Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, from the Minister's answers there, I don't think, you know, we're seeing really much change in the way MTS operates. And, you know, we're just going down the same road. We've got the same issues. And, you know, probably next year or the year after we're going to see the same thing. And I'm just hoping that, you know, something's going to change, you know, whether it's through the management or structure, something. Something's gotta give. But, Madam Speaker, with the delivery of fuel, equipment, or materials to north warning sites, Sabina and Tuk, can the Minister tell me if there were delays in those deliveries, and if so, did those delays result in further delays for community resupply? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Short answer, no. Long answer is while we have challenges this season, as I mentioned it also impacted commercial customers. The commercial deliveries did not delay community resupply. From the beginning, Madam Speaker, the season, only one vessel was dedicated to commercial activities. The majority of our marine vessels assets were focused solely on community resupply. As previously mentioned, there were five tug boats out that were activated this season. One was directly dedicated to the ISR resupply. Two were assigned to support roles for the ISR supply. One was a dual role between essential resupply and commercial lake/river activities. And one was dedicated to the customer commercial customers.
I do want to add, Madam Speaker, that last week in the House, MLA Jacobson for Nunakput had asked me if I would be willing to meet with the leaders from his communities, and I just want to say we have a meeting tomorrow night with the leaders that are here from Ulukhaktok, from Sachs Harbour, from Paulatuk, and also from Tuk. So I'm looking forward to having this meeting with the leaders in his riding. And he will also be there in attendance as well. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I guess, you know, the reason I want, you know, locations of the ships for that time period I asked for previously is that, you know, the Minister tells me that, you know, not a lot well, maybe one or two ships were delivering for private or on jobs that they bid on. But, you know, in looking at some of the information, I don't actually believe that. But, Madam Speaker, MTS was shuttling fuel from a ship, which was the Torm Lilly, anchored approximately 30 kilometres out of Tuk to storage tanks in Tuk. How many vehicles were involved in that shuttle? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. So the tanker arrived near Tuktoyaktuk on August the 17th. Offloading commenced on August the 19th. Offloading was completed September the 14th. Weather played a significant role in the offloading which, if you do the math, that impacted 16 days. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I guess that's the issue is that, you know, we're doing other work and weather's playing a factor, and what we should be doing is resupplying our communities. But, Madam Speaker, if this contract for shuttling fuel was not in place, it would have allowed for timely resupply of those communities in the Arctic. Was that not a consideration prior to taking any work on? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the factors that impacted MTS operation in the past year, again, are complex and interconnected. Infrastructure, along with fuel services and MTS, will be undertaking a postseason evaluation of this year's operations to get a better understanding of where improvements can be made. And I also believe that tomorrow night's meeting with the leadership from Nunakput will also help in that as well. So I do want to add as part of this year's evaluation there will be analysis of the over the top fuel delivery to understand what worked well, what can be improved, and how it can be improved to be able to better address their concerns in the future.
We also, as part of this review, Madam Speaker, is review some of the challenges and opportunities that exist in the delivery of products from Hay River at both the current year and the past years. So we are looking into that, Madam Speaker. And I'd be quite willing to share that if we're able to. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, my understanding is that the fuel delivery over the top may not be as completely reliable and cost effective as we believe. Why would we not move fuel through Hay River where we have control not only over the product but over the transportation as well. This would also provide business and employment opportunities in Hay River. Madam Speaker, I would like a commitment from the Minister to consider this option and conduct a cost analysis on its viability. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm going to sound like a broken record and just say that Infrastructure and MTS will be undertaking a postseason evaluation of this year's operations to gain a better understanding of where improvements can be made. As part of this year's evaluation, we'll be looking at over the top fuel delivery to understand what worked and what can be improved. Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I'm going to come back to a topic I brought up earlier which is fertility. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the public sector if she would be willing to consider allowing GNWT employees to use their special leave for in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments? Currently they are not allowed to but it is my understanding it can be used for adoption. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I type quickly but not quite fast enough to find this in time. I think there is there are a variety of these provisions that allow public servants to take access. I mean, there's certainly special leave. There are as I said, there's a number of different leave provisions and I want to make sure I give accurate information here rather than just speaking off the cuff. So, Madam Speaker, again, I'm happy to provide information to this House, to the Member, about what different leave provisions would be available for public servants. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I do appreciate that I was throwing the Minister for a bit of a curve ball there this morning or this afternoon. However, I've been overwhelmed actually by the response I've been getting from people that have been reaching out to share what are very difficult and painful and financially burdensome stories about their own fertility journey. So I don't know that I have a question if the Minister hasn't found the answer to the first one yet in the meantime. But I do really want the government to consider allowing flexibility with the types of leave so that people can use it towards fertility treatments. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, part of the hesitancy is I want to make sure that whatever I'm saying is accurate and compliant with what's in the collective agreement and with what is in the public service manual. So just ensuring, you know, that I am accurate with that, I would certainly say that, you know, each individual public servant does have the ability to go and speak to their supervisor and is able to speak to their supervisor about what their circumstances might be, including medical circumstances, and it would certainly be my expectation in line with any other time for the public servants or for public service that their supervisors would be amenable to utilizing whatever available leave there is and doing so with keeping in mind flexibility and keeping in mind the need to be adaptive to the circumstances of the public servant. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister or sorry, can the Minister answer what is the Minister of Health and Social Services doing to meaningfully address the growing deficit of NTHSSA and is healthcare in the territory chronically underfunded? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to answer this question.
In this House this week, I've been asked for nursing student bursaries, fertility treatments, suicide prevention money. I've also been asked for HIV PREP, which is a preventative medication, and free contraception. That's the problem, Madam Speaker. The expectations of the health system are not commensurate with the amount of money that is provided to it.
What I want to say about the deficit is that it is top of mind for NTHSSA and for me as the Minister. We created the NWT health and social services system, as the Member said, in 2016 and inherited a deficit at that time, and it has grown since. We report twice annually, and we report this to the Regular Members as well as to Cabinet, about the work that's being done by the sustainability office. I want to say that where they are at right now is with cost containment. So I'm not expecting a report that says that money has been saved but rather that the deficit is going to not grow as quickly as it has been. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, absolutely that residents have asked for all of that. I guess it comes down to choices because I've also seen some things that I would think that are not necessary expenses for the Department of Health and Social Services, which I won't get into. But I do think it comes down to choices, and I think that there are ways that we can spend money smarter. So my next question is how is NTHSSA working with regional health authorities to reduce the trend in this growing deficit? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, it's easy to secondguess spending by a big department by Health and Social Services. And if the Member has ideas, then certainly we're open to hearing from them.
NTHSSA is now one entity. So it's a whole system approach to understanding what the cost drivers are and what to do about them. So examples of initiatives underway now are
Improvements to inventory controls and purchasing;
Process improvements to improve billing and collection of accounts receivable for chargeable services;
Improvements to processes used for managing facilities and fleet;
Processes to ensure NTHSSA recovers all costs for services it performs for other departments and jurisdictions;
Improvements to budgeting processes; and,
Establishment of a quality improvement framework.
So I want to convey that this is an issue that we are taking very seriously, and the sustainability office is working diligently to find ways to control spending. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I always love sharing ideas. I've shared one this week that will tackle two of the five major items that run over in the health budget, which is trading education for service in the public service. Thank you.
My next question for the Minister is has there been an evaluation of health authority programs to determine where specifically there can be cost savings to the government in this fiscal year? Thank you.
Yes, thank you. So this is a threetier process. We are currently in tier one, which looks at internal controls and cost containment initiatives. Some of the things that we've done relate to the supplementary health benefits that I mentioned yesterday, so that's offering generics instead of biologic drugs, changing the dispensing fee regimen so that meds are dispensed 100 days at a time rather than every 30 days. And those are some specific examples of things that we're trying to do to contain costs. But at the end of the day, we are underfunded and the demand for additional services is relentless. And so until there is some acknowledgement, starting by the Members in this House, of the fact that we can't afford to do everything for everyone, we're going to continue facing this issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I do hear the Minister, and that's why I started with the question of whether or not healthcare in this territory is chronically underfunded. There are certain things that residents of this territory are going to expect to be able to have access to and equitable access to across the territory. Health demands are much different, say, in Fort Smith or in Yellowknife as they might be in Nunakput and the costs of each of those. And so my question to the Minister then is what conversations is the GNWT having to ensure that health systems in the territory are adequately funded? Thank you.
