Any other comments from page 13? Page 14. Mr. Gargan.

Mr. Chairman, we do have three people that were from the communities and three people that were from out of the Territories, two from Winnipeg and one from Ottawa. There are six people from the regional offices. February 27th was when this new initiative was addressed in the budget last year by Mr. Ballantyne. The working groups got together in February and, I think, dissolved around June. When did this working group dissolve? I know Jim Antoine said he started in February to June and that was it. Who did this actual final analysis of this report? You had an election in there, and I do not know if there was any kind of direction given to this project group with regard to the end result of this report. I need to get that clarified because there are two large documents done and it seems it is more of a government initiative or bureaucratic issue. But the group got together and worked with each other for approximately four months. The end result is this book. Who has done this report? Who has put it together?

Ms. Cournoyea.

This is a collaborate effort with the team groups. I will not go over the team group again because it is on page six. The idea was to take a number of people -- some people have had experience at community government levels, regional levels and also some system people from the bureaucracy within the territorial government.

The head of the group was Mr. Beatty, but the report was written by all the people who were on as full-time people for that period of time. They were either seconded from their positions or given a contract for that period of time. These people collectively wrote the report, and it was presented and signed in June. Once they concluded the report, the team members went over the report again. This was contracted out. So even though it was a government initiative to try to find ways and means of addressing the criticism of how we run the government, how we can do it better, this was a contract piece of work. The person who was the head of the group had a long-standing reputation in dealing with systems in governments all across Canada and other places. So that was the head of the team. Thank you.

To keep the very fast pace going, I would ask the Members to try to keep to the page we are discussing. Page 14. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

North Becoming A Welfare State

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some comments with respect to page 14, particularly with respect to findings of the review project. It you look through the page, basically what this says is that the North is now becoming a welfare state, if I can use the term, and the North is becoming totally dependent on government, in particular social assistance, and it is growing and the cost of it to the government, and how the government inherited and how they have to address all the problems of unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse and poor housing.

When you think of it, this government was basically created in the latter part of the 1960s, taking into account, from what I recall, that prior to that people were fairly independent and did not depend on society to address issues in a monetary way. The native way was to basically share what we had and to use the resources we could from the land.

However, government came in in the 1960s and basically indicated that the housing was not adequate. "You do not live in good conditions and we are going to fix all this up for you." And as the years went by, they developed all these programs, such as housing and social assistance. If they felt you did not make enough money, they gave you money to go and buy food, clothing, and at the same time they basically said, "if you do not look after your kids, well, we will take them away," and all these types of things that caused many social problems.

I want to make a few points, because I am concerned that in the North we are becoming a welfare state. I am not saying no other jurisdiction is a welfare state of the government, because I believe every jurisdiction in Canada is a state of the government. They all rely to a great degree on the federal government. However, it is becoming obvious that our jurisdiction is increasing rapidly, to the point where people feel it is a right to take advantage of all these benefits the government gives them. They feel it is a right to go out and get social assistance, not recognizing that they lost the focus on thinking that social assistance is for people only in need, and the system is set up to encourage people to stay home, even though I recognize that in many of the communities there are no jobs. Where there are jobs, many times the system is set up to encourage people to basically consider living off welfare. I guess as an individual I am concerned about that, because all I think is that the more dependent we become on government, the more social problems we are going to face. As a result of it, I think when you become a dependant of government, probably your violence and crime continually increase, because a person's esteem becomes very, very low; and when a person's self-esteem becomes very low people think in a different mentality and they become discouraged to try to get out of the system.

But I did want to state that it is government's fault in many ways that allowed this dependency. They basically stated to people, "No, you and your children cannot live off the land in an outpost settlement or in a camp. You have to take advantage of our educational system and you have to send your kids to school, so therefore you have to live in the community," not recognizing that to develop a school system that would accommodate their way of life. I find it extremely difficult now that we want to say that we want to...

Point of order. I am a little bit deaf, Mr. Chairperson, and I am trying to use this to listen to the Member speaking, but the conversation to my right is a very interesting one and I find it hard to listen to both of them.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I appreciate your comment. Mrs. Marie-Jewell, continue.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did want to say that now that we want to transfer the control of many of the programs to the community, some of the communities are not ready and I think it is important, and I am glad that the government has recognized that they have to be very careful in making sure that once they transfer these programs, that not only are the communities ready but they should be capable of delivering these programs. I feel if they are not capable, first of all they will set them up for failure, which is not fair to the communities.

But I did want to point out one thing, and this is one of the questions I did have. In the South, when you think of how people live, take for example the farmers, Mr. Chairman, you know they find that it is very difficult to make a living off farming so they asked the federal government for all these subsidies to be able to live as farmers and to live off their land that they produce their crops on; and recognizing that the fur prices are so low and that we still have an abundance of resources here in the North, when will this government ever decide to formulate a subsidy to address people who still want to live off the land in respect to fur and in respect to trapping? That is one of the questions that I want to ask.

