Debates of March 15, 2018 (day 27)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have not yet had an opportunity to review the Macdonald-Laurier report, but I think we have been concerned over the last two years about some of the methodology. We don't think, in many ways, it correctly reflected our situation where we have vast distances and have a very small population. I do note that with respect to some of the more objective findings, such as the time required to get to court, we were near the top. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It's somewhat unfortunate the Minister hasn't had time to look at this report. It was released earlier this month. I would assume it would be of interest to him and his department, but some of the findings do address what the Minister's just spoke of. The report mentions the challenges the North face, but we also have the second highest rate of violent crime in Canada and the highest rate of property crime. The report also found that the Northwest Territories funds little on legal aid compared to other jurisdictions. We received an F in support for victims, according to this report, with the lowest proportion of restitution orders in Canada. I would like to ask the Minister of the state of programs that support victims in the Northwest Territories, if he could speak to those.

The Victims Service Program is a fundamental component of how we provide support for victims in the Northwest Territories. There are 11 community-based victim services in eight different communities. They service those communities, and they also travel often with the courts to other communities to assist with victims, not necessarily with the courts, so I think they sometimes travel with the courts, but they do act in all the communities, including not only the larger ones. So there is victim assistance coverage for the whole of the Northwest Territories. Admittedly, there are victim assistance workers only in eight communities, but they do serve the whole of the North.

We are always concerned about these programs. We are always seeking to improve them. I think we have come a long way. Perhaps we have further to go.

The report also gave the Northwest Territories an F in costs and resources, and found that, even though we are the most policed jurisdiction in Canada, it's an expensive system. The corrections system was also found to be very expensive. It doesn't seem to be lowering our rates of crime or lowering the number of people who are incarcerated. What is the Minister doing to address the high cost for our justice system, that doesn't seem to be getting us the results moving up the list rather than moving down?

Of course, costs are always a concern. As I mentioned earlier, one of our problems is we are serving a vast territory with a very small population, so on a per capita basis, yes, our costs do seem very high. We are always looking at ways to reduce costs and reduce also the amount of criminal activity in the Northwest Territories through such initiatives as DVTO Court and Wellness Court.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think, when reports like this come out, they shake the public's confidence around our justice system. I'm wondering if the Minister can commit to reviewing the report and providing a response or some sort of public statement on what he sees as the strength of our system, if he does in fact disagree with these reports? Can he commit to read the report? Thank you.

Yes, I will undertake to read the report, and certainly I would be prepared to answer questions in the future about the report, or perhaps make a statement with respect to it.

I do want to say something about the legal aid system. I was a long time working in that system and so worked often with lawyers from other jurisdictions. They found it to be the gold standard generally of legal aid systems. We had quite a bit of coverage, so there were not people who were unrepresented in court. I think it's very easy to defend the legal aid system itself. I will look at the report and certainly be happy to answer questions or make statements if required with respect to the findings of the report and our response to those findings. Thank you.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the 2018-2019 Main Estimates, the Department of Lands plans to roll out several new positions to work on land tender issues, including land leases in my riding of Deh Cho. My questions are to the Minister of Lands. Of course, my intention is to seek some clarity in terms of how the land lease issues would be addressed. My first question is to the Minister: can the Minister explain why two positions are going to Fort Smith when there are only six land leases in Fort Smith? Mahsi.

Masi. Minister of Lands.

As Members will know, the number of positions for this task of resolving a long-standing issue of equity leases has gone from three to five. The initial training will be in Fort Smith. There is a support staff there. There are trained people, both working currently and those who have retired, therefore I thought that it would be sensible and most efficacious if there was a group of people working together. Since we do have trained staff there, we thought it best that two of the five positions would be and remain in Fort Smith. Thank you.

Could the Minister explain the criteria for selecting these communities? It's clear that the Minister has made a decision for his community of Fort Smith. The other communities, I understand there are other criteria that could be objectively used. One such criterion could be, you know, office space.

As I mentioned earlier, there are trained people in Fort Smith. Plus, those who are currently working and those who are retired can assist in training the five candidates for these positions. As proposed, we are going to have two positions remaining in Fort Smith. Two of the positions will be in Fort Smith. One will be in Inuvik, one in Yellowknife, and one in either Fort Simpson or Fort Providence. Now, there are many considerations that will have to go into the placement of those positions, whether in Fort Simpson or Fort Providence; the availability of candidates, office space, and support.

