As we agreed, the next bill we will deal with is Bill 32, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2003-2004. At this time, I would like to ask the Minister introducing the bill if he has any opening comments. Mr. Handley.
Minister's Opening Comments
Bill 32: Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2003-2004
In the Legislative Assembly on October 7th, 2003. See this topic in context.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, Supplementary Appropriation, No. 2 requests authority for additional appropriations of $11,844,726 for operations expenditures and $5,776,000 for capital investment expenditures.
Major items included in this request are as follows:
- $4.7 million for the Department of Health and Social Services to allocate funding to priorities identified by the department under the health accord funding announced by the federal government earlier this year. Of this amount, $1.2 million is for new capital investment for the health boards.
- $2.6 million for the Department of Health and Social Services for the additional costs associated with the settlement of an agreement with specialist physicians.
- $1.8 million for the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development for additional fire suppression costs incurred due to severe forest fire conditions this summer.
The major request for capital investment expenditures is $3 million for the Department of Transportation for phase II of the Mackenzie Valley winter road bridge building program. Total expenditures under this phase of program will be $5.7 million over two years, of which the total net cost to the GNWT will be $1.9 million. The balance of the costs will be cost-shared with the federal government and private industry.
Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to review the details of the supplementary appropriation document. Thank you.
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The Chair David Krutko
At this time, I would like to ask the Minister if he will be bringing in any witnesses.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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The Chair David Krutko
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort in the witness.
For the record, Mr. Minister, please introduce your witness.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, with me is Lew Voytilla, secretary to the Financial Management Board.
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David Krutko Mackenzie Delta
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witness. We are dealing with Bill 32. General comments. Mr. Dent.
General Comments
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I couldn't help but notice in the Minister's opening comments, they often indicate when we are looking at supplementaries that there will be no impact on the overall fiscal position of the government because the request for supplementary appropriations are within the supplementary reserve that was approved when we approved the mains. I am wondering if the Minister could advise us if we were to pass this supplementary, it would be still be within the supplementary reserves approved in the main budget.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, yes, with the approval of this supplementary request after removing out the non-cash items, we would have slightly less than $1.5 million left in the supp reserve.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, could the Minister then provide us, based on what we've seen in previous years and in supplementary appropriations No. 3 and No. 4, how much over the supplementary reserve does he think we will be or does he believe we can finish the year with two more supplementaries and stay within that $1.5 million?
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The Chair David Krutko
Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board Secretariat, Mr. Handley.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, we still have several months to go before the end of the fiscal year. If this is a typical year, then I would expect that we're going to be short on the supplementary reserve or we'll go over it. I would estimate another $5 million. Thank you.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Looking, for example, at Supplementary No. 4 that we just concluded, that would tend to indicate to me that it would be difficult for us to do another two supplementaries in this year and stay within $5 million. Does that indicate that the Minister has embarked or had the government embark on a cost savings program or has he found some new revenues? I guess just an indication of how he intends to try and keep expenditures within that $5 million over budget.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, we have built $5 million more into our fiscal forecast. So this is already in the forecast. We're expecting that this year's not going to be different than the other ones. Second is, we did earlier this year ask departments to identify $10 million through economizing measures. We have also further asked them to identify another $5 million that they would not spend in order to help balance this out. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask if the Minister could give us a little more detail. He just indicated that some months ago he embarked on a $20 million cost savings exercise and he indicated that the departments were asked to find $10 million worth of savings that would do minimal impact on service levels where possible, another $5 million savings was asked of the departments to come up with some lower-priority areas if they could and there was still another $5 million that leaves to account for in the $20 million exercise. Can the Minister give us some indication of where he expected that other $5 million in savings to come from? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, generally, the $5 million that we've asked to be found comes from three sources. First, there's about a $1 million savings on interest charges; second, there was a double entry in the contribution to the Housing Corporation worth about $1.4 million; and we have asked the departments to try to lapse the balance, about $2.5 or $2.6 million.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
I just want to make sure I'm clear. That's the other $5 million that brings us to $20 million. So we had $10 million the departments were initially asked to come up with, another $5 million in savings and then the $5 million you just spoke of, which was interest charges, the Housing Corporation double entry and the request that the departments lapse some money. Is that right or am I confusing the $5 millions? Thank you.
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Voytilla
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member's right, we did initially start to say $20 million. We were able to identify $10 million with direct savings and the Member will recall that we took that out of the departmental budgets in June in Supplementary No. 1. That was actually removed from their spending authority. There was another $5 million that we were going to get from targeted savings and the Minister's just recounted where we expect to get that. Then there's $5 million that we were hoping to achieve through a tightening up of our supplementary appropriation reserves. We've not been able to achieve that for the reasons that have been explained to the Members and the committees because of the forest fire season this year where some of those items are in the supplementary, too, that we will go through as we proceed through the bill. There were more unavoidable supplementary requirements than we anticipated, so we were not able to achieve the final $5 million. Our only savings are $15 million.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, deputy, for that response. That was my recollection was that of the $20 million, $5 million was coming from a reduction in the supplementary reserve. We'd talked about this $20 million and I remember at the time thinking that was not real savings, this is an accounting exercise. We can't very well take credit for a $20 million savings when $5 million of it is really just reducing our supplementary reserve and here and now we come back and realize that because of the spending pressures we weren't in fact able to do that. I just wanted to clarify that and make sure that I understood that. Thank you.
