Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I gave a Member’s statement about the challenges which I had in accessing information from this government. More specifically, it was for a public government office building that’s being built here in Yellowknife. I subsequently tabled, with this House, copies of my attempts to obtain a copy of this contract with the Department of Public Works. I also tabled an abstract from the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, Section 3(2), which states that the act is in addition to and does not replace existing procedures for access to government information or records.
Yesterday the Minister of Public Works and Services stated that I failed to follow the usual procedures in getting a copy of this contract. I had the opportunity to take a look at the debate in this House when the access to legislation was passed. That was in 1994. This is in reference to page 265, of 1994, October 13th, that I’ll table later on today. At that time, a concern was raised that the act would be used to deny information to MLAs, could take away their privileges as a Member. Then the Minister of the day for Justice, Mr. Kakfwi, clearly indicated that the legislation was, and his words were, “…in no way replaces current procedures in place for accessing information, which includes MLAs.”
Given this background, will the honourable Minister of Justice and Minister of Public Works and Services commit to providing me a copy of the sought after contract without being redacted and without the necessity of me having to apply under the ATIPP Act?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Justice, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As MLAs, as Ministers we have a responsibility to protect the rights of privacies of individuals and organizations. We also have a responsibility to share information as much as we can with our colleagues. But there is a law. The ATIPP Act requires public bodies to protect the business interests of third parties, while balancing the right of the public to access information held by public bodies. Request for access to contract information is assessed against the protection afforded to third-party business interests contained within Section 24 of the act. This section requires public bodies to review whether disclosure of business information could, among other things, harm the competitiveness of a contractor providing services to public bodies.
Also, Mr. Dolynny has tabled Section 3(2) of the ATIPP Act, which requires or provides that this act is in addition to and does not replace existing procedures for access to government information or records. Section 3(2) means that public bodies can, and should, apply policies and procedures related to routine disclosure of government information, without requiring individuals to resort to making requests under ATIPP.
Unfortunately, Mr. Dolynny has not identified the policies or procedures to which Section 3(2) might apply, and under which of the contracts in question should have been disclosed to his constituency assistant as a matter of routine.
My record speaks for itself. I’ve been open and transparent with committee. I’ve been open and transparent with Members, and I’ve done everything I can legally to provide them legally appropriate documents. In this case, the law is clear. I cannot give the Member a copy of this contract without going to the public body or the organization that the contract is in party with.
I’ve encouraged the Member to file an ATIPP request. The Member has not filed an ATIPP request. Once the Member files an ATIPP request – and we as Members are all bound by the law; we’re not above the law; it has to be applied accordingly, which basically means that the ATIPP request would go through the normal process – we would identify the number of pages that are required in the request and we would identify a cost. The Member has the opportunity then, if he were to file an ATIPP request, to actually ask us to waive the fee, which absolutely, as a Member, we would do, because we want Members to have the information they need to make informed decisions. There is a law. I as Attorney General of the Northwest Territories will not break the law to give the Member a contract. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday I did table the document which I did. My office did apply for the ATIPP request. I have no reason to go collect bottles and pop cans around Yellowknife to raise $1,500 to do so. My budget does not allow me to do that.
Given that I have an obligation as an MLA to hold this government accountable, and given that this House was expressly told that the access legislation wasn’t meant to replace the usual way of accessing information, will this Minister, will the Department of Public Works and Services reconsider their position and provide me with this information even only on a confidential basis?
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated yesterday, we’ve had one application for this information. It was from a private citizen sent from his private home, with no reference at all that he was working on behalf of the MLA. The staff who actually processed the request would have had no idea that the Member was actually the one forwarding this request.
I would love to provide the contract to the Member. I would love to do it in open and in public. The problem is, there is a law. I can’t break the law. I would like to work with the Member. I would like to sit down with the Member and identify what exactly he is trying to get to so that I can provide that information.
Over the last number of months we have provided significant information. The RFP was available on-line, which outlined the build of this building. We have had public discussion in committee about the budget, so everybody in the House knows what the budget is. The contract value is public. What we have actually signed with the contractor is, indeed, public. The timeline is known. We sat here in Committee of the Whole and discussed a timeline at length. The committee has been made aware of everything on this file. The contract is over 1,000 pages long and it is a third-party contract via an agreement with somebody else. An employee can sit down with the Member and walk through the contract and show him. I had to get permission from them. The way that we engage that process is through ATIPP. We happened to waive the fee for the Member, but the Member has to file an ATIPP request and ask us to waive the fee because it is clearly outlined in law. We will do that, but it has to be done through the appropriate channels, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, believe me, the project is under budget and on time. We hear this time and time again and somehow we are supposed to believe all the information that we have here when we are disclosing witnesses. How can we, when we can’t look at the information? That is basically the real problem. We have to believe that it is okay. I have the right to look at that information. I was elected to do so. I have the accountability of the people of Range Lake to do that business.
