Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How does the funding formula work right now? Right now, we provide money for schools to be able to provide services for JK to grade 12. It does have a funding formula that we feel is equitable, but it does also permit flexibility for the local decision-making that needs to be done by authorities.
Some of that is able to be flexible, such as our territorial school of monies. We also provide administration monies, but some of it is actually being changed, that it needs to be spent for things such as inclusive schooling and the Aboriginal languages. Those have to be spent on those areas specifically, but we try to be as flexible as possible.
Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I talk about the disparity between different regions here. I talk about the Sahtu has five communities or four communities. Is it four? Five, five communities, sorry, and four staff. In my riding, we have eight communities, including the Deh Cho riding, and we only have two staff. Can the Minister explain: if all education bodies have provided funding on an equitable basis, why are there different staffing levels at different divisional education and culture?
Like I stated earlier, the funding formula is based so that it is equitable. There is money for administration et cetera, but there is money that is provided for the number of children in the schools. However, they are allowed to use that with some flexibility, and, therefore, some schools do decide to hire additional teachers; other schools decide to use it for other areas. There are also other monies besides, that come from the GNWT. A lot of the schools in the territory have access to our Canada's Jordan's Principle, which is providing additional monies for them. We need to get more schools to work with this, to work on this area. When we allow flexibility and when they can apply for outside sources of funding, that allows them the discretion to be able to hire additional teachers or not.
Mr. Speaker, when I talk about differences in funding formula and that, we are seeing a decline in our student population in the riding here. We lost 60 students this next coming year, so we are seeing a huge cut-back on positions and that. Can the Minister please provide what process is used to change the school funding framework?
The funding formula is reviewed on a regular basis. We try to work with our school authorities, school bodies, to make sure that it meets their needs, as well. In saying that, though, some things are addressed as the needs come up. For example, just after I assumed this position as Education, Culture and Employment Minister, when it was brought to my attention by the MLA from Nahendeh, who stated that we only had one teacher in small schools, that was an area of concern for me, and so I moved on that quite quickly to actually make sure that we have a minimum of two teachers in every single school in the Northwest Territories, so it is reviewed regularly.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for her answers to this point here. I guess my concern, though, is, when we talk about our divisional boards, when we only have two staff, we are going to burn those people out. They are going to be working really hard, and, you know, when you've got eight schools, it is very difficult for two people. They always going to be on the road, so it is a concern. When we don't even have the proper IT staff, you know, that is a concern.
Will the Minister make a commitment to do a cross-jurisdictional review of the funding formula?
It is a concern where we don't have enough teachers in schools. That is why, like I said earlier, I insisted that there be two teachers in every school. Some of our small schools, like the one I met with today, actually only have five students in it and now has two teachers in it, so we have to also be careful that we don't overload it so that we have more teachers than actual students at a time.
In saying that, though, we do need to review the funding formula. When I was in the constituency tour for Nahendeh, it was brought to my attention that other jurisdictions actually don't do the funding based on the same way that we do within the Northwest Territories. That was really interesting to learn, and so it taught me that this isn't a Canada-wide funding formula and that we need to review it. I have committed to the MLA, and I will continue to do that, is that we are looking at a cross-jurisdictional review within the next year, to see what other provinces and territories are doing and to make sure we are as fair as possible to our students in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, constituents and other members of the public have brought to me their concerns around wait times of six to 12 weeks to access mental health services, far greater than the government's own estimate of two to three weeks. Can the Minister of Health and Social Services respond to these concerns today with an updated and current estimate of the approximate wait times to access mental health care services in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, two things: number one, for issues that are critical or urgent, there really are no wait times. We triage these individuals right away, and, if the triage identifies it as being an urgent or a critical issue, they will see somebody right away.
However, the Member is correct. There are wait times for non-urgent counselling services here in the Northwest Territories, and some of them are quite long. Yellowknife, for adults, it is up to three months; for children, two months. In Behchoko, it is anywhere from four to five weeks' wait time for non-urgent counselling services. In Hay River, it is actually the worst in the territories, at about 35 weeks. I know the Member has raised a number of questions on that, and we are trying to find some solutions there. In Fort Smith, it is one to two weeks. In the smaller communities, we tend not to have the same kind of wait lists, typically. There are times when we may have vacancy or someone goes on holiday, that there might be a short-term wait list, but typically not in the smaller communities, but I do hear the Member.
You know, a non-urgent issue can become an urgent if it is not addressed. Waiting eight months, I think it is a pretty significant wait time for people who are looking for that kind of care. The Minister mentioned urgent or critical cases. Can he share the policy that governs a critical or urgent case?
