I will try to do a better job of addressing both issues. For clear direction, I may be wrong, but my understanding is that the priorities that are developed by every Legislature are not to encompass every single task that every department will do. It is meant to define what the major issues are that we want to tackle. It does not give clear direction for every single department, nor is it meant to, in my understanding. I am only one Member of the Legislative Assembly, though, so I am open to feedback on that.
For how we deal with other departments, business still goes on. The departments do not just stop working because they don't have a mandate that is specific to them. They still have business that goes on on a daily basis, and Members do have feedback into that. They have feedback through our main estimates. They have feedback into our business plans. They have feedback into our capital plans. There is business that still continues to go forward, and Members do have a chance to have input into the business and the day-to-day operations of departments.
Once again, I want to thank the Premier for that. I guess I expected to hear about things like the transition reports, briefing notes that have been left from the previous Ministers, and that kind of thing. Can the Premier tell us what the mechanisms will be for setting the overall direction for each Minister or department, and what role in the process does the Premier see for the Regular MLAs?
This is kind of a recap of the question that was asked of me yesterday, so I will kind of recap the answer. Twenty-two priorities were developed by all Members of this House. We are in the process of working with Regular Members on how to identify the mandates to get us to reach the actions to be reached, the priorities that we have identified as our priorities, not every single issue. Again, like I said, I am open to feedback. If Members want to send me their input, walk in my door, I am available. I am in Yellowknife. My phone number is available. Give me a call. Talk to me about what you want to see.
My biggest priority for myself, and I have said that over and over, will be to make sure that we are transparent, that we are working as closely as possible with all stakeholders, including all MLAs. Like I said yesterday, MLAs also have a chance to give feedback into the individual departments themselves through our main estimates, through our business planning process, and through our capital budgets. There is lots of time within the four years to give input into how the departments work.
Thank you, Premier. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Once again, I want to thank the Premier for that. I guess what I am most worried about is where the initial direction is going to come from for each of the Ministers and the departments. Yesterday, the Premier suggested to the Member for Yellowknife Centre that people could go and walk into her office and talk to her about priorities. That's not a very efficient or effective way of doing this. It doesn't recognize the role that standing committees should play in terms of consensus government, so I have suggested privately and publicly that the Premier be prepared to share the draft mandate letters with each of the standing committees. Is that something that the Premier is prepared to do in the spirit of open, transparent, and consensus-style government?
We are trying to be more open and transparent. I think that was a direction that we were given by the general public. It is a direction that I have given my Ministers. However, I have also heard from MLAs across the table in different areas, "Let's get to work. Let's get it done." My Ministers are also waiting. They have been waiting months to get their mandate letters. We're still in the process. Everybody is just anxious to get them, so I want to get these off. I want to get to work.
I will not commit to going through the process, because from delivering the draft mandate right now, we started that about a month ago, when I was first elected, when the priorities were first made. We are going into our second draft on the 14th. We won't be finished the process until February. I am afraid that it will take too long, so I will take some flak. I have to make hard decisions. That, I know.
What I am willing to do is, once those mandate letters are done, we will post them publicly. We will share them with all standing committees, and as I said before, Regular MLAs have many chances to have input into the business of departments, through question and answer, through business plans, main estimates, and through capital budgets. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Premier. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in line with my Member's statement earlier. I just wanted to make a quick comment. The Member for Deh Cho already addressed one of those questions, also. I want to say mahsi cho.
Anyways, my question for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment is: what initiatives do the Minister and his department have in place to address low school attendance rates in the small communities? Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank my colleague for his earlier statement, as well as the other colleague from the Deh Cho. I appreciate these conversations coming to light. We need to talk about them if we want to make changes.
The Member is right. Small communities have lower graduation rates. They have lower attendance rates. One of the priorities of this Assembly is to increase student education outcomes to the rest of Canada. In some regional centres and in Yellowknife, the student outcomes are nearly the same as the rest of Canada, so it really is the small communities, in a lot of ways, that we are talking about.
There are things that are being done by the school boards. It is the school boards that have the mandate to deliver education. There are things like Healthy Food for Learning so that there is food in the schools, so that children, once they get there, they can actually eat, and they can learn. Some schools have programs where homes are called when students are missing. They go out looking for the children. Some schools offer incentives or prizes for attendance. However, there is more than that that needs to be done. I think we need buy-in from communities, we need buy-in from parents, and we need to start caring more about education as a society. That is one of the things that I really want to do, is get the word out there and get people involved in their own education.
There are a number of things that we are doing through the education renewal, as well. Like I mentioned before, there are a lot of these old small programs that we are trying to tailor, but more needs to be done. The Member is absolutely right; more needs to be done. If you look at graduation rates, they are declining across the board, and so we have to do more. I am committed to working with the Member and hearing from all of the Members, especially from small communities, about how we can do that.
