Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I would like to ask him about a letter that was written about two months ago. The NWT Chapter for Council of Canadians made a request to the Minister of ENR. That request was for an investigation under the NWT Environmental Rights Act. The letter said, “This letter asks you to investigate the likely release of contaminants not specifically named by ConocoPhillips Canada Resources Corp under the Type A land use permit and Type B water licence in the Tulita district issued by the Sahtu Land and Water Board and to require full public disclosure of all chemicals used.”
I would like to know, first of all, from the Minister, whether or not he is aware of this letter or this request, and if yes, can he provide an update to the House on where this request now sits. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The letter has been responded to. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Minister for that information. I was not aware. Perhaps the Minister could advise us as to what was included in that letter. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in some way, as I’m sure the letter will become public knowledge soon enough, I am declining the request or the demand that we strike an investigation into the Sahtu permits that were handed out. There are a number of reasons for that, which I would be happy to discuss if the Member has further questions. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I do have questions for the Minister. I guess I don’t understand why he would deny this request for an investigation. The act is Section 4, I think it is, and the act is relatively clear. It states that residents may apply to the Minister for an investigation. I need to ask the Minister why he feels that this investigation is not merited. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the project that was called into question had already gone through a thorough environmental assessment process under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, which is federal legislation. That act came after the implementation of the Environmental Rights Act. When the Environmental Rights Act was drafted in the 1980s, in my opinion and from what I understand, it did not contemplate such legislation and was the only opportunity Members had at that juncture to raise issues. Since then, we set up land and water boards. We’ve had the environmental process and it was given a thorough screening. On that basis, I declined to call another investigation in what, in my opinion, would have been a type of double jeopardy on the process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks to the Minister for his response. I can appreciate his rationale but I have to agree to disagree as, unfortunately, we often do. I think the chemicals need to be made evident to us and the public.
Could the Minister advise when the letter was sent, and was it e-mailed or was it mailed? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have a common concern about making sure we have the best industry practises when it applies to any type of resource development; in this case, hydraulic fracturing. As a government, we have come forward with a draft guidance on the issue of best practises for hydraulic fracking. That information, the document, now sits with committee, looking for their feedback.
As industry has indicated to us, as well, they are prepared to do full disclosure. It’s something that is supported by CAP. We are looking for feedback, but we are fully intent to make sure we manage and have that balance between the resource development and protection of the land, water and animals. I believe the letter went out last week. I will have to double-check. We probably did e-mail and regular mail, but I will double-check for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
QUESTION 384-17(4):
SERVICES DELIVERED BY
DENTAL HYGIENISTS
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about the dental hygienist and the poor oral health in the small communities and the abilities of the dentists to get out there. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what the department is doing currently to remedy the poor oral health practises and visits to the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services recognizes that poor oral health is costly to our health system and that poor oral health leads to all kinds of other problems that negatively impact students in schools. So what we are doing in the big picture overall is developing an oral health strategy, working with the two northern jurisdictions, Yukon and Nunavut, to develop an oral health strategy.
Also, I would like to ask, is increasing the amounts of dental days to small communities part of that strategy.
The dental services in itself for a Treaty Dene is not covered. It’s not an insured service, so that is covered by Non-Insured Health Benefits from the federal government, although it’s in the contract with us and we provide the same service to the Metis, and we also provide the same service to people over 60, through extended health. So that is something that we are looking at working on better ways on how dental hygienists can work with the dentists.
Right now we have to be under the supervision of the dentist, but we are trying to work on that. There is as much indirect supervision as possible, but at the end of the day, they have to be under that supervision. We have vacancies for dental therapists right now in the NWT. Thank you.
I think all governments should invest into more visits to our communities.
Also in my Member’s statement, I spoke about the ability to change the Dental Auxiliaries Act to allow dental hygienists services and to provide that service. It’s another alternative way to provide better oral health to our communities. Will the Minister focus on that and move to make legislative changes? Thank you.
Certainly, we will have a discussion with the dental contractors to provide more days. It would cost the system more money to provide more days. So if what we’re finding is we know the exact amount of days a dentist goes into each community, so we would check to see the utilization of that time that they’re in. An example would be if they spend 43 days in Fort Liard in 2010-11 and 42 days in 2013-14. So there would be no increase, so my assumption would be they weren’t having full utilized days while they were in there. But I will check that and if they are fully utilizing all their days and there is more time needed in any of these communities, we’ll have that discussion. That would be something that would have to go into the contracts we have with various dentists.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to hear that. If the Minister can just speak about amending the Dental Auxiliaries Act specifically to allow dental hygienists to operate unsupervised in the communities, that will give us the potential for increased visits to the communities as well. Also, Mr. Speaker, I really believe we should invest in oral hygiene care in all communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. That’s more of a comment. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Health and Social Services Professional Act is something that the Member is aware that we are going through 19 different acts, including the Dental Auxiliaries Act. That is something that we are looking at, so it’s a future possibility that we can develop regulations specific to dental hygienists. However, there is another factor and that is there are no dental hygienists school in Canada at this point. So what we are hoping to do is work with perhaps not even other jurisdictions, but right into other countries. We are thinking about working with Alaska on that.
So we are looking at the acts to change them so dental hygienists can be a bigger piece of the puzzle and work independently at the community level. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
