Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is always an ongoing dialogue between the Department of Justice and the RCMP, and this dialogue has been particularly keen in the last couple of months. There has been a lot of attention paid to the situation of bootlegging and illicit drug activity across borders. That dialogue continues. Mr. Speaker, I know that, later this session, I expect to be speaking to the police and priorities and would continue to encourage every community to develop their own community police priorities which can also then be a direct link into the activities of the RCMP in their regions. The RCMP have been, I also believe, particularly active of late in terms of enforcing alcohol and drug measures and have been putting out a number of their own press releases on that front. To that extent, all of that work continues. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
From what I've been hearing from my constituents and in the community of Behchoko is, obviously, there is a lack of enforcement, a lack of officers at the Ray Junction area. I live in Edzo, and I go there, and I haven't seen cops on the road yet. I am hoping that they are enforcing it.
Mr. Speaker, the second question I have is, how many vehicle searches and check stops have the RCMP conducted at the Ray Junction since the introduction of the Behchoko temporary liquor prohibition compared to other jurisdictions as well?
We don't necessarily keep detailed track at the Department of Justice about all of the actions of the RCMP. I can certainly commit, for one, to just follow up with the RCMP and determine exactly what statistics they might maintain so that we can ensure that they are provided. Certainly, they do provide reports to every community on a regular basis, but on this specific discussion, we will follow up with them. I can indicate, Mr. Speaker, that between May 19th and 25th, Behchoko RCMP did make five seizures of alcohol within the prohibition boundaries.
Along with that second question, this is a follow-up. If the Minister can provide that if she doesn't have it with her, along with that consultation with the RCMP. How many charges have the RCMP laid under the Behchoko prohibition order? Masi.
Yes. Again, I don't know that the Department of Justice has right now, on track, that specific information, and it may well be that it's held by the RCMP. However, again, what I can do is at least ensure that that question is transmitted to the RCMP directly and see that they can follow up.
As I mentioned, the RCMP does have regular updates they provide to communities, and it's a good opportunity to ensure that, when they are doing that, that they are providing updates to the extent that they have the information about Liquor Act violations, Liquor Act prohibitions, since that certainly has been of significant interest of late.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
Masi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Right now, when they put the restriction on liquor, we were told by the RCMP that they were going to help and do the check stop. When this sort of stuff happened within the community, people were trying to help themselves, and the leaders are doing work for the people and also get help from the RCMP to do the check stop, because we all know that the restriction is there and that the RCMP are not there most of the time. Thank you. [Translation ends].
Mr. Speaker, I certainly am pleased to be able to say that the Tlicho region will be getting two further officers under the First Nations policing program, so, to the extent that there is a need for greater enforcement by the RCMP, with more manpower in the Tlicho region, that is at least one piece of good news I can give to the Member at this point.
Beyond that, Mr. Speaker, I can also say I have now had several hours of conversation with some of the Indigenous leaders, including some of the chiefs from the Tlicho region, and certainly intend to continue to do so as or when necessary, regarding bootlegging or other matters that may arise in relation to the enforcement of bootlegging. I appreciate that question. Again, it's certainly my hope that, with these two officers, enforcement measures can only continue to be improved upon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question is related to my Member's statement though on the border check point. For the number of occupants who cross the border, I am certain we could quarantine all of them for 14 days, but that would have stretched the amount of available rooms in the nearby hotels, and the nearest hotels are in Hay River. Can the Premier provide information as to the data collected from the vehicle occupants at the check points? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any person who enters the Northwest Territories and lands at either an airport or on a highway at the check points, the first thing you are asked for is a piece of identification to prove if you are a resident of the Northwest Territories. If you are not a resident of the Northwest Territories, then you are asked to provide a letter from an employer or a proof that you are an essential worker. If you are an essential worker, then we will allow you through because, if you are in the territories for more than 36 hours, you need to have a self-isolation plan. If you are driving up, like our supply-chain truckers coming, the assumption is they will come to probably Yellowknife, drop off their load, and be back at the border within 36 hours, and so therefore they do not need that. Those are the exceptions for essential workers.