Mr. Speaker, I believe I heard the Member correctly when he indicated eight-month wait times. If the Member is aware of somebody who is waiting eight months, we are trying to constantly improve, and I would strongly encourage the Member to seek consent from that individual so that they can approach us so we could find out what is going on in that particular file because, on average, three months in Yellowknife is what we are seeing for non-urgent issues.
Mr. Speaker, all community counselling programs with wait times or wait lists have an intervention plan in place to ensure that urgent clients do not slip through the cracks. This recognizes that individuals may change over the time that they are waiting. They may come in, they may not be deemed "urgent," but it may escalate as a result of changing situations. As a result of these plans, triaging of all clients on referral are prioritizing urgent clients. We are offering same-day counselling to individuals who are identified as urgent, and when possible, short-term workshops and other things are done in the community to give our residents options. If an individual is on the wait list, and they are told, "Your appointment is going to be in six weeks," and there is a change in their situation, they should immediately reach out to the Health and Social Services providers, who can do a new, updated assessment to determine urgency, and if appropriate, they can take advantage of these services.
Once again, if the Member is aware of somebody that is eight months, please reach out to them and encourage them to either talk to quality assurance or get consent from the Member so that we can look into this file and figure out what went wrong.
In the event that there is someone who is on the edge and is put on one of those queues, but feels that they need the treatment, and they seek, under their own initiative, to go and obtain treatment, does the government have any policies to assist those people with any financial costs incurred if their case would have fallen under the healthcare and they simply could not wait in the queue any longer?
All of the programs and services, counselling and treatment services, that we provide are based on a referral. They would need a referral for us to provide them with financial supports and coverage.
Many insurance providers don't need our same-level referral. They can always approach their own insurance provider if they have it, recognizing that not everybody has it, but typically, no, if someone seeks treatment outside of our system, we wouldn't cover their costs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, the Minister spoke of new on-the-land healing programs that would address some of this backlog by providing more local options. There is around $5 million from the federal government to support this. This government itself has been budgeting $1.23 million for several years now.
With the eight contribution agreements that have been signed that the Minister spoke of recently in the House, how many real, actual programs that people can access to get these kind of services and avoid wait lists has this money created? Thank you.
I know that the Member is aware, but just before I answer the on-the-land question, we are doing a number of things to try and help us control and reduce the wait times. One of the things that we are doing is actually providing child and youth counsellors across the territory, which has opened up a service that really doesn't exist for many of our youth today who are using the system as a whole. We are putting more positions in, and we are trying to create more resources for people.
Mr. Speaker, we have $1.23 million. The $5 million that the Member is referring to, I think, may be referring to the wellness money that flows through the federal government, through us, to the Indigenous governments. They get to choose how to spend those dollars. We don't dictate how they spend those dollars.
We have $1.23 million available for on-the-land programming. We make $125,000 available to each of the Indigenous governments. They can ask for more, up to $30,000, on a case-by-case basis. Right now, we have a number of individual Indigenous governments who are running the programs. I could go through the list, but I think that it might just be easier to provide the Member that information in writing, because it is quite detailed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some follow-up questions to my earlier statement about the funding framework used by Education, Culture and Employment to fund the education councils around the region. The MLA for Nahendeh had some questions earlier, and in those answers from the Minister, the Minister noted that the framework is undergoing review right now. There is a cross-jurisdictional scan.
Could the Minister please clarify if this is a full review or if it is just a jurisdictional scan? If it is a review, what is the scope of this review, and how is the department accounting for the uniqueness of the Northwest Territories, in terms of remoteness, in terms of difficulty attracting staff, and factors such as that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. There are several questions in there. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad you noted that, because I was going, "There must be at least ten questions in that one statement." I am going to try to pick one of them out of there, and then he can slam me with the other ones.
The Member had stated that we are currently undergoing this review. That is not correct. We are in the process of just looking at it. I had just returned from the Nahendeh and realized that other jurisdictions have different funding formulas, and therefore, I have made a commitment that we will begin the work towards looking at how other jurisdictions provide their funding to their school bodies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That is unfortunate, that they are thinking about beginning the work to look at a possible review. I was hoping that there was a little more going on than this.
Perhaps the Minister can elaborate on how they assessed the quality of the current funding formula. By the department's own admission, just because you are funded to the formula doesn't mean that you are funded adequately. How does the department assess the adequacy of the funding formula?
The last comprehensive review, actually, on the funding formula was done in March 2016, where a number of things were brought up. Like I said, we are constantly reviewing it, so it is something that always is on the template.
Some of the things that we did notice and that were changed from that review, though, were, for example, things like targeted funding, such as inclusive schooling. We had given, in my opinion, too much discretion to the education bodies, and some were using it for teachers; some were using it for all kinds of things, so we tightened up the inclusive schooling funding so that they had to use it for defined purposes. We always say in the House that we don't have enough for inclusive schooling, so we have to make sure that we provide it where it is supposed to go.