Will the Minister commit to a review of the policies and procedures around MLAs obtaining government information under the review of this so-called act that we are trying to hold dear to our heart, so as to ensure that the historical tradition and the consensus-based Legislature which we are in, of this government, will provide us as Members the continuous way so that we can do our proper business in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Let’s have a bit of respect here. Mr. Abernethy.
Mr. Speaker, we are not above the law. We are not above the law. As MLAs we are bound by the laws just like every other citizen. We don’t have the right, nor should we, to break the law so that we can get information that has action part and parcel of a third party. That third party may say yes, MLA Dolynny can look at that contract. We are willing to ask, once the Member files an ATIPP request. Until such a time as that happens, we can’t do that. It would be against the law. I’m not going to change the law just so MLAs can have access to information that they probably shouldn’t have.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will reapply with an ATIPP request. I will include in my ATIPP request my addresses, birth certificate, my picture ID and my driver’s licence. If I do all that, will the Minister comply and let me have a sneak peek of this contract? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the process is that it will be reviewed. It will be identified how many pages are required to meet the Member’s request. It will identify the cost. The letter will indicate there is a cost. The Member can certainly ask us to waive the fee. Frankly, I’m interested in helping the Member obtain this information, so we will likely waive the fee, but we have to go through an appropriate process. We have to go through the legal process. I will do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins.
QUESTION 313-17(4):
HEALTH CARE CARD RENEWAL PROCESS
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the scandalous situation we have here about the lost faxes or even mailed health care forms when people are applying for renewal. My situation comes down to this: We don’t know how many applications have been lost, we don’t know where they have gone, we don’t know who has this information, and we don’t know what they’re doing with this information.
So my question to the Minister of Health and Social Services is: Is he willing to do a public type of inquiry into this process to find out where this information has gone, how come something seems to be screwed up, and what is he going to do to fix it to show confidence in the public system? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is continuing to work to resolve the few issues that are out there with the people having misplaced in either the application process or the card that was coming from the South to them. We don’t see this as a major issue. We process 100 applications per day and we’re doing those applications. We have a very high rate of compliance in returning health care cards. Most people have no issues with this, so I don’t think it’s a scandalous situation. Thank you.
Well, let’s get to the bottom of this then. The Minister cannot tell us where the information has gone, who has got it, what the problem is and what he is going to do about it. So how does he know it’s not a scandal if he doesn’t know what’s happening? Thank you.
We judge our statistics on what we’re getting from people that are indicating to us that they haven’t received their health care card in the appropriate time. Most people aren’t saying anything. As I indicated in the House previously, we received about 86 percent of the people who had birthdates up until a certain point that we were processing. That was 11,600 applications to the middle of May. If the information is lost, then we will do what we can to recover information. So the bottom line is, the individuals are covered for medical reasons and that’s what we’re trying to achieve. Thank you.
We have a leak in the ship and its sinking and no one seems to know or care why. You’d think that this is a serious problem.
The last point is, there’s an integrity question being called into question and I think the integrity needs to rise all the way to the top to the Minister’s office to say, how is he going to take this situation seriously and what is he going to do about it. So, quite frankly, does the Minister have any clue how many applications are at risk and who is at risk? Thank you.
I’ve received e-mails from the various MLAs. I would say under 20 e-mails indicating to us that there’s an issue with health care cards not coming on time, but we’ve set allowances for those individuals if they had applied for a health care card and by the time their birthday came around had not received health care, then we would cover them.
I guess, again, we need to make sure that people have coverage, health coverage, and that’s what we’re doing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Hope and pray cannot be the policy of this program at the Department of Health, that we hope nothing has happened to the information, we pray no one does anything to the information. So the fact is we don’t know where the information is going.
Does the Minister know what’s happening in this situation and what is he doing about it, because apparently he doesn’t seem to be taking it very seriously that all this personal information is being sent out there, no one knows where it’s going, no one knows where it’s landed, no one knows who has it and they don’t certainly know what they’re doing with it. What is the Minister going to do with that?
A very, very high percentage of the private information that’s going to our office in Inuvik is getting to our office in Inuvik, being processed, cards are coming to the people. There are a few glitches in the system, yes. When you’re processing that many applications, there’s always something that will go wrong and sometimes information is lost. We try to recover that information. Individuals that apply for the card and are saying that the information is lost. We try to recover that information. Individuals who apply for the card and are saying the information was lost, we are dealing with those on a one-off basis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bisaro.