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Paul Delorey Hay River North
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few comments on this supplementary appropriation. I guess a few concerns that I have about the amount of the supplementary when we consider the overall financial situation that our government is in and how we continue to see more money going into areas that may be questionable as to how really badly in need they are. My first question, I guess, would be to the Minister on one of the major items that he listed in his opening comments, $1.48 million Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development due to a severe fire season.
I wasn't aware that we had such an exceptionally severe fire season this year. I know that we had a few fires around, but I also know that we budget a fair amount of dollars for fire suppression over the years. Have we drained our fire budget so much that we have nothing left in there to fight fires so that now we have to come forward with supplementary appropriation? What has constituted such a severe fire season?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, this year was a more severe fire season than we've seen for a number of years. This year, the amount spent on fires was almost $28 million compared to $20 million last year and $21 million the year before. So this was a more severe year than we've had. Most of the over-expenditure would have occurred with the late fire that we had in the Norman Wells area. There was a fairly large fire that threatened Norman Wells from the north side and accounted for a lot of the over-expenditure, but this year was exceptional going right back to at least 1999 and possibly several years before that. Thank you.
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Paul Delorey Hay River North
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on this fire suppression budget, what would our normal costs be if we didn't have a fire at all in the Northwest Territories in the summer? I know that we have some contractual expenditures that we have to have, but if there were no fires at all for a summer what would be the bill to this government?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
If we had had no fires in 2003-2004 our costs would have been $18.6 million. Those are pre-suppression contracts that we enter into with ground crews and aircraft contracts and other pre-suppression work we have to do including community protection, purchase of supplies and so on.
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Paul Delorey Hay River North
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, also another area that was quite evident as we went through this supplementary, the extra expenditures in Health and Social Services, and there will be more questions, I'm sure, as we go through this. Of all the extra expenditures in Health and Social Services it's been extremely hard to find in there any dollars that are actually going to patient care. There is an awful lot of money identified again in here in information technology and this is something that is before us all the time. When we come up and look at different supplementaries, the costs just continue to go up in IT. Could the Minister identify, out of the Health and Social Services supplementary, how much of that money is actually going to patient care?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, first of all, with the additional funding for the specialists that's $2.5 million. That we would have to count as being direct patient care. In addition to that there are a number of other expenditures, on telehealth, for example. That would be direct patient care from the telehealth centres, $250,000. A nurse practitioner program, $277,000. Mental health workers, $276,000. The 1-800 call centre for this year, $431,000. In medical equipment, I'm not sure, I'm assuming that's probably a combination of things, but certainly a percentage of it would be for direct patient care, $1.7 million. Then there was another $800,000 that the department identified for each of the health boards and that was cleared specifically for direct patient health care. Mr. Chairman, I haven't totaled that up, but I believe that probably comes to somewhere in the neighbourhood of $5 million out of the request, or more.
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Paul Delorey Hay River North
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I'm going to cut my comments off there. I'll probably have some more questions as we go through the supplementary. Thank you.
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Leon Lafferty North Slave
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd just like to ask the Minister what happens to the revenues we collect from sending our firefighters, our water bombers, out to BC, the United States, wherever there's fires? How much do we get in revenues this year from those kinds of fire suppressions?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, along with other provinces and territories, we have what's called a MARS agreement, which means that we mutually agree to provide services to each other in the case of extreme fire seasons at cost. So any of the revenues we would get from our crews fighting outside of the Territories would go to cover our actual cost of providing that service. Those funds are accounted for in the forest fire management budget. How much we spent this year, I'm not sure, but Mr. Chairman, I'll refer that to the Minister of RWED. He may have information on what it was that we collected this year. Thank you.
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Jim Antoine Nahendeh
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We haven't really completely got the complete information yet because of our support that we sent down to BC until very recently. So I don't have the complete figures at this point. Thank you.
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Leon Lafferty North Slave
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the reports are not completed, are we expecting any revenues to this government from fire suppression for the summer? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, we have done an estimate, and I don't know off hand, the Minister of RWED may know, of what amount we would have included in here and netted that off from this request here. There has been an estimate. I don't know what it is that the department expects to get back, but it would have been included in the...I'm sorry, we just found it. It's $2.66 million that we have estimated as what we're getting back and that has been netted off from the $1.8 million that has been requested by the department. That amount is already received. If it's considerably different then there may be some revenue, plus or minus, on that.
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Leon Lafferty North Slave
Thank you. So we don't have all the information, but we know we need $1.8 million. How does that work? You don't know what you're getting for revenues, but you know how much you're going to need to off-set the cost for the supplementary. That's amazing. You said, may be included. It puzzles me. Is it included or is it not included? Maybe doesn't assure me that it is in there.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, if I said maybe it's included I didn't mean that. We have netted off $2.66 million. Now, we don't know exactly what that number will be. It may be exactly $2.66 million when we get the final bills in or it may be slightly less or more. At this point, our best estimate is $2.66 million is what we would have taken in from our workers working in other jurisdictions through the MARS agreement.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just a few comments in this area and it's unfortunate that we're actually dealing with this bill in the sense that we just heard earlier that the room, and I guess it was qualified, that there is maybe $1.5 million worth of room left back in our supplementary reserve and we're six months into the year. That's a concern for me. I guess the other one is, is that amount included with the liabilities we take on by some of the transactions we do? Because some of the transactions are cash in/cash out or just an accounting of an amount or liability. Is that amount a reflection of the liabilities placed on this government as well? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, I'm not clear what the Member means when he talks about liabilities of this government. We have built into our fiscal forecast an additional $5 million to carry us over for the next six months. In that sense it's already built into our fiscal framework. If that's what the Member's referring to as liabilities, then yes, we still have some room there. Thank you.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not necessarily liabilities such as environmental or cash liabilities, but from my understanding of what we're presented with is that the total amount of this, including non-cash in or cash out transactions, would be over $1 million over the supplementary reserve. If we included the total amount of transactions. Whether it was actually cash transferred from one department to another. Is that the case?