Another thing that was brought to our attention was the money for Aboriginal languages, Indigenous languages. That has to go to Indigenous languages, so we tightened that up as well.
A third factor that I found from that review was actually that, a lot of the educational bodies, I hear all the time that there is not enough money, "we need more money, we need more money," but I was shocked when I heard that education bodies had surplus funding, and I'm going, "How do people who need money have surpluses?" We tightened that up as well, Mr. Speaker, and said, "Spend it or lose it."
We gave them a certain amount to be able to keep for surplus, because surplus is good, but the rest of it needs to go back into schooling. If we need more money for students, then we need to use the money that we have on the plate at the moment.
In my statement, I said that the funding formula is too rigid, and the Minister said, "Well, we looked at the funding formula, and we made it more rigid. Those are the kinds of changes that we are making." Then she talked about the surplus. She said the schools have too much surplus. The schools have too much surplus, in her opinion, because the funding formula doesn't work, and so they need this money to accommodate things that aren't accommodated in the funding formula. I think that there is a complete disconnect between the department and what is happening on the ground, the actual needs of the schools.
The Minister talked about some of the detrimental changes that have been made that came out of the last review. Are they looking at making any changes today or currently?
It is kind of a sin to hear that schools feel threatened and that they feel that they have got to hold onto their money and have a surplus to meet their needs. My background was in the NGO world, and surpluses were a luxury that we never actually got to use. If we had seen it, we spent it as soon as we got it. I really want education bodies to know to use their money. We are not going to dry up; we are still going to provide funding.
Some of the work that is going on right now is I meet with the education bodies a couple of times a year. When I have gone to those meetings, they have all been very politically correct, and sometimes, for me, politically correct doesn't always mean that it is the right thing to do. I put it on the table and said, in the next meeting that we have with the education bodies, I want to talk about inclusive schooling. I want to hear from them firsthand what the strengths and what the issues are, and so then we can actually determine how we use that money better.
It is one thing to hear it in the House, but if the education bodies don't bring those needs to my attention, then it doesn't say it is an issue. I need to hear from those designated authorities that tell me, "These are our concerns and what we would like to see as solutions." That is one change I am making is to try to open up the communications.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That makes two Ministers who say that, if they hear something in the House, it's not a concern. They need to hear it from the people directly. I'm not sure what they think our job is, as elected officials, but to be voices for the people. I have to say I'm glad to hear that the Minister is going to sit down with the authorities and actually listen to them, because my question was going to be: what happens to all those conversations that are had? Because I hear about the conversations from the authorities, and then they seem to just go into a drawer, the drawer is closed, and they're never seen again.
So what is going to come out of these conversations with the authorities? Can I get something, a deliverable, from the conversations that the Minister is going to have? What is she going to do with that information? I need something concrete. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I apologize if I was incorrect, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that I had said that MLAs don't speak for the people. They do speak for the people, but I also need to hear directly from the education bodies. They are my partners. I fund them. They are responsible for providing the services to the students. So I need to make sure that that relationship -- the Minister before me worked hard on developing relationships. I need to carry that forward. We need to get it to a place where they actually feel comfortable to come to me as the Minister and say, "We have concerns."
Like I've done with other groups, Mr. Speaker, it's not about just hearing and ignoring. It's about: talk about the issues, talk about solutions, and then find solutions that meet the needs of all of us. That's what I have done all my life in my career as a social worker, and that's what I can commit to continuing to do, is looking for solutions that work for all partners involved, including the children. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement today I spoke about the continuing line-ups and long waits at the Yellowknife Airport. Mr. Speaker, in an effort to promote the airport improvement fee, the Minister said before the renovation began that the improvements would improve the experience of the travelling public and reduce waiting times, but today there is still only one line-up and the travellers are all forced to go through this bottleneck. I'd like to ask the Minister: after $300,000 in renovations, can the Minister explain how this is an improvement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I can certainly tell you about all the improvements we've done out there with the revolving fund, probably one of the best things this Assembly has done to help improve tourism, particularly in Yellowknife. We spent a lot of money out there improving the system. The Member has raised the question around the CATSA Plus system, and let's make it quite clear in this House, I am not in charge of CATSA Plus. That's a federal initiative. That's their responsibility, but we are working very closely with them to improve the visitors' and the travelling public's experience.
Now, I have a bunch of notes here that I can clearly go to, but I want to make it quite clear that, you know, I've travelled as much as anybody in this Legislative Assembly, and there are times that I've been out there and I've been frustrated, myself. There are a number of issues around the security wait times. Sometimes, it's too many flights all at once. Sometimes, it's staffing shortages at CATSA Plus. That's probably the biggest concern right now with the CATSA system, is the shortage of employees and the amount of training that needs to be taking place out there, but we have been tracking the CATSA Plus system, along with our improvements that we've done out at the Yellowknife Airport, and we've been tracking it, and it's been down by 30 percent on average of wait times. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply, but I don't think that the public is going to find that to be too satisfactory, because, in fact, the Minister's staff, in a previous briefing to Yellowknife City Council, actually indicated and referred specifically that the installation of a CATSA Plus screening system would increase throughput of passengers. So do we have a CATSA Plus system and, if not, why not?