QUESTION 314-17(4):
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
ANTI-POVERTY STRATEGY
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister responsible for the Social Justice Committee of Cabinet. I’d like to ask Minister Abernethy some questions around the Anti-Poverty Strategy and his statement today.
I’d like to, first of all, commend the steering committee who have worked so hard to produce the Anti-Poverty Strategy framework, strategy and/or framework, whatever it’s going to be called. I understand, and the Minister referenced it in his statement today, that over the summer, he says Ministers will work together to develop action plans to coordinate responses to this and other strategies and frameworks.
To the Minister, I wonder if he could advise me and the House what the next steps are in regard to these action plans or with regard to the strategy. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Member for the question. I would like to echo the Member’s comments in congratulations to the steering committee for all the incredible hard work they did, but also the working group who was involved from the beginning as well. They’ve done a wonderful job, but it is just the beginning, Mr. Speaker.
As I did say in my comments earlier today, we will be working on action plans over the summer months. There are a number of frameworks that have been released over this short session and all of them tie together to some degree, so we need to work together as a government on our responses and make sure whether clear linkages are identified, and we are coming together on more of a global approach on how we are going to be responding to these things. We will be working with committee over the summer and we hope to have action plans on all of these available for discussion in the fall. Once the action plan is done on the Anti-Poverty Strategy, I plan to take it forward to a larger group to have some more discussion on territorial response, which I identified in my statement, and we will be doing the symposium at that time.
At the same time as us doing our work, I will be working and encouraging our colleagues out there, our partners out there to be coming up with their response to a particular framework so when we meet for the symposium in the fall, we’ve all got some ideas on where we need to go as a government and as a territory and as NGOs. So we will be doing that work later, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister for the response. I can appreciate that. I understand that the government is going to be working on an action plan. I think he referenced that he’s going to encourage other stakeholders to develop action plans as well. From my recollection – I’m testing my memory here – I think there’s up to 29 different groups who have had a hand in, at some point in time or another, in terms of the Anti-Poverty Strategy with input.
So these various organizations all deal with people who are involved in a situation of poverty, assisting them and so on. These groups, as well, are not well funded. They generally have to do their own funding. So I’d like to know from the Minister if there’s going to be an opportunity for this government to provide some funding, it doesn’t have to be a lot, but some funding to these groups so that they can develop their own action plans in time for this symposium in the fall. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we don’t have money to provide to individual organizations so that they can provide a response to the framework. But in the budget statement earlier in the year, there was reference for the fact that there was money being set aside to deal with the different frameworks and strategies that are going to be coming out, and there will be money in that to address poverty initiatives and issues once the extra plan is done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister. I am frowning over here because the money isn’t necessarily needed after the action plan is done, but the money is needed upfront so they can do the action plan, but I will leave it as it is.
One of the concerns that’s been heard from Members, but I’m sure also from the stakeholders from the development of the Anti-Poverty Strategy and within the Anti-Poverty Coalition, has been, since 2010 we’ve been hearing about the government’s conflicting policies which create barriers to allowing people who are in poverty to advance and to get out of poverty and to become better and a more productive members of society and for them to have a better sense of self.
So I would like to know whether or not it’s on the radar for the Minister and for his colleagues in Cabinet as they develop this government action plan, are they going to be looking at policy and the conflicting policies that exist within this government that keep people in poverty?
In coming forward with all these frameworks and strategies that have come forward in the last couple of months, or during this session anyway, it’s clear that there are definite links and tie-in, and many of them are working towards the same ultimate goal coming at it from different angles, which is one of the reasons we want to take a little bit of time to make sure that as we move forward we link all those together so that we are not duplicating functions and we are not duplicating initiatives, that we are trying to work together for the best use of money for the best of the people of the Northwest Territories to battle poverty. I would say that yes, we are doing that, and that’s our intention, and those discussions are happening at the Cabinet table as well as the Deputy Ministers’ Social Envelope Committee.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Best use of money. I like that phrase. I hope that it proves out to be true. It’s not always true, I think, in government, unfortunately.
To the issue of the symposium, you mentioned in the fall. Is this going to be early in the fall or later in the fall? How long do people have? It’s over the summer, so how long do stakeholders have to get their action plans together?
I can’t remember the exact schedule, but I believe that we are coming together as Members in August, and that’s going to be our opportunity to review the action plan. The symposium would be after we as an Assembly review the action plan, so later in the fall.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