That is all? Anybody want to respond to that? Ms. Cournoyea.

Mr. Chairman, I guess it is somewhat related to page 14. I think the last two paragraphs really are a reiteration of what the Member is talking about, and I would also think that the very last sentence in the last paragraph really relates to the very good efforts that the past Minister of Economic Development went to in terms of the economic strategy, which I think we have done a few things on, but we have a long way to go, and we have a good blueprint there as well.

Support Program Needed For Hunters And Trappers

There are still active discussions on how you would produce a program that would be reflective of what the different regions want in terms of a support program for the hunting and trapping industry. Right now the main thing, when we are looking at that, is that we look at the money that we have. We know that there is a requirement and we should be doing it, and how we do that -- some of the work has already been done by the Member who just finished raising the issue. At the same time, when you calculate what is required, again it is an issue of funding. Where do we get the funding to create that type of support? We are dedicated to trying to carry on the work that she has done already, and try to move it into something actual. Every time we look at that we will say, "How much can we take out of the present expenditure that we have?" We are still facing the same question right now. Hopefully, we can work something into the fall budget and try to get it dealt with.

In terms of the TFN, they are still talking about cost-sharing the program. There are different little approaches that they have thrown in lately about that. We are still in active discussion with them on how they want to put that program together. At one time they had expressed that they were going to put quite a large amount of money on the program, and as time went by it became less. The desire, then, was that perhaps the territorial government could fund that themselves rather than cost-sharing.

All these discussions are going on and, hopefully, we can come to some resolution in the fall when we bring forward our budget and see if we can work it in at that time. I cannot assure the Member that we will be able to have the resources to support the program. I just want to assure the Member that we are not redoing the whole information and proposal that has been put forward, and I do not think we should. I guess we would have to talk to some of the other regional organizations and what they are willing to put up as well, and how important that is. Everyone seems to be having a different opinion on just how that can be delivered.

Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is somewhat encouraging to hear that it is something in the backs of their minds. Recognizing that even though they are in the fiscal environment that they are, in as much as their intentions of wanting to look at this type of a program, it is difficult because of fiscal problems that we have.

What I want to emphasize is that in the event -- the upfront costs would be horrendous, there is no doubt about it, but I think the long-term results would be greatly beneficial to the North. If we look at the long term, it would take us away from the rapid pace that we are now going in in becoming a welfare state jurisdiction, if I may use that. We are getting to that point when we look at social assistance; as a jurisdiction it is rapidly increasing to the point where it is scary. It is going to be coming to the point where generations -- when we think of welfare we think of it coming in only two generations ago -- people now have the mentality to think that it is a right. If we do not do anything about it two generations from now they will feel not only that it is a right, but it is going to be law. It is going to be very, very difficult for us to get out of this. You are going to encourage more social problems than anything, and that is going to be more costly to the government to try to address these social problems. To avoid these types of social problems what I want to say is that you cannot put a price on how much it costs to save people from committing suicide. You cannot put a price on how much it will cost to get people to read and participate in society to the point where when you look at the top paragraph, the very last line, saying, "The government is in a positive position to begin change toward an outstanding 'made in the north' structure staffed by a committed 'home-grown' civil service." You cannot even encourage northern people to be able to take up a higher percentage of our own civil servants because of the way that we are going.

When we look at the success rate in the educational system it was not until the past five years that the increased rate of northern people to participate in the civil service has been showing results. Prior to that the results were very poor, and there was a need for affirmative action programs and other programs.

I want to stress to the government that I think it is going to be critical, if we are going to get out of this welfare state, as a jurisdiction, we are going to have to make some fairly significant decisions with respect to addressing such things as support programs for the trappers, for the fur industry, or for people who want to live off the land. We are going to have to look at something like a subsidy such as they have for farmers. There should not be anything wrong with that. The farmers take their subsidy and they make Canada know that they need the subsidy to live as farmers. This type of subsidy should be developed for the trappers and the hunters. I think that is very, very critical with respect to trying to get away from this welfare economy that we are quickly moving into. I cannot stress the importance of that when you look at some of the findings of this project, Mr. Chairman.

I find that you cannot place a price on addressing some of the social issues. The up front costs, I recognize, are very high. However, in the long-term results I think you can see significant results with respect to developing people in the Territories. Thank you.

Mr. Pudlat.

Living Off The Land

(Translation) Mr. Chairman, I have a comment on page 14 as well, in support of the statement that was just made with regard to social assistance. It is the only source of income today in some places. The source of income that we receive, aside from social assistance, is from the harvesting of animal pelts which can help with the income, but these are very low in price now. The government is not responsible for the low prices, but those who are responsible for the low prices, are the animal rights groups. For that reason people require social assistance when they do not have any source of income. If you are not capable of being employed in the local economy, there should be something in place in order to have a source of income if there is no other way that we can make any money from animals. Not just from social assistance, but also in being able to improve the source of income that they have.

