Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question for the Minister of Health is related to my Member's statement. Does the Minister of Health have any financial assessment comparables for the cost of preventable measures like homecare and home support with daily extended hours, compared to building more structures for elders in regional centres and staffing them? If so, can they be provided? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's a timely question in that we have just completed a home and community care review for the Northwest Territories. We received the full final report on September 16th, which includes 22 recommendations. These recommendations are currently being prioritized by the staff; however, I can tell you that we also included research from other jurisdictions. The information in the review supports that, by investing in home and community care, there is potential to divert some costs related to long-term care. This is a priority for the department and, drawing from the experience in other jurisdictions, we are continuing to assess what this may mean for the Northwest Territories.
I look forward to providing more details to the Member as we conclude this work. We will have the review and our responses to the recommendations available for the MLAs for the next session, and we look forward to the opportunity to provide a briefing to the interested Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In relation to my Member's statement, as well: will the Minister of Health commit to providing after-hour and weekend services to clients in Inuvik by having their department look at ways to have possibly evening and day shift work throughout the week?
I agree that there is a need to look at how services and the home and community care programs are being delivered, including the hours of service. When the home and community care review was conducted, one of the purposes of the review was to look at the consistency in how services are delivered across the Northwest Territories, as well as if there are any gaps in the program and services. There are recommendations from the review that do speak to exploring the feasibility of expanding hours of services. We will be working with the health and social services authorities to determine how we can move this recommendation forward, including which communities will be our priority based on current needs.
I am just looking to see if the Minister will commit to looking at what it would cost, also, and maybe it's part of this plan, to bring our residents back to the NWT to be cared for here at home, as well.
As I noted earlier, our goal is to support elders and those with disabilities to live in their homes and their communities. It's never our goal to have someone leave their home or community; however, we all know that there are times when the care may become so complex that we need to consider other options for care for our clients. We have a number of residents who have had to relocate outside the Northwest Territories to receive care that has exceeded our ability to provide. Many of these individuals are living in what we call a "supportive living" setting.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to the last comment that she made, the supported living, within this new report, hopefully, they are looking at supportive living in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That is our ability, to have a look at that, and I will get back to the Member with any progress on the review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. As I mentioned in my statement, residents of Yellowknife and in communities across the NWT are facing what I describe as a housing crisis. Housing problems have more than doubled in the last five years. Can the Minister tell us whether she considers the current situation a crisis? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for your comments, Member. With the housing crisis, it's not acceptable for the Northwest Territories. Like I said before, I do come from a smaller community. I come from a smaller area. I do see the homelessness, and I see how it affects our people at the grassroots level. I will be working very closely with my department and looking at the programs that are now existing, and working towards improvement. Thank you.
Thank you to the Minister for that answer. I want her to appreciate that we have significant housing problems in Yellowknife, as well as in the small communities. My question for her is: what specific action is she going to take to address the escalating housing problems identified in the 2019 survey?
Going forward, I know that there are reports that have been completed in the past, already. I have not had the chance to review them, but I would like to exercise them in getting new results and new ideas. I do come to the department with fresh eyes, and I am looking forward to looking at the Northwest Territories and meeting their needs as a territory.
Thank you to the Minister for that response. I'd like the Minister to answer whether she is prepared to revisit the Housing Corporation's decision not to add any more units to its inventory to meet the waiting list of over 900 households.
Thank you, Member. I would like to revisit the number of units that are existing for the Northwest Territories, but also we are in a housing crisis, as well, and we do need new allocated units and new public units in the Northwest Territories. I am wanting to go ahead and review what we actually have on the ground and look at the inventory.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That was a positive response from the Minister, and I appreciate that. My final question is whether the Minister will be lobbying her colleagues for a greater investment in housing in the next budget. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, we will be lobbying. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance for the rationale for the delay of three to four weeks in making payments to GNWT vendors, as set out in the Financial Administration Manual. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Finance does attempt to pay all vendors within 30 days, which I would suggest is really an industry standard. It allows an opportunity to due diligence on the materials that are presented in support of an invoice, in addition to which the goal in fact is to pay BIP members or BIP businesses within 20 days, a standard that we are working towards. So that is the rationale, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Has the Department of Finance given consideration to the standing committee's report on procurement, and, if not, can we expect to see some analysis or response to the committee's recommendation?
I understand the department has reviewed that report, and I have also personally reviewed that report. With respect to the response that may or may not be coming, I believe there will be a more fulsome response in due course, Mr. Speaker, and, over the course of time, when that does happen, I will certainly engage the Member with that information once I have it.
I understand that the financial administration policy on the timing of payments to vendors provides for certain exceptions that allow for immediate payment upon receipt of invoices from language translators or interpreters, justices of the peace, coroners, and sheriff's bailiff services. Would the Minister be willing to consider expanding these exemptions for small northern businesses?