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Voytilla
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we said, on a cash basis there's $1.5 million left in the supplementary reserve, but in our fiscal forecast we've recognized that that will not be adequate to see us through to the end of the year, so we've estimated in the current forecast for this year that the supplementary requirements from now to the end of the year will be $5 million. So, not $1.5, but $5 million. We trust that will be enough to see us through. That $5 million reserve remaining for the year is built into the $77 million deficit forecast for 2003-2004.
If you factor in the non-cash transactions, which are accounting entries to record the transfer of some assets, then the supplementary reserve on a non-cash basis would be actually $1.5 million over spent today. But we don't have to come up with the cash to meet those non-cash obligations. They're accounting entries, so we don't normally take them into account when we figure out much flexibility we've got in our supplementary reserve.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can continue to be educated, I guess, in the process of accounting and the numbers and so on. Aside from that, Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of entries in here that talk about, as we heard one of the Members raise, the information technology area and software and devolution. A few things like that. We've just six months ago passed a budget, main estimates developed on business plans were reviewed by Members and we went through IT scenarios with departments. Already, I guess, the fact that it's coming forward in a supplementary means that they're over-expended in those areas already or did they miscalculate something or is it absolutely necessary that a lot of these come forward or is it something that can sit and wait until there's actually cash available? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, a lot of the IT money that we're spending is to a large extent fine tuning our requirements in that area. The biggest expenditure, by far, is in the health care field and that is taking advantage of funding that has been made available to us from the federal government. In that case, we are enhancing or updating equipment. The others are fairly small and it's more fine tuning our IT. Thank you.
Detail
Legislative Assembly
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The Chair David Krutko
General comments. Detail. We're dealing with Bill 32, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2003-2004, page 5, Legislative Assembly, operations expense, Office of the Clerk, not previously authorized, $243,000.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Agreed.
Department Of Executive
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The Chair David Krutko
Executive, operations expenditures, Financial Management Board Secretariat, Directorate, not previously authorized, $1.71 million. Mr. Dent.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps we could get a bit of an explanation for why the Housing Corporation would be purchasing residential property to rent out on a non-subsidized basis. I don't recall this being a situation that I've heard of happening before.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, in late June Cabinet made a decision to transfer responsibility for the remaining staff housing units to the Housing Corporation in order to consolidate our housing mandate into the one agency. The amount of money here, $1.71 million, is not cash, but rather a grant in kind. Sorry, $2.1 million. It is a grant in kind. It isn't cash, it's for the value of those housing units that are transferred to the Housing Corporation. Thank you.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not aware though of the Housing Corporation having at this point, it's never at least been presented to us at committee or in any other forum, that the Housing Corporation had a mandate to rent units to the public on a non-subsidized basis. Is that something that's new?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, yes. When the Housing Corporation gets further into this it is a new activity. Up to now, the Housing Corporation has focused on social housing and various programs to help the private sector or individuals buy housing of their own. The ability of the Housing Corporation to do this is certainly within the parameters of their legislation. Again, this would be a new activity for them.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
I'm quite surprised at that; this sounds like a fairly major change in policy. Why was there no discussion with Regular Members that this has happened? Why is it taking until some five months later that we're finally hearing about it?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, there's been volumes of discussion on this over the past four years. The issue is the challenge of getting housing into small communities. When the government got out of staff housing we expected the private sector to step in. There have been various initiatives to try to get their interest in it. It hasn't worked. This is not a major policy change, this is simply taking housing and moving the responsibility from FMBS over to the Housing Corporation. No policy had to change on the Housing Corporation side. It's an activity that when they get into it will be new for them, but it fits within their legislation. They are already, as I mentioned before, responsible for social housing and they have also had various programs to assist people to purchase housing from EDAP to MDAP to various other programs. To some extent, the Housing Corporation has already been in, in a different way, the private housing market. Thank you.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
It's a bit of an arcane argument, perhaps, but I guess I would argue that it represents a substantial shift in the activities of the Housing Corporation. Maybe there were volumes of discussion, but it was never presented to a standing committee that the mandate of the Housing Corporation was going to be exercised in this way. As the standing committee normally is responsible for oversight of the activities of the department or the corporation, one would have expected that the Regular Members who are charged with that oversight would be made aware of a substantial change like this.
I think one of the areas where this raises a whole concern is about whether or not there is now going to be adequate policing to make sure that there is no interference in a market where there might be a private entity. This government is on record as saying it was getting out of staff housing to support the development of the rental market in smaller communities. It's had programs to try and make community corporations and communities take on the provision of housing for teachers and nurses and so on, but we have never actually had the Housing Corporation going in and providing rental housing as this seems to be proposed.