I would like to thank the Minister for his response. I think it is important, too, that visibility for your department is important in my riding. There are four schools in my riding. The one in Ndilo and one in Detah, those are easy places to do a tour. That would be really good. I would like to see that, but, if I could get a commitment from the Minister to see if he could visit our schools in Lutselk'e and Deninu Kue, I think it is important. It helps boost morale for the teachers and the kids, and I think it is important that they see the head of our education department.
I am going to try to make it to as many schools as I can. I believe we have 49. I'm going to see what I can do this Assembly. Fort Resolution is right near Hay River, so that will be an easy one. My new deputy minister, who I am lucky to have, is a former principal. One of the first things she did is told me about what a big impression it makes on students when the Minister comes to their school and engages them, and it got me excited about it. I look forward to it. I look forward to getting to some of the places where I don't normally get to go, places like Lutselk'e. I can't make any commitments about timelines, but I am going to do my best to visit as many schools as I can.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am a strong advocate for restorative justice programming, as I believe that every time we can keep an offender from re-offending, it not only saves us money, but it prevents a victim from being traumatized once again. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice in regard to one specific program, the A New Day Program, which is for men who use domestic violence. My question to the Minister is: how many men are currently using this program?
Thank you, Member. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps, to be more specific, I can't answer the Member's number in terms of right now at this moment. I can say that, since this program started in 2013, there have been 13 groups in total. Of those, 135 individuals were registered; 28 have completed. The last group just completed back in November of this year, Mr. Speaker.
As we go into mandate creation, I will be advocating for a number of restorative justice programs to be included. However, this ultimately comes down to cost. Can the Minister provide the current costs in running a program, the A New Day program?
Mr. Speaker, the total budget for this program is $292,000. The current expenditures forecasted for 2019 and 2020 are $240,000, so that is where it stands at present.
This program for men who use domestic violence. Is there a tracking mechanism for measuring the success of the program?
Mr. Speaker, back in February of 2018, there was a framework developed to evaluate the program. That was more, I think, in terms of evaluating the success of the program as a whole as opposed to the individual success. I am sure the Member will appreciate, and, as he has already alluded to in his opening, the individual successes on a program like this will depend a lot on how exactly one measures not only recidivism but obviously the reducing of severity of violence and the frequency of violence, so it is a very complex thing to measure, and the success of one individual may differ from the success of another.
I don't currently have a copy, or, to my understanding, the actual evaluation hasn't taken place yet. That is a four-year program, an evaluation that is currently underway, and so it won't be due back until 2021, but we continue to monitor that framework evaluation as it unfolds. I look forward to having the total framework reported back to, as I said, in 2020-2021.
Yes, I am well aware of the difficulties, as is the Minister of Justice, having worked a number of years, including together, in the criminal justice sphere.
My question to the Minister is: is similar programming directed at men who use violence available in communities other than Yellowknife?
Minister, if you could please slow down for the interpreters. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do actually have a note that says "slow" right on my desk, but I do apologize to the translators.
Mr. Speaker, I can see the A New Day programming is predominantly focused currently here in Yellowknife. For what it is worth to the Member, one of the newest places where that program is being offered is at the North Slave Correctional facility, and it does therefore target individuals who come from across communities all across the Northwest Territories. That said, obviously, it is quite different from being offered within the communities themselves.
I can say also that the justice department, through Community Justice, is providing community-led and community-originated programs, both in Tsiigehtchic and in Fort Good Hope, and there continue to be opportunities to engage with community justice programs in order to help develop those programs in those communities. I look forward to having discussions in order to expand that, where possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I am sure the new Minister is aware that schools in Yellowknife are aging and maintenance costs are increasing. Most recently, YK1 has been forced to make an emergency purchase of a boiler at Mildred Hall School in my constituency, at a cost of $90,000, nine-zero thousand dollars.
Trustees say that money spent on the boiler will take money away from education. My first question is: what help can ECE give YK1 to help pay for the new boiler? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unlike most jurisdictions in the Northwest Territories, most communities, the school infrastructure of YK1 is owned by YK1, for the most part. As such, it is not the GNWT that provides maintenance; it is actually YK1. The GNWT does provide a maintenance budget. I believe it is $1.4 million annually to YK1 to perform this type of maintenance.
Sometimes, when ECE has extra money in its budget, in its capital budget, it will provide that to cover some of these costs, but at this time ECE doesn't have that extra money in its capital budget and the YK1 actually has a surplus in its capital planning budget, so the money can be taken out of there as opposed to out of money that could be used for education.
Can the Minister tell us how much the surplus is at YK1?
The surplus at YK1, according to the 2018-2019 financial statements, the total operating surplus, is 1.7 million, and that includes $900,000 in the capital fund reserve.
That answer surprises me because I thought that, during the 18th Assembly, the department had rolled back on the total amount of surpluses that school boards were able to keep. I am sure the Minister has given me accurate information, but it is certainly much bigger than I expected it to be.