I can assure the Member that the system that is out there at the airport is the new CATSA Plus system.
It would be appreciated if the Minister could share some information at least with the committee, the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment, about what a CATSA Plus system entails so that we can get more information.
Mr. Speaker, at the same briefing, the Minister's staff told council to expect a 60 percent increase in throughput with this new system. Now, the Minister has said that it's 30 percent. Can the Minister at least describe to us how they measure it, and are they, in fact, measuring the throughput?
Yes, I did say that it has resulted in a 30 percent increase. We are working to improve it even more. Even though I say it's not our system, we are working with the CATSA Plus people to make improvements out there. The security staff right now is actually doing the monitoring and tracking of wait times, but we are moving to put in an automated system out at the airport for both security queue times and also we're going to be looking at the luggage wait times. So that's an improvement through the revolving fund that we're also going to be able to track these things and have better data for all the residents of the Northwest Territories. As I've said, the biggest problem we have out there right now with that system is staffing issues. It's not the system, it's not the new configuration that we've put into place, it's the CATSA staffing.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Mr. Speaker, while I appreciate the Minister's reply as it relates to staffing issues, I mean, that's a concern that we all have here in the North, staffing issues. The fact of the matter is that there is still only one line-up. The staff there, quite frankly, in my view and others', they are doing a commendable job. It's just you can't increase the throughput without having more screening systems. So I'd like to ask the Minister: is this it? After $300,000 and all these improvement fees, is this as good as it gets, or are we going to see a much-improved system? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
He's kind of left an open-ended question there for me, so I'm going to take the opportunity to say, you know, the revolving fund has given us an opportunity at the Yellowknife Airport to do a number of improvements. It's not just the CATSA system. That's a system that we're working on. We're working on something that is not even in my control. We're working with the federal government to try to improve it. We went and did other steps outside what I've just said about the new configuration and the staffing issues. For those of you in the House who have travelled lately, we've put up signage in Asian languages to help way-finding systems there to help people, prior to going into the CATSA system, be a little bit more prepared for when they're travelling. There are videos out there in different languages outside the security system to also educate passengers. So we're doing a lot of different things to improve the Yellowknife Airport, not just the CATSA system. There are the runways and all these other things that we're spending this money on.
As I said here probably a couple of weeks ago in my Minister's statement in the House, we're the victims of our own success, again. Landings are up 15 percent. Traffic by passengers is up by 4 percent. We've put in these new systems and we're trying to accommodate the people as best we can. My best recommendation to the travelling public is, you know, we're so used to being a small jurisdiction that we can go to the airport and jump on a plane 10 minutes before it goes, but the reality of it is, in the Yellowknife Airport, you have to start looking at going out there 90 minutes or 60 minutes prior to departing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today I reviewed the history of our government's acquisition and management of a Mactung property. We accepted it as financial security against the shaky Cantung Mine and have spent money cleaning up the site, compiling geological reports, and so on, in the hope of finally trying to sell it. Can the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment tell us how much has been spent to assess and clean up the site, compile geological reports, hire a consultant to file Yukon government applications, and now market it? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a detailed question, and I have to commend the Member for giving me the questions ahead of time, because we had to compile a lot of information on this set of questions. So I'll go through the Member's list. The government has spent $126,025 removing hazardous and other materials from the site. There has been no assessment of full remediation costs, as this is not work that we are intending to undertake. We have completed Mactung site visits, one by Lands, another resulting in two geological reports on the mine sites and surrounding area, but no formal site assessment has been completed.
This work was completed by the Northwest Territories Geological Survey at a cost of approximately $30,000 and was aided by helicopter support from the federal government's Polar Continental Shelf Program. The Government of the Northwest Territories has spent $16,304 for the preparation and submission of the Class 4 quartz-mining land-use permit application and has engaged Tetra Tech as our consultant for this renewal. A local company was engaged in the renewal of licences, and we are currently working on a budget for the sale process. Those numbers have not been yet finalized.
I want to thank the Minister for that detailed response. I will certainly check Hansard to review that. It is not clear why the Minister is marketing the Mactung property in conjunction with the federal government efforts under way to sell Cantung. These two properties are 140 kilometres away from each other by air and 700 kilometres by road. Can the Minister explain why we are marketing these properties together, and, if they are for sale separately, what is the asking price for Mactung?