Would the Minister agree that one criteria could be the number of fees that are currently being addressed? Fort Providence, for one, has the highest number of land leases. Would the Minister agree to have a position situated in Fort Providence?

The review of these leases will of course take some time, and I do not think it's necessary that the staff be located in the exact location where the leases exist, so, therefore, we thought it most efficient that there be a team of people put together in Fort Smith so there is experienced staff there. As proposed, two of the candidates will remain in Fort Smith, the others will be one in Yellowknife, one in Inuvik, and one in either Fort Providence or Fort Simpson.

Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the name of efficiency, sometimes small communities are the affected communities because we lose positions to regional centres and headquarters. I am optimistic that the Minister could work with my riding, with the leadership of my riding and community. Would the Minister commit to getting back to me by May 24th with perhaps a formal decision to ensure that the position is in fact placed in Fort Providence? Mahsi.

I don't know whether we would be able to identify candidates and resources by May 24th. That is the issue, so I cannot make that commitment. Thank you.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are not enough pilots in Canada to meet the demand, and this gap is widening. The effects are being felt across Canada, but, in the NWT, we are disproportionately affected, I would say, because our territory is so large, would have a lack of road infrastructure, and the new rules around pilot fatigue mean more pilots are required to maintain the current flights that we have. Many residents rely heavily on small regional airlines, and those are the type of airlines that have difficulty retaining pilots because they are being poached by the bigger companies who can offer more. The NWT has become sort of a training ground for pilots where young pilots might come in and then leave, so the pilots are also more inexperienced. I have heard that the big companies are hiring entire classes of pilots and instructors. You know, it does not look well for the future.

In Hay River, we would like to see more flights in and out of there so we can get some competition and lower the prices, but this pilot shortage is making that even more difficult. So, because the Minister of Education is responsible for labour and training, I have some questions for him. First, I would like to ask: has the department identified this as an issue? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know, not too long ago in the Yukon government, they looked at creating some type of training school for pilots. The Member is correct. We do have a shortage of pilots throughout all of Canada, and, when our pilots here, in the Northwest Territories, are getting approached by big airlines, it does become a concern for residents. As well, as he mentioned, a lot of us are connected by the airlines. We have had initial discussions with one of our airlines here, in the North, but that is all it is right now, just initial discussions on how we can move forward in creating some type of partnership or training for pilots, a pilot school here, in the Northwest Territories. We will continue to keep Members updated as this moves on because I do know that the Yukon has really jumped into this, and we want to follow suit because we do have a very vast region here, in the Northwest Territories, and we do need to get to our communities.

That is great to hear. I have gotten a couple of good answers from the Minister today. I was talking to someone yesterday, and one of their relatives wants to go to flight school, but it's, I think it was, $90,000 a year. You know, it's pretty cost-prohibitive, so I am glad to see that the department is taking these steps. I know it's early days, but does the Minister have a timeline when we can expect an update on the progress of this?

As I mentioned in my earlier response, we just had initial discussions. That is where it is right now. I do believe my colleague the Minister of Infrastructure has sent a letter of concern to his federal counterpart about some of these concerns with pilots and concerns that the Member has brought up here today. We will keep Members apprised of how this progresses as we have these discussions.

I guess it is very early, but is this something the government would look at partnering with a local airline on? Is the government willing to look at providing funding to get this school started?

We do not really have the full details in line right now. As this progresses, as the work progresses with one of these northern airlines, we will see what kind of response we get back from the federal government. We will have a better idea of what everybody's role is in this and what our role will be as a government. Until then, we really do not know until we get more details.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be to the Minister of Lands, and it's going to be changing a little bit from what I was looking at doing here. I am going to come back to what the Member for Deh Cho was talking, these positions. So we heard the other side say that we should maybe put the positions in Hay River. Hay River has six, just like Fort Smith, so can the Minister please look at doing this, instead of pitting two small communities against each other, take one position and put it in the Deh Cho? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Lands.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned previously, the plan is to have five people in this section or this department dealing with equity leases; two in Fort Smith, one in Yellowknife, one in Inuvik, and one in either Fort Simpson or Fort Providence.