If there is a person from outside the territories who is not an essential worker and not a resident, they automatically have to return, and that is dependent on airlines. There was an incident of a person going into the northern communities, and we did put them up in an isolation unit for the one night until the airline could get back. People who are residents of the Northwest Territories, besides identification, they need to have an isolation plan. If they do not have one, we do give them 24 hours' notice to get one in place. We follow up on that. At the end of every day, a list of every name that came through is compiled and provided to isolation centres, and, if they are checking into the four regional centres, then we do follow up with them. That is the information.
The amount of crossings by private vehicles is very alarming, considering the Northwest Territories does have a public health emergency and a declared state of emergency during this pandemic. There are news reports of Alberta residents and alleged drug dealers gaining entry into the NWT. Perhaps this is an indication of our lax check point procedures. Does the border check point ask for the identification of all the occupants of private vehicles and transports?
Yes, my understanding is that definitely everyone is asked for their identification. It does not matter if you are driving or riding. However, there is an issue with some things. People are coming up and, from what I have heard, it's not only across the highways or in our airplanes; it's coming from water. Those are things that we are looking at, as well. The bad thing about COVID-19 is what's happening. The good thing about COVID-19 is we are having more checks at the borders, and so we are more conscious of illegal trades that are happening at our borders.
Mahsi for that. It's been about two months since closing our border and providing a check point to screen people and recommend self-isolation. In this time, check point procedures should have paid particular attention to all occupants in the vehicles and tested them for the coronavirus. Every day that I enter this building, I am temperature tested for signs of the fever, and I haven't even crossed the border. Will the Minister commit to providing more stringent controls and enforcement officers to check points in light of this pandemic?
At this point, I have not heard that having extra staffing at the border controls was an issue. We did know that, with the fire season, some of our public health officers had to go back to their positions in departments. We are actively looking for other recruitments in that area. I would love to be able to say that every person who came across, if we just took their temperature, they would be okay, and they could come in. My worry with doing that, in honesty, Mr. Speaker, is that sometimes people are asymptomatic. Not everybody will have a temperature. If we start taking that temperature, does that give people the false security that we are okay? That is my biggest worry for this whole summer, is people think that we are in this bubble. We are not in a bubble, Mr. Speaker. We do have gaps in our border, so my worry is about the caution and making sure that people take this seriously.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke earlier today about a guaranteed basic income, but I would like to start by focusing on what the closest program we have to that in the Northwest Territories is, income assistance. My question for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment is: is our current Income Assistance Program working? Are people actually incentivized to get a job, or is it simply just keeping people in a cycle of poverty? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have said before in this House that we could always do better with every program in the territory, and the Income Assistance Program is one of those. The Member asks whether it's working, and that depends on what exactly people want out of the program. There is a seniors' component where seniors are supported, and we are not trying to incentivize people who have aged out of the workforce to get back to work. There is a program for persons with disabilities who just can't work. We are not trying to incentivize them. The program is there to help people with their basic needs, and, in that sense, it is working. We make sure that, if there is a home for someone, if someone will rent a home to a person, we will pay for that. If someone can't afford a home but someone is willing to rent to that person, we pay for that, and we will give them money for food, so, in that sense, it's working. Is it a program that is allowing people to get back to work? For some people, it is. There are people I work with who have been on income assistance at a point in their life and have used it as a stepping stone to get further. With that being said, it's not the program that the Member is describing, one which is doing a very good job at getting people out of poverty. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate that answer from the Minister, and I do recognize that the seniors and disability streams, the goal of those programs is not to get people back into the workforce. I do think, at the heart, both a guaranteed basic income and income assistance's goal is to get people into the workforce, but on their own terms.