How do we know the program is going to be exercised in such a way as not to provide competition to the private market that we've been trying to foster for the past five or six years?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Dent's jumping ahead a little bit here because all that has happened so far is a transfer of the remaining staff housing units over to the Housing Corporation. That's 25 housing units that have been transferred to them. The Housing Corporation will be responsible for renting those units, selling those units, whatever they will do with them, at a no cost to the government basis. They will not be subsidized.
At the same time, the Housing Corporation has been asked to do a needs assessment of the housing needs in the non-market communities. That needs assessment is coming forward. Once we receive that needs assessment then there will be an opportunity, and I'll make a commitment on behalf of the Minister and myself, to bring that forward to a committee.
Clearly, this is within the parameters of the legislation of the Housing Corporation. They have been in private housing already under a different arrangement through the various down-payment assistance programs and so on. The needs assessment that is being done is only for non-subsidized housing. It's not a continuation of the programs on social housing. There's opportunity for the committees to be briefed before there's ever a major initiative in this area. All we're doing here, though, is moving the staff housing over to the Housing Corporation. Thank you.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Mr. Chairman, if that's all we're doing then why do we have in here, in the schedule, the words "for the purpose of renting out the units to the general public"? It sounds to me that the decision has already been made about how the process works. This may be the right thing to do. I can't say it is or isn't because it's never been presented to me the arguments for why this is happening. I'm not trying to enter into that argument right now.
My point is that this is a change in the operations of the Housing Corporation. It may be good, but I don't know at this point in time because it's never been presented to me. My point is, I've been involved in the Assembly for 12 years and I don't recall the Housing Corporation undertaking this kind of operation. So if it's new, I would think that it would be something that would be presented to the Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Now, it could be presented to us with all sorts of fan fare as the best program since sliced bread, but it shouldn't be presented to us through the back door in a supplementary. It should be coming to us up front to discuss the policy. That, Mr. Chairman, is my point here. Not whether it's a good program or a bad program. The fact is I'm offended that we're hearing about it for the first time in a supplementary appropriation.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, I think I understand the point that Mr. Dent's trying to make. All I'll say is that these 25 housing units, the ones that were left, were on the responsibility of FMBS. They have now been transferred over to the Housing Corporation. Certainly we will put down as renting out the units to the general public. I hope that's what the Housing Corporation does with those units, that they don't just have them sit there empty. I don't understand Mr. Dent's point on that one. We want to have some revenue out of them. We want to also meet the housing needs in those non-market communities. So, that will happen. I don't see any big changes. The Housing Corporation, in fact, has been for a number of years now doing the property management for FMBS. It wasn't managed through FMBS, it was routed through the Housing Corporation. So there's no big shift here. All we've done is transferred the ownership of those units from the government over to the Housing Corporation.
In terms of, will this be the best program since sliced bread? That's possible. We don't know that yet, Mr. Chairman, until we see the needs assessment on non-subsidized housing. I hope it's the best program that we could put together on the housing.
Mr. Chairman, I don't see this as a big policy shift. We don't know for sure yet until we see the needs assessment. We'll bring that back to the committees and at that point make a decision of whether or not it's reasonable to proceed with it or whether it's something that we should shelve. Thank you.
Financial Management Board Secretariat
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The Chair David Krutko
Financial Management Board Secretariat, directorate, not previously authorized, $1.71 million. Mr. Roland.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the same line of questioning. To transfer approved appropriations for transferred housing to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation as follows: operations expenditures, $926,000; amortization expense, $154,000; total of $1.8 million. Then they've got down listed as a negative. Can you tell us why it comes in as a negative amount?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, because that money is moving out of the FMBS budget over to the Housing Corporation. So it's money coming out of this pocket. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you. I'm interested in this item as well. The Minister indicated that this is not a big policy shift and in fact made the case that all we're doing is moving the staff housing responsibility from FMBS to the Housing Corporation. But I'm sure, or maybe I should ask, the record of decision coming out of Cabinet would just indicate that that's all that was going on with the shift of responsibilities. It wouldn't be a directive or an allowance for the Housing Corporation letting them get into the renting out of units to the general public in non-market communities on a non-subsidized basis? Because whether that's right or wrong, I'm not saying it's wrong, it may be, as Mr. Dent's indicated, a very good idea, but that in my mind is a policy shift. There's a record of decision coming out of Cabinet that that be what the Housing Corporation should do going forward, then that is a big policy shift, I would think.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me clarify. This is not a transfer of staff housing. We got out of staff housing years ago. We haven't been in staff housing for years. What we had were some 25 housing units that are left over from the old days. Those have been owned by the government. Those housing units are being transferred over to the Housing Corporation and they're expected to rent those units or, if they have no need for them, to sell them. But they will manage them. That's just a transfer from FMBS over to the Housing Corporation.
