward with legislation later this year. Thank you.
I'm very eager to see this legislation, but I notice the budget doesn't have an ombudsman office listed, so how are we paying for the ombudsman role once the legislation is passed?
We are, of course, committed to the office of an ombudsman, but we have not yet ascertained all of the costs.
I mean, it's clear that Northerners need a onestop-shop for concerns around access to government services, and we need to make sure we understand what the costs are going to be on this government to provide that service and support the ombudsman. So will the Minister commit to getting those facts and figures together and presenting them to either the Standing Committee on Government Operations or to Members of the House, so we can understand the fiscal implications of this office on this government?
Yes. I understand that this is a matter that would go to the Board of Management, so obviously they're going to have to determine what those costs are.