I previously asked questions to the Minister regarding looking into a pilot project for a guaranteed basic income, and he said we simply don't have the policy staff. Given we are now in a global pandemic and entering into one of the largest economic recessions of any of our lifetimes, has the Minister's view on that changed?
We actually have less staff now than we did when the Member asked that questions. There are dozens of employees from ECE who have moved over to Health to help with those efforts. There are employees working from home who are having issues accessing government files, and things like that, so we are in a worst position to do that type of work, especially given what we have.
I appreciate the Member's comments earlier that we could start this program tomorrow, if we wanted. This pandemic has shown that departments can be responsive, and they can move quickly. However, I don't know if we can move that quickly, spending half a million dollars on a program that doesn't exist today that needs to be put into regulations that we need to have metrics on, and things like that.
Since day one, I have been committed to improving the Income Assistance Program. I agree with the Member that we should adapt that program or reform that program so that it does incentivize getting people to work, and that is not an easy task. It's not as easy as giving people $36,000 a year. That's not necessarily going to do it, so I'm working with the department to try and turn what we have into something approximating what the Member is talking about, understanding that, if we do want something like a guaranteed basic income, it is a decade away, as the Member stated.
I recognize that, perhaps, times when I say it can be implemented tomorrow, the program delivery model still needs to be there, and it will take some time, and I appreciate that many of the hard-working ECE staff have been redeployed. I guess that was almost a yes that the Minister is willing to work with me and have some of these further conversations. I'm concerned that he feels he doesn't have the policy staff in the department right now. What efforts are being made such that the department has the staff who can actually develop a program or a roadmap so that we can have a meaningful conversation about this issue?
On a regular basis, I badger the Minister of Finance and the Premier to give me more policy staff so I can pursue some of these types of initiatives, but, in the end, ECE does a lot of work. We provide a lot of people with a lot of support, and that's what the focus is on right now, especially during the pandemic. I would love to be able to go out and get some more policy staff to do this type of work in the background, but I think that the staff we have right now are doing a great job at delivering services that are needed and being adaptive and responsive to the situation and, in this environment, those staff can learn from what's happening right now and work toward those types of improvements. Because, you know, this pandemic has taught everyone a lot of lessons, and I'm going to make sure that those lessons don't go to waste.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that, and I will pester my other colleagues in Cabinet to try and get you some more policy staff. In the interim, to me, one of the hearts of a guaranteed basic income is allowing people to work and have that income not be penalized. I recognize that, in Section 21 of the regulations, there is a formula for how people are penalized as they earn income on Income Assistance.
Right now, I believe this punishment is disincentivizing people from working, especially if you're also in public housing. By the time it comes around, if you've been earning a little bit of income and you're reassessed, you're losing half of your money. If you're earning $15 an hour in the Northwest Territories, it's more like you're earning $7 an hour, and I don't see any reason for someone to work like that. My question is: is the Minister willing to look at increasing some of the exemptions to allow people to earn more income on Income Assistance? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I've already done that work. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Related to my Member's statement, sometimes I think, Ottawa, I don't know who has been talking to them and telling them how it really is in the North, and so that was why my Member's statement was talking about what some of the people in the North almost consider as normal. Can the Premier tell us if the government is lobbying the federal government to give us more resources to deal with some of those issues that I mentioned in my Member's statement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will say that the Member has to be careful when she goes home to her riding. She might have offended a previous Minister who would say that every government in the Northwest Territories has lobbied hard to the federal government for additional money for the Northwest Territories, and I carry that forward. The reality is that every Assembly has asked for additional monies, and not only ourselves. We tend to partner as the three territories, with Nunavut and Yukon Territory, because we are all in the same situation.