In terms of the Cabinet direction, basically Cabinet direction was to...Cabinet or FMBS? FMBS direction, actually, not Cabinet. FMBS direction was to transfer the units over to the Housing Corporation and for the Housing Corporation to come back once they've done the needs assessment. I don't remember exactly what it was, but that is in effect what FMBS has asked for. The needs assessment should be coming forward shortly.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Let me ask if the establishment policy for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation includes rental to the general public or does it just specifically mention social housing?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
No, Mr. Chairman. Their legislation is broad enough to encompass assisting with outside of the social housing area and they've already been doing that, particularly on the house purchase side, for the private sector. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Let me also ask about the stipulation that this be in non-market communities only because we have a concern about disrupting the private market. If it's non-market communities only, can the Minister give me an indication, say for instance, what we've decided Fort Simpson or Rae-Edzo might qualify as. Are those non-market communities?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, the only communities that are considered to be market communities are what are referred to as level one communities. That includes Inuvik, Yellowknife, Fort Smith, Hay River. Those would be the four. All the others are non-market. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Fort Simpson and Rae-Edzo are non-market. We don't have any sense that there might be a concern that developers who are trying to build housing to sell in Fort Simpson and Rae-Edzo are going to have a problem with the Housing Corporation getting into this business?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the needs assessment that FMBS directed the Housing Corporation to do was to look at questions like that. To look at the needs. To look at the supply and give us information on whether or not it would be needed for them to go into the housing in those situations.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Well, hopefully developers are listening and will recognize that there's a new player in the business in town with deep pockets. I guess my biggest concern might be that this didn't come before committee for some discussion because if it did, certainly I would have pointed out the fact that we'd just been through an auditor general report with a pretty good look at the Housing Corporation and it pointed specifically to the fact that if you look at the ability of the Housing Corporation to collect rents in public housing units, they're not able to collect public housing rent. They really aren't. I don't want to say it's criminal the amount of money they're able to collect, but it's appalling.
If you look at the reliability and the track record of the local community when they get involved, whether it be LHOs or bands doing this, they're much more able to collect rents. I think somewhere in the 90 percent range of collection. I would have made the point at committee that maybe it makes more sense for us to look at involving the communities in meeting this need through LHOs, through bands, as opposed to having the Housing Corporation do it. I don't know if that's been considered, but I was never able to make that argument and that point in committee.
So here we are with the policy having been made already and decided on without that kind of input from committee. Right or wrong and if it's something that's easily discounted that the housing could have done that in the meeting, now we won't know. I won't have that opportunity. Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me say that there has never been difficulty on collecting the rent on these housing units that are owned by government and have been rented out. The Housing Corporation has been collecting the rent and it's not the same situation as with the social housing or low-income housing units and the difficulties that we have there. That's a different situation altogether.
In terms of not having an opportunity, I think the opportunity still exists. As I have said before, when the needs assessment is done we would bring this back to the committee and that's where it's meaningful. We'll have the needs assessment and know whether or not it's worth it or necessary for the Housing Corporation to go into the non-market communities. I, too, hope that the private sector, construction industry and so on are listening and that if they want to go build houses in Lutselk'e and Deline and Rae-Edzo that they would take up the challenge and move in there and build the houses and manage them without the Housing Corporation to go in. That has been our objective all along. If they want to show us that they can do it through the private sector, I think that's the ultimate goal we want anyway.
In the meantime, we have provided over the years incentives and encouragement for the private sector, for municipal governments, for local corporations to get in the business. They have not done it in any big way. They have not found that there's the return that they would like to see on their money. In order to be able to deliver progress and provide housing for staff we're prepared to do it in the interim until the private sector can do it and we'll do it through the Housing Corporation, not directly through the government. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
I just want to be clear. I think the Minister said to provide housing for our staff. I just wanted to make sure that we're, in fact, talking about general public and not our staff. That we're not back into staff housing. Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, of course we would provide housing to the public if there is someone in the public who wants to rent a house, but I have to say that of immediate concern to us is being able to find housing to accommodate people who are providing programs and services for us. Because we've heard over and over again the difficulties that people have, teachers have, nurses have and so on in getting housing in communities that's suitable. We have to look at this from both sides. Do the rest of the public need housing? Yes, I'm sure there are people there and, yes, we would through the Housing Corporation make housing available to them in a way that is not subsidized by government. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Okay, thank you. I'm almost out of time here, so I would just like to thank the Minister for that because the document that we have in front of us states that this is for the purpose of renting out units to the general public. The Minister has just clarified that and said we're really talking about, as first priority, as people providing services. So that wasn't the discussion we had, but I'm glad he's clarified it. Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I guess I consider our staff to be part of the public, too. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Just the last point is, I think if our government was to go to private developers and offer leases for staff housing, long term guarantees, and say, build us some staff housing, we'll pay you to do it, I'm sure they'd be more than interested. I think the concern comes when it's on spec for just the general public. Then it is hard to get developers to go into smaller communities and take the risk. If there's no risk, I'm sure we can find people to take no risk. Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, as long as the private builders can do that and do it in a way that is affordable, then I'm sure that we wouldn't object to that. Up to now, we've made those offers and the private builders have not taken up the offer. Thank you.
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Steven Nitah Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I must agree with this initiative. Since the government got out of staff housing I don't know how many umpteen millions of dollars it's cost this government in recruiting and retaining staff in our communities. We don't know the untold consequences on our students that have repeatedly, year after year, found themselves short of teachers. There's no continuity of teachers. Nursing professionals are not staying long enough to know the long-term care needed in the communities. I don't know how many lives that might have cost. We don't know what kind of effect not having the same teachers to teach the students over and over again have on the students and how the students turn out and what the net cost in the areas of the social envelope will be.