The income that we receive in the North -- we live in a cold climate -- although the resources are there, people are not buying our materials. When we were younger we did not receive social assistance, but we had to live off the land. Only when the retailers came up North and were buying the pelts were we able to buy other commodities from outside of our area and were able to pay for them. The commodities were not that expensive then, and we were able to afford them. We were able to buy them with pelts and the pelts were needed by others. But today it is very difficult for hunters because of lack of money. Because of the lower price of pelts, there should be something in place to subsidize the hunters. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Ningark.

No Incentive To Live Off The Land

I agree with my honourable colleague, Jeannie Marie-Jewell, about retaining our way of life, especially giving financial support to the hunters and trappers who wish to go out camping and live off the land. This occupation, as most Members in this House will agree, is a healthy occupation. It is environmentally healthy; it is environmentally friendly. It is also cost-efficient to the Government of the NWT.

I would like to explain why it is cheaper for this government to have outpost camps within the Territories. One is that when you are living in the outpost camp, then your dependency on welfare is cut drastically, as the honourable Member has mentioned. Secondly, there are virtually no crimes in outpost camps. Thirdly, there is no structured classroom type of school in the outpost camps. The mother or father should get some type of funding from the government for educating their kids in how to survive living off the land.

As the Minister responsible for Renewable Resources, I support the initiative to have people live off the land. The money that we grant from my department, trappers' incentive grants, the harvesters' assistance program and outpost camp grants -- one of the solutions in solving the problem is to encourage people to live off the land. The money under this program is not sufficient to encourage people to live off the land. As a government, I think different departments should get together to try to come up with initiatives to make sure camping and hunting survival is a means of living. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Page 14. Agreed?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Page 15. Agreed?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Page 16. Mr. Lewis.

Lack Of Housing Continues To Be A Problem

On page 16 the point is made that in the NWT,

outside of the large centres, all we really have is social housing. In any kind of developed economy we found that construction is vital to an economy. It is very often used as an indicator of the strength of your economy. Even this current federal budget that we heard yesterday recognized that something had to be done about the construction industry and especially in relation to housing.

I mentioned earlier the concern I had that this report talks about strength at one level and another level. You have to really decide what you are going to do with the strength. If you decide that what we want to do is have a strong government and the way to do it is this, it is no good just looking at the structure. You have to have some vision and some policies and some programs, and so on. The concern I have is that we may spend an awful lot of time tinkering, as we did in the last Assembly. We spent quite a bit of time preoccupied with making sure our structures reflected our priorities, which did not last long. We spent an awful lot of time and money shifting things all over the place to reflect the priorities that we had, and within months we want to junk it because we want to do something else, except it has to be clear, if we are going to concentrate on this issue of strength at two levels, what it is in fact that you are going to do. What is it you are going to do? What is your vision? So I would hope that many of the things we have identified as priorities over the last while would be somehow reflected. Maybe in the Budget Address in the summer we will have a kind of platform or a program to reaffirm what you are going to do with the strength once you have asserted it.

I just wanted to make that point that housing continues to be a massive problem, and this report recognizes it, and much of the work we did in the past recognizes it. It is a key element in any kind of economic strategy that we have. There are all kinds of problems with it, and Mr. Morin has an unenviable job in trying to deal with that huge problem of looking at ways in which people can get housing.

However, if we go to page 17, which was the last page you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in the middle of the last paragraph there is a comment, a sentence if you like, which I have pondered over and I cannot understand it. This is the sentence. Maybe I should read quite a bit in front of it so that it has the complete context. It says: "Accordingly, the work of government should be shared (divided) more evenly with communities, and the territorial government should transfer more responsibility and resources to communities in the area of providing 'services to people.' This is not a question of further decentralization, but of enhancing the capacity of the community level of government."

Now, I read that sentence lots of times over the last little while and really cannot figure out what it means. It says you are not going to decentralize, and yet what I understand is being proposed is transfer from one level to another level. You are going to provide means by which people can do something. Here we are told that we are not going to do that. What we are going to do is to enhance the capacity of the community level of government. Is there any way of getting a better understanding of what is meant by "enhancing the capacity of the community level of government"? If in fact it means something different from providing you with resources and programs and so on, and giving them options as to what they want to do -- if that is not being proposed, then what is being proposed? If we are not talking about two levels, strength here and strength there, and giving communities control over their own programs, then what does it mean? What do we mean, that we are not going to do that, we are not going to decentralize, we are not going to get rid of stuff and put it at another level, but we are going to enhance the capacity of the community level of government? Does it mean that we are going to give it a new title or a new status, if you like? Are we going to change the way we look at what a community is? Are we going to rename them all and at least create some way of demonstrating to people that somehow they are different from what they used to be; that you are going to enhance the capacity of the community level of government? I wonder if that could be explained to us as to what is meant by that.

Thank you. Government Leader.

Community Government