Onto the question of the aging schools, all of the schools in Yellowknife, except for Allain St-Cyr and the re-built St. Joe's, are aging. What is the long-term plan of the Department to assist the board with maintenance and replacement of their schools?
Even though YK1 owns the infrastructure, the GNWT is responsible for new schools and major retrofits, so, if there is something that can't be covered with the $900,000 capital surplus, like a brand new school, that is what the GNWT covers.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the answer from the Minister. The fact is, though, that maintenance costs are increasing at YK1 because of the age of their schools. Not only do they have the boiler problem at Mildred Hall, they are also of course repairing the roof at William McDonald. I am wondering whether the Minister is going to review the maintenance budget given to YK1 to take into account their aging infrastructure. Thank you.
No, I am brand new in the job, and I plan on reviewing all the budgets that ECE has, to make sure that we are doing things properly.
ECE and YK1 have also been in talks about maintenance plans. The Department has offered to assist YK1. You know, we have the Department of Infrastructure here that specializes in this kind of stuff, and so the GNWT is offering assistance to help develop a maintenance plan so that some of these maintenance costs can be dealt with in a more timely fashion perhaps, or at least there could be a plan in place to avoid some of these emergency expenditures like the boiler . Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. The last Assembly passed Bill 41, Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act. This bill will prohibit the sale of flavoured vaping products that have been in the news as of late. As I understand, the act has not yet been brought into force. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister explain what steps are being taken to bring this legislation into force to protect the youth of the Northwest Territories? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Bill 40, Smoking Control and Reduction Act, was passed August 2019, and its regulations include prohibiting smoking and vaping in public places, including those areas where children and youth ordinarily gather; prohibiting smoking and vaping in motor vehicles if someone under the age of 19 is in the vehicle; and requires retail outlets that sell these products to conspicuously post health warnings inside the stores.
Bill 41, Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act, was also passed in August 2019 and its regulations include banning the promotion, advertising, and display of tobacco and vaping products wherever children and youth have access and increasing the legal age at which tobacco and vaping products may be purchased from age 18 to 19. Regulations are being drafted to bring these acts into force March 31, 2020. The regulations are almost done; however, time is needed to communicate the new requirements to retailers to the public. Regulations address in greater detail public places where smoking and vaping are prohibited, what products cannot be displayed, and health warning signs that must be posted. The regulation also addresses penalties, though we want to focus our efforts on educating and supporting NWT residents in making healthy and informed decisions about using these substances. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to thank the Minister for that comprehensive response, and I also want to acknowledge the work of the Standing committee on Social Development that had the forethought to anticipate this issue with vaping products, because there is a lot of news coverage on this now. I take it from the Minister's response, then, that the Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act is going to take full legal effect on March 31, 2020. Can she confirm that again for me?
The act will be brought into force March 21, 2019. The regulations being developed to bring the acts into force do not go so far as completely banning flavoured vaping products in the Northwest Territories at this time. We are actively working to identify the right approach to banning flavoured vaping products. Our public health officials are talking with the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health to support a federal ban on flavoured vaping products. Chief Medical Officers of Health across Canada are now calling on the federal government to ban flavoured vaping products outright. Before moving forward, the Northwest Territories regulations banning all sales on flavoured vaping products would want to engage with the public. We also want to carry out more research to make sure we have everything properly addressed.
I want to thank the Minister for that response. Sorry, I'm going to have to go a little bit off-script here, because I think I heard the Minister say that the Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act is not going to prohibit flavoured vaping products from being sold. Section 6.1(1) says that: "No person shall sell a flavoured tobacco product at retail." In any event, does this section actually prohibit the sale of flavoured vaping products, or not? Is that what this act and this section are going to do?
I ask that I just clarify and get back to the Member at this time.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake, final supplementary.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. It was certainly my understanding, having sat in on the committee meetings, that that was the intention of the committee, and I thought that's what the bill was going to do. In any event, recent media reports about the use of vaping products in southern Canada and the US describe an epidemic in use by youth, and that manufacturers and retailers have specifically designed advertising to entice youth. I've had this raised to me by teachers at schools in my riding. Can the Minister tell us whether her department has taken any steps to control or persuade NWT youth not to consume these products? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
In addition to steps to control so that other youth do not consume these products, we are focusing on providing the public with information on vaping. In October 2019, the department created a Frequently Asked Questions for parents. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment distributed this to schools across the Northwest Territories. This work began with the request from a school principal and is an example of how working together with our partners can be valuable in addressing an issue, just like when some of the other Regular MLAs in the Assembly worked with the last Assembly on the bills themselves. The Office of the Chief Public Officer is preparing communications and social marketing material.
In March 2019, the department and the Northwest Territories Association of Communities delivered a workshop for healthcare providers, artists, community leaders, educators, and youth. From this came the creation of The Dope Experience. This workshop series will be delivered in communities across the Northwest Territories during the 2019-2020 school year and will address vaping as well as cannabis and other substance abuse. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