We've been outside the staff housing for a number of years and no private developers have taken on the challenge of providing houses in these communities. Now that the government's trying to do something to address that major problem, we seem to have some people who are concerned.
I would like to ask the Minister a question, though, regarding the needs assessment. When will this be done so that we can start ensuring that there are houses available for government staff working in our communities? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, I'm told that we should have that needs assessment in our hands within the next two weeks.
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Steven Nitah Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, is the needs assessment also looking at the cost associated with what I was discussing earlier, the recruitment and retention of our staff, teachers, especially, and nurses; the social costs of not having staff that are coming back year after year to teach our students, et cetera? Or are we just looking at the market in the community? The market in the community is important in my mind because the rent scale should be based on the market and not what will be created as a market. I'm afraid that if we use third party people to do this thing the cost will go up. If the cost goes up, the cost to the renters will go up. Any time the high cost of living in the communities, as we've demonstrated clearly that's the case, then we have to factor that in as well. Will it be the market of the community and not what it might mean to a private entrepreneur or private enterprise trying to make a buck here? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, the objective is to get affordable rent in the communities. So we believe that that can be done. The assessment that is being done is looking at the availability and cost-effective housing that people can afford in the communities. It doesn't look at recruitment costs and other factors including students not doing well in school because of high teacher turnover. Those issues are beyond this study. We are just looking at the availability and cost of housing in the communities.
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Steven Nitah Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe we need to do a study on that to justify these initiatives if there are going to be some reactions to this initiative that are not positive, to date. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, maybe someday it would be needed to do that, but I am sure having a lot of turnover does have a negative effect on students. It has a negative effect on communities if they are without positions because there is no housing available whether it's in the private sector or public sector, wherever it may be. Mr. Chairman, some day that may be necessary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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The Chair David Krutko
Executive, operations expenditures, Financial Management Board Secretariat, directorate, not previously authorized, $1.071 million.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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The Chair David Krutko
Total, Financial Management Board Secretariat, not previously authorized, $1.071 million.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Department Of Finance
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The Chair David Krutko
Finance, operations expenditures, treasury, not previously authorized, negative $1.475 million.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wonder if we can get an explanation of how the implementation of the self-insurance plan is going to work and how we would wind up saving this money on it.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, under the system that will be followed, the GNWT will self-insure or assume the risk on the first $10 million of property risk. This is cumulative in that it could be several incidents that would total up to that. After that, we would have insurance. By doing it this way, we realize a savings of $1.641 million. But in the cost of implementing the loss/prevention risk control program, we are estimating about $165,000, resulting in a $1.475 million savings to us.
Under the old program, our premiums would have been over $3.6 million compared to now being approximately $2 million. Thank you.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
If I understand it then, if we have 20 fires and each one is worth an average of $500,000, that totals $10 million in a year. The first $10 million we just pay for the replacement ourselves. We don't put in a claim for insurance. So that's up to $10 million a year that we could be spending out of our pockets in replacing fire damaged...The balance then. After $10 million, is there any deductible? Say there's a fire and the damages are worth $1,000, do we just put in for $1,000 and get that or is there a deductible? Excuse me, let me start again. Is there a deductible that would reduce the amount we would receive in claims after $10 million?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, first of all, we would say our loss history has not been such that we would be seeing $10 million a year in losses. So there's a savings there. So I think our losses have been somewhere closer to $4 million on average. So it's unlikely we are going to, hopefully, see $10 million losses happening.
Once we reach that $10 million mark, if we had that kind of misfortune, there is no deductible after $10 million. Thank you.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That amount the Minister just gave us on the losses that we have averaged in a year, is that the net amount after we receive...Right now, the existing program, or before this comes into effect -- maybe it already has -- anything over $1 million is claimable under insurance. So is that amount you gave us on average losses including the amount we receive back from insurance companies to replace facilities burnt, or is that just straight losses? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, the amount I gave is the gross loss. Under the old program, we were liable for the first $1 million on each loss. But the number I am giving you is the gross loss we have seen on average.
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Paul Delorey Hay River North
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On this self-insurance program, could I get a little detail on how that's going to be set up? Are we going to start a fund that we would use to pay claims or losses from or will we always see expenditures in that coming forward as a supplementary appropriation? Is it the government's intention to set up a fund to recreate their own insurance program?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, we will not set aside a fund from which to pay these. We will expense them as they happen. If there is no urgency, that would go into the capital planning process. If there is an urgency, then you might very well see it in a supp. But with our current fiscal situation, we wouldn't set aside a fund.
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The Chair David Krutko
Finance, operations expense, treasury, not previously authorized, negative $1.475 million.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Department Of Public Works And Services
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The Chair David Krutko
Public Works and Services, operations expense, management, not previously authorized, $36,000.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister reconcile for us the net book value and the market value that was put on the facility and explain how the market value was arrived at?
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Voytilla
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When disposing of this asset, we went out and got a market appraisal because our policy is we have to record it as a grant-in-kind, the fair market value of the property. So we had to determine that. We did retain an appraiser who went and appraised the property using two methods; the cost approach, which showed a fair market value of $780,000 and then they did the income approach, which showed no value and we blended the two approaches to come up with an estimate of what would be reasonable as a fair market value and arrived at a $390,000 fair market value for the tanks, and then there was land and other components that were transferred to get you to the $523,000 fair market value. The reason that showed as a grant-in-kind is because that is our estimate of the value of the property transferred to the business. The additional loss of $209,000 is to get us from the fair market value up to what the book value was of the asset on our accounts because we have to clear the entire asset off our books as it's no longer owned by us. So that's the reconciliation.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister indicate if there is cleanup required now in the takeover of these assets? Is there a required cleanup that has to be undertaken? Can the Minister explain what kind of liability comes with this and what the government's exposure might be and what the expectation is that EGT will do now that they have the facility?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, yes, there is some environmental remediation necessary. Part of the agreement is that Gruben Transport, the purchaser, will clean up or do this work within seven years. In the event that they don't, then the government has the right to clean it up and bill the charges to them.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Can the Minister indicate what he believes the cost of the cleanup would be?
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
What about requirements for additional capital investment? Are we requiring in the contract any additional capital investment to be undertaken by EGT?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, we don't require the upgrading of the facility, but if we had kept it in order to keep it up to code, it's estimated it would cost us $1.6 million.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Okay. So we don't require the capital upgrade, but when we met in March in the House, Mr. Lafferty was asking...Maybe it was Mr. Krutko asking the question -- yes, it was -- and Mr. Aumond answering on behalf of the department said that with respect to Tuk, the cleanup itself was estimated to be $500,000 or $600,000. Then he goes on to say it's worth noting that once that cleanup happens it's going to be incumbent upon whoever undertakes that cleanup to undertake a code upgrade to the facility, which is going to be a $1.5 to $2 million capital investment required on top of the cleanup. So the total cost will be to the GNWT or, in this case through EGT in Tuk, and you look at those two together, you are looking at a $2 million commitment minimum after taking possession of the tank farm. Are we saying we are not requiring that capital investment or it's just a suggestion on our part or a good idea? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, anybody who has property has to meet the applicable codes, so there is a code requirement probably for it, but as part of this agreement, we don't have any requirement. That doesn't excuse them from code requirements. Thank you.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Department Of Health And Social Services
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The Chair David Krutko
Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, ministry and corporate services, not previously authorized, $325,000. Mr. Bell.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Maybe we can have the Minister of Health and Social Services explain what the $325,000 is for. Is this forced growth that's been approved by the department, or maybe some explanation? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the $325,000 is to provide funding to the Dogrib Community Services Board for short-term working capital while the longer-term operational plan is being developed.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
So is it a bailout? It looks like a bailout. We are wondering what happened. Can the Minister explain?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, as was the case in other situations similar to this, the health board has run into an operational deficit. The government will consider some sort of plan to help the recovery from the deficit, but there's a requirement for them to do a long-term operational plan that will give us some comfort that we are not going to find ourselves back in the same situation again right away. So in the meantime, this $325,000 gives them some working capital to continue operations while they finish that long-term operational plan to get themselves out of difficulty.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
That's a better explanation, but I just think it's interesting to remind ourselves that the last time we had a bailout situation of the health board, it was questioned by Regular Members and they would insist that this would be the end of the bailouts and we were going to hold boards to the higher standard, ensure that they were able to account for their spending and that we were not going to be in the business of bailouts anymore and there was a new sheriff in town. Apparently we have not entirely passed the year-old bailouts. Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, I will refer that one to the Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the broad view, we've been successful with all of the authorities to date and the Dogrib Community Services Board has worked very diligently to try to keep their costs in place. I want to point out that this is a unique situation where about five years ago or so, the government made a decision to create a community services board that brought together education and health and social services. Part of the commitment was they were supposed to do a review after three years, which has yet to take place. What we've discovered as we investigate this and look at it in more and more detail is while the Dogrib Community Services Board has some program issues, there are some other fundamental structural issues that have to be looked at in the longer term, which is what Mr. Handley referenced. There are some fundamental cost issues that have been driving the Dogrib Community Services Board costs.
Two of the amendments are the ambulance services, since they don't have an airport and they have to have means to transport their people to Yellowknife should the need arise. The other one is, once again, as we investigated this further, there's been historical under-funding on the administration side, which has also caused them to run a deficit. We have a circumstance where we have on one side of the equation of Health and Social Services and Education, a deficit on one side of the operation and a surplus on the other.
That's part of the broader review that has to take place. How do we rationalize these concepts? In the meantime, the cost drivers of the ambulance services and administrative costs require an adjustment to the base and a longer-term issue will be dealt with once the review is done and we get a clear look as a government if we are going to continue on the concept of community service boards and what we have to do to bring them together effectively right from this Assembly down to the communities where the services are provided in terms of the ability to do their budgets, common chartered accounts, legislation that allows them to do those types of things.
So this is a unique circumstance and one that we've been working long and hard on with the Dogrib board trying to resolve. This is one of the steps along the way. Thank you.
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Leon Lafferty North Slave
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We seem to be seeing this amount every year. There is a trend now. We know it's under-funded. They are still playing catch-up because they are a new board. Why don't we start budgeting them for what they actually spend? We've seen that three years in a row, how much they are going over-budget. Somebody should have seen the light by now that they are under-budgeted and we should have made allowances for that in the business plans instead of seeing it in a supp. Why wasn't this done?