Having a little private laugh about a meeting this morning. Yes, what we need is we need to do several things. One is that we need an increase to the Canada health transfer, and that's something that the Premier is working on at the Council of the Federation table. And you may have seen the ads reinforcing those messages that have appeared recently.
We are also negotiating with the federal government to continue to fund and, in fact, augment the Territorial Health Innovation Fund which is it's a fund that acknowledges that costs in the NWT, and this fund is available in Nunavut and Yukon too, but costs in these remote places are more expensive.
The Department of Health and Social Services has submissions in with the Financial Management Board which point out areas in which we are underfunded and in which we need more funding. The thing about it is that health is expensive to deliver. It is getting more expensive. The population is aging. They're sicker than they ever have been. We're a great distance from specialists' care. So there are cost drivers that I don't think we are going to be able to overcome without a big injection of cash from the federal government.
The other thing we have to do, which we've started with the supplementary health benefits, is we need to ask people who can afford to pay to pay for things that we're currently giving away. So that is, for example, not having any rational reason to pay all the drugs for somebody who has cystic fibrosis and none for ALS. That is a system that doesn't make any sense and a system that we're trying to fix so that it is both equitable and that people who can afford to pay do pay. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the concerns of my colleague on my left, and I appreciate her concerns for more services. But I just want to make a statement:
We don't have enough funds and I don't want anything to be decreased in the communities and the regional centres at the health centres, because we've lost a lot already and we don't intend on losing any more to increase more services until everything has been looked at. And with that, I just want to emphasize to the Minister that I appreciate her statement, and I appreciate and respect my colleague on my left also. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Member. There's no question; we'll move on. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, can the Minister of Infrastructure tell me how many contracts MTS bid on in the last three years, including the number of successful bids and whether these contracts resulted in profit or losses. And I would accept that response in writing. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, MTS has not bid on any contracts independently in the last three years. Given the nature of the work, customers come to MTS and services are negotiated. The revenue from these customers and the commercial activities assist us in offsetting costs for some of the special resupply. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I guess when I'm talking about bidding is that I know that companies will come and they'll look for prices from different companies and, you know, the fuel resupply might be one of them. So I think that, you know, they did they have bid on it even though they don't know it.
Madam Speaker, can the Minister confirm the net cost of having to resupply Sachs Harbour by air? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the net cost is still being compiled. These costs may fluctuate based on weather and resupply times. To date, two competitive tenders have been awarded for airlift one for cargo and one for fuel, with the approximate value of about $3 million. Upon completion of the resupply, I will provide Member and committee with the final costs. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. And since we are out of time, I'm going to just take this opportunity, Members, that I wish to draw your attention to the presence of a former Member in the gallery, Mr. Bill Braden. Mr. Braden was an MLA in the 14th and 15th Assembly.
Your second supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, we cannot allow MTS to continue down the same management path. Can the Minister tell me where is the department in the process with the MTS core construction review? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, in April of 2022, the GNWT issued a nonbinding request for expression of interest for the marine operator services. We received expression of interest from several private operators. During that same period, Madam Speaker, the department established a transition team to engage with the stakeholders, conduct outreach with the marine industry, coordinate procurement and contract negotiation processes.
So since April 2022, the transition team has been reviewing the financial situation developing a commercial strategy for the procurement. The team has also been working on a proforma contract for the procurement. So engagement has also been held with the GNWT staff members at marine transportation services, as well as early engagement with the Town of Hay River. So operators who expressed interest have been advised of the status of the procurement. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the Minister had said they will do an assessment of this last season and the work there and what went wrong, and hopefully a few things went right. So that'll be in there as well. So I'd ask the Minister just to commit to providing a copy of that postmortem assessment to me and committee. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I can go back to the department and get back to the Member on what we can share. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to table the following three documents: Plain Language Summary for Bill 62, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, No. 2; Changing the Relationship Action Plan in Response to the Calls for Justice on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ Peoples; and, InterActivity Transfers over $250,000 April 1st to June 30th, 2022. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you. Tabling of documents. Minister for ECE.