Every government that I have known and that I have taken part in, and this government, too, has talked about our opportunity gaps. We are not even the same place as the South. We don't have the highway systems. We don't have the bandwidth. We don't have the health centres. We don't have the housing. We have been saying that for many years. Now that COVID-19 has hit us, we are going in stronger, so now we're talking about how we started at a deficit with our opportunity gap, and it would not be okay for us to go back 50 years from where we've come. That is the message we carry forward all the time, that we need additional money for the territories because of this. Every Minister sitting here is carrying that message, and I have to give credit to Nunavut and the Yukon Territory, who are all carrying the message, all three of us together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier, for your answer. There's another component to my question: we know we have talks of an election, maybe, in the fall, so do we have an idea of when we can expect more resources to flow north to help us, as a government, to tackle some of these issues?
How quickly they learn to be politicians. They know that there's an election coming up for the federal government. Actually, I have to say, in fairness to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has recognized, not only in this government, in the last Assembly, as well, that the territories are at a deficit. They have always given us extra money.
For example, for this Assembly, since COVID-19, I believe we got just over $23 million for the GNWT for our own COVID-19 expenses. We got $8.7 million for airlines. We got $35 million for businesses, and my understanding is that more will be coming. This is on top of the money that was given to every other jurisdiction, so the three territories actually have built strong relationships with the federal government, and we will carry that forward right through the election.
With COVID, like I said yesterday and today, it really highlighted a lot of our deficiencies, and I think, when we saw the money coming from the federal government flowing, it was almost like they are living the life that we have been living every day. That is our normal. That is why, all of a sudden, Ottawa opened up its pockets. I just want to make sure that they continue, the Ministers, and I know you've said it, but continue to press because, if we do have a federal election, we don't know how some of these things are going to change. Would the Premier commit to that, making sure that we are pushing hard, especially over these next few months until the fall?
Yesterday, I talked about being called names in here, some I don't accept and other ones I would accept. I haven't heard my name again being called as "easy." Talking about building relationships with the federal government is something that we are focusing on, positive relationships with them. It has proved to be fruitious. The other thing I am doing is also talking already about, and most Premiers are talking about, "What are we doing now?" We are starting to look at a recovery; but I have been talking about that since the beginning.
Every time we give something, like, for example, when we gave the extra money for childcare staff or childcare parents and stuff, and then, when we put people who were homeless into apartments, my conversations at the FMM table have been, "These are the right things to do, Mr. Prime Minister. How can you ask me to pull these back?" So I have already started the conversations and putting the bugs in. That is the message I will carry forward because, Mr. Speaker, it's right. How can I? If we have people who are homeless in housing, how can we put them on the street again? Those are not only questions that I ask because we need help. Those are the right questions to be putting at that table.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral question. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Finance who administers the NWT Wage Top-up Program. As I said earlier today, I support this program. However, it's not clear how it relates to, for example, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy. Can the Minister explain the relationship or difference between the NWT Wage Top-up Program and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The emergency wage subsidy provides a 75 percent subsidy to employers to encourage them to keep their employees on the payroll rather than laying them off during what might be more-than-lean times for those businesses, whereas the wage top-up program, Mr. Speaker, is one that is meant to support employees who are making under a certain level of wages, of earnings hourly. In that sense, the two aren't necessarily related. Rather, they are not related, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
I want to thank the Minister for that. Clearly, the wage top-up program serves a specific purpose just for us here in the Northwest Territories. Can the Minister, though, tell us how well that is going in terms of the take-up for it, in terms of the number of applications received so far for the wage top-up program, the number of employees covered, and how quickly the applications are being processed? I did give the Minister a heads-up, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, I was able to marshal a bit of information here for the Member. As of May 26, that is, as of yesterday, there have been 31 business applications to the wage top-up. The application has to come through the employer in order to top up the employee. Twenty-eight have already been processed, but three, we requested additional information. In total, this will benefit 242 employees, at least for the month of April. We are processing them retroactively. For April, that would be $65,000 going out into the hands of employees in the Northwest Territories.
At this point, processing takes approximately one day, unless again there is need for some further information or clarification, although that does seem to be, fortunately, the minority. Then the payment cycles about three days thereafter to go to the employees themselves. It is our intention in Finance to fast-track these applications, fast-track payments, as well, which Finance has been doing really across the board as much as possible for any incoming invoicing.
I would just note: applications have been open and operating since May 12th. There hasn't been a flood at this point, Mr. Speaker, but there have been some coming in. To that extent, I would sort of acknowledge that perhaps the business community could continue to also work with their members to make sure their program is being promoted.
I want to thank the Minister for that. It's great to hear that 242 employees here are going to benefit from this right now. That is great. The turnaround time, I am really pleased, and I want to congratulate the Minister and her department for the hard work on that. Our minimum wage, though, is a measly $13.46 per hour, which is not enough for a decent standard of living in any of our communities.
Last time the minimum wage was increased was April 1, 2018. That process involved stakeholder committee. It looked a lot like the previous one. Given that the NWT Wage Top-up is a clear sign our minimum wage is too low and the evidence that it cannot possibly lead to a decent standard of living, can the Minister commit to a permanent increase of the NWT minimum wage to $18 per hour or higher?
I need to just take 10 seconds and actually go back to the genesis of the program, which was that, when Canada, the federal government, ruled out this CERB program for individuals who were negatively impacted, lost their jobs as a result of COVID-19, and they set a floor that would provide money to everyone, $2,000 into the pockets of people who had been negatively impacted, there very quickly arose, particularly in southern Canada, the fact that a lot of front-line workers were now incentivized to leave what might have been considered, at least perceptually, a higher risk profession, whether that was, in fact, true or not. It became a real concern in the labour market that we were going to lose really some essential service workers and front-line workers.
That wasn't quite the case in the Northwest Territories. More of our health services and long-term care services are provided by the GNWT, which pays significantly more. While we wanted to participate in the program, the motivation for it here became really one of putting money into the hands of residents for whatever their needs might be. Whether that is to pay off debt or just increase spending in the community or childcare, anyone who was working, we sort of deemed as being essential for the purposes of this program. It really wasn't, at least in terms of our modelling, tied to minimum wage.
At this point, this program is not going to be some sort of pilot that the Department of Finance is using in terms of modelling for future for minimum wage changes. It really is quite specific to COVID-19, to acknowledge that there are people at the front lines, whether that is in grocery stores or otherwise, who might be making below a certain cut-off in an effort to participate in this federal program with as wide a berth as we could find in the Northwest Territories for as many employees as we could find in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that explanation. Look, I understand where this came from, but it's where it's taken us. That is the issue here. We heard the Premier yesterday say that it would be a sin to roll back the progress on some of these programs. This is one of the ones that it would be a sin to roll back. This program was not limited to essential services. It was for all people here who are paid minimum wage. They have to get the employer to do it, but that is what this is about.
Can the Minister make a commitment that she is going to work with her colleague, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, who actually is responsible for minimum wage, to fix this problem of a way-too-low minimum wage here for the Northwest Territories? We have started down that track. Let's fix it and make it permanent. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
I have already been in touch with my colleague from ECE. Obviously, this does, as the Member has already identified, fall within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, my colleague was just on his feet, being asked if he was going to start a pilot for universal basic income. Some choices have to be made sometimes. We certainly can't have every single program that moves forward under COVID move forward forever. There will not be sufficient money to do that.
That said, Mr. Speaker, two things: the minimum wage committee is already underway for this year for this two-year cycle. They are supposed to be delivering a report to the Minister of ECE. Certainly, I look forward to that coming in to the Minister for ECE and, I am sure, will come to Cabinet in due course. Mr. Speaker, what I would also remind is that we are about to go into the business planning process, which means that departments do have that opportunity to go in and look at programs that are under way, perhaps in response to COVID-19, and determine if, in fact, that is something they want to make a pitch for to go forward. Then they can do that in due course. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