I thank the Minister for the non-answer again, but, I mean, I understand. We have five positions. We have two in Fort Smith, six equity leases in Fort Smith, six in Hay River. We have 58 in Fort Providence, 33 in Nahendeh, which is in Fort Simpson, that surrounding area. So will the Minister get his department to look at it and actually, after doing the training -- that is what they are trying to do; that is where they are bringing all those five together -- put one position in Fort Simpson, one position in Fort Smith, one position in Fort Providence, one in Yellowknife, and one in Inuvik?

This proposal for these five positions was thought out over a period of time, and, as I say, I do not think it's necessary that the employees, these five employees, be in the same communities as the leases are located. It's more important that they have surrounding them the correct support, both from current employees and perhaps retired employees, to finally resolve this matter of these long-standing equity leases.

Support, I agree. I think that's great. We are looking at office space. Deh Cho has an office space with your government services there. They have an Internet service that is there. You know Internet? They're close to Yellowknife. Like, they're really close. Why won't the Minister look at this and be fair to the Deh Cho, the Nahendeh, and put the positions where they need to be?

The Members may remember that the original proposal was that the three positions be all in Fort Smith, which seems sensible to me, because we have the expertise there. To be reasonable, we have come up with an alternate proposal to hopefully resolve this longstanding issue.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, this is the Minister who thought 10 per cent was reasonable when we were talking about leases. Now, we have it down to 5 per cent, which is a little bit more reasonable.

When we talk about the Deh Cho, Lands Department has Fort Providence and Kakisa being serviced out of, guess what, South Slave -- the Fort Smith office. Will the Minister look at this and quit worrying about the position in Fort Smith, but help the residents of the Northwest Territories, i.e., Fort Providence, and they're really close to Enterprise, and put the position where it needs to be, in Fort Providence? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What is most important and should be paramount in our minds is resolving this situation of longstanding equity leases, which has been a thorn in the side of the residents and the Minister for some time. We sought to resolve it in the most efficient way possible. We have agreed, however, that to speed things up, there will be more employees. At least, I hope that will be the result of having more employees, but the real point of this is to resolve the matter, and that is what we are proposing to do. I think the proposal as we have changed it, from three to five and the placement of those employees, is a reasonable way of resolving the matter in the most efficient way possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we began our sitting, I had questions for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs about changes to the Cities, Towns, and Villages Act. It is the last day of the sitting. Perhaps we will have a bill later, but I don't predict that is going to happen. Where is the Minister at with changes to the CTV Act? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I know that we were trying to get it rushed through. There was concerns with the tourism, the income for the City of Yellowknife, et cetera, so we have been trying to work diligently on it. We are still on track.

We have our legislative proposal that I believe is in the process of being submitted. I know I dated it March 6th, and it was sent out of my office on March 8th, so I can find out where exactly in the background it is, but we are diligently trying to get that legislative proposal to standing committee at this time. Thank you.

At the time of when this issue was first brought to the floor of the House, there was a concern from the City of Yellowknife, the community who has been targeted for these changes, and who desperately needs them after this government has cut their tourism support. Has the Minister reached out to the City of Yellowknife and solicited them for their upcoming budget challenges if this legislation isn't brought forward according to their timelines?

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is responsible for the CTV Act. We are not responsible for the funding that is provided to the Visitors' Association. As stated, I can't speak on behalf of another department. I am not sure. I know that Municipal and Community Affairs would not be going into the City of Yellowknife to look at their budget for their visitors' centre. That is not under Municipal and Community Affairs.

I was trying to frame the issue, but I will be more clear on this. Has the department or the Minister's office spoken with city council or city administration on the proposed changes to the CTV Act, and do they understand that delays in the legislation could result in the City of Yellowknife not being able to meet its budget obligations?

Yes, we have been meeting regularly with the City of Yellowknife, actually, on this act. I will make sure that they are talked to about what our timeline is. We did present it to them when we first provided it. We are on track with them.

I do want to clarify, as well, that I found out that the legislative proposal is before standing committee, and it was dated March 8th, as I suspected.