That kind of a consideration is not currently within the department's purview of projects underway right now. That said, there are a number of things that the department is doing to try to improve the speed of which small northern businesses are being paid. There are a number of things that can be done and a number of steps that can be taken to improve that process, not the least of which would be to just encourage the vendors themselves to be using e-mail, to be directing things, fulsome information, as well, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that our departments know that those vendors invoices go directly to Finance. All of those things can help improve the system, and we will be taking those steps to improve the process.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister be willing to commit to developing a proposal or supplying me with any kind of documentation that would allow me to better communicate with Kam Lake business owners as to how they can go about getting paid in a timely fashion? Thank you.
I think there is a simple answer, and it is "Yes." While I don't know exactly how quickly I can get that to the Member, I am prepared to make that commitment to do so as quickly as possible so that there is a better way to have all the northern businesses paid as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment as my Member's statement on the GNWT's education renewal document and the state of education in the small communities. Can the Minister advice if the education renewal document was presented to the education councils or divisional education boards in the Northwest Territories? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can inform the Member, my colleague, that the education renewal and innovation framework was shared widely with all the education bodies back in 2013 when it was first released. The Member referenced a three-year action plan in his statement. I am not sure if that was. It is my assumption it was, but I can't say for sure. I can find out.
However, this leads me to something else that I have been discovering since I took this portfolio. The communication between the department and the education bodies, the boards themselves and the regional councils, needs to be improved. I have spoken at length with the department about this, and I have reached out to all the education chairs around the territory. I haven't been able to get a hold of one, but I have spoken with all the other ones to bridge that gap and ensure that we have better communication. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Will the Minister commit to delivering on the education renewal plan and have the department staff go into all the small communities to discuss the state of education with grass-roots people?
There are two parts to the question: will the Minster commit to delivering on the ERI, and will the departmental staff go into all the small communities? The original ERI framework had a lot of big goals in there. I actually respect that document quite a bit because it says, "This is what we are going to try. We might not try them all. We are going to try them, and we will see if they work." They threw ideas out there.
It is a great document, and a lot of good things have come out of that. We have northern distance learning. There are elders in school. There are all sorts of these things that have happened. I think what we are realizing now is maybe we need to pare that down and focus on the things that we found are working.
Education is a tough department, and I know some of the Ministers have had a rough go at it over the past little while, whether it is junior kindergarten or whatever it may be. We are actually in a good place right now because the department has learned from a lot of the issues that have come out in the last few years and has done really well with gathering data and really focusing themselves. Going forward, we are going to be delivering more focused programming that hopefully will deliver results.
In terms of going to every community, I will be travelling to a lot of the communities. Like I said, I am reaching out to current and former board members and talking to as many people as I can because I want to hear from the people on the ground how education is actually being delivered in the communities.
Mahsi to the Minister for his answers. Most if not all the small communities are quite possibly facing more teacher layoffs in the near future. My community of Fort Providence has lost four teacher positions this past June. This is creating increasing workloads for the existing teachers as they are teaching more than one grade and quite possibly increasing the stress levels for the teachers. Shouldn't a situation like this raise red flags in the education system, and what is the GNWT Department of ECE going to do about these situations in the small, outlying communities?
ECE provides funding to all the education bodies in the Northwest Territories based on the School Funding Framework, and that, essentially, is based on the number of students who are enrolled. Then once the regional education body receives that funding, it allocates it to individual schools. It is the principals of those schools who determine how that funding is best used. When there are declining enrollments, that means there is less money. That means there are fewer teachers.
This is something that was discussed at length in the last Assembly, and I know that there were comments made that we need to look at this and we need to determine if this is really the best way to fund schools. I understand the Member's concerns. I am alive to them. That is why I am happy to be in this position, because these are the exact kind of things that I want to deal with this term.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. In my statement earlier today, I noted that the priorities of the 19th Assembly do not provide clear direction for many of the departments and agencies and Ministers. I would like to know from the Premier whether she agrees with that assessment. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree that the priorities that were developed by the 19th Legislative Assembly could have used another day. I did also feel that there were too many. We had tried to get them down. We didn't get to that process. "Think big" was kind of the last thing we were left with, and we thought big.
Yes, I do agree that it didn't address all the things that we wanted to. Although, I am not 100 percent sure, Mr. Speaker, if we would have spent another day, if we would have made every single Member in this House happy. It is a process that we go through. I am respectful of the process. Cabinet has dealt with 22 priorities that we are trying to work through. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to thank the Premier for that. I don't think she really answered my question, though, which was really about whether the priorities that we have provide clear direction to all of her Ministers. Now, I don't want to get into the specifics of the process that we are engaged in in terms of developing a mandate, but I think it is pretty clear that those priorities don't provide sufficient direction to all of the Ministers. I am just wondering: can the Premier tell us how the initial direction will be set for each Minister to cover matters outside of the priorities?