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, we don't really know they are under-funded or how much they might be under-funded until we see the long-term operational plan that they are putting together. Once we have that, we will know whether or not this is a structural problem that needs to be fixed with more money in their budget. But until then we don't know.
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Leon Lafferty North Slave
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess they will never know once the agreement is signed, it will be out of their hands. Will the department be looking at all these issues, so this doesn't happen to other authorities that we create like the Sahtu board or a new board in Hay River or wherever? Shouldn't we be looking in the future, so that we fund these boards the right amount of money? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
That's right. We do have to look at it with each board. We do expect boards to have operational plans and if they run into difficulties, we expect them to come forward with a plan that shows us either how they are going to get out of it or the circumstances that led to that situation. Each of these boards is unique, so I don't think one blanket plan can cover them all. So each of them are expected to do their own operational plan.
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Leon Lafferty North Slave
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't ask the Minister if he could do one blanket plan for everybody because we know the regions are different. The cost of providing services are different everywhere. Not everyone has low costs to go to the hospital for services like they do in the larger centres. So there is, of course, a big cost. We've identified that in 2000, ambulance services cost a lot for Rae-Edzo and the Dogrib Community Services Board. We knew that then. Why didn't we budget for that? Why three years later are we using the same excuse for supplementary funding? We should have dealt with that. Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, we are working with the board. We want them to do that long-term operational plan. Once that's done, it will identify what the cost-drivers are like the ambulance services and so on and adjustments can be made. In the interim, what we are doing is providing them with some capital to keep their operations going, but we expect that long-term operational plan will help them put it together.
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Leon Lafferty North Slave
I just want to give the Minister advice that maybe he should be looking at it and giving them the funding that they need, whatever the problem is. It makes the authorities look bad when they have to come back to the House all the time for extra funding. There are a lot of responsible boards out there and when they come back for extra funding, at the fault of the department because they under-fund them, it looks bad for them. So we shouldn't be looking at this every year. We have people in place that should be able to help them with this funding. We are accurate to almost a penny when we see information here, but still we can't see the picture that we are under-funding them. It's hard to believe. Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Yes, Mr. Chairman, and that's what the operational plan will help to clarify for us. Thank you.
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The Chair David Krutko
Health and Social Services, operations expenditure, ministry and corporate services, not previously authorized, $325,000.
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier today, I was asking the Minister of Health and Social Services questions around the setup with the regional health and social services authorities. In this area, there's a $499,000 amount that talks about salaries and benefits for new administrative and management positions, accounting software, public administrative contracts, leasehold improvements, staff recruitment, relocation and other information provided by the Minister tells us that on an annual basis commencing in 2004-05, the total projected administrative cost for the Sahtu will be $6.1 million and these will be offset by a savings in Inuvik of $5 million resulting in a total incremental cost of a $1.1 million annually. Savings will not be realized in Inuvik in the 2003-2004 fiscal year. The Sahtu authority does not become fully operational until April 1, 2004. Until that time, Inuvik still has the responsibility for the service delivery and management. I would like to know, Mr. Chairman, in light of this information, the $5 million savings they are talking about, is that from existing positions already distributed throughout the Sahtu region?
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It says that three of the 12 positions for the Sahtu are being transferred from Inuvik. Is that the total number of positions that are coming out of Inuvik and there won't be any further transfers in the fiscal year or after April 1, 2004?
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in keeping with the questions of the Member in the House earlier today, there are three admin positions and that's all that are going to be moved.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, in fact, after April 1, 2004, there will be no other transfer of positions out of the Inuvik Regional Health and Social Services Authority.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
I am assuming the Member means to the Sahtu, just to be very clear. If that's the case, then, no.
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Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, it identifies 12 positions and then in the further information here, it says savings will not be realized in Inuvik through this fiscal year, but as of April 1, 2004, it becomes fully operational. So I would like to know and have it confirmed that after it becomes fully operational, there will be no other positions transferred out of the Inuvik Regional Health and Social Services Authority.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Mr. Chairman, there are no plans for any movement of staff other than those three to the Sahtu or anywhere else outside the Inuvik region that I am aware of.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
The Minister is being slightly evasive. There are some concerns over here. There is a concern that he might be being evasive. I am sorry. Mr. Chairman, the Minister earlier today had indicated that he had been working on this for some 18 months, working on the creation of this new health board for 18 months. Could the Minister confirm that this plan has been in the works for a year-and-a-half or so?
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this process initially started back in January '02, I believe it is, when the action plan was put on the table. There was lots of preparatory work being done. We got approval-in-principle to do the work to be able to reach the point where we could go to Cabinet for a specific decision subsequent to that to go to FMB with the detail of all the work that's been done. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the committee appreciates a lot of the good work that's been done and that has come out of that action plan. My concern is about the budget process here and if we have known for 18 months or two years that this was coming down the pipe, why didn't we have discussions about this when we reviewed the business plans or the mains or some discussions that there were options that were as of yet unfunded and we were trying to get money together to do these? As it happens now, we are talking about half a million to establish this board and $1 million a year extra incremental funding ongoing. This is a discussion that never happened at committee, never happened in the regular budgetary process. It's not a surprise, we've known this was coming for some time. The Minister must have been working on the costing of this for some time. Why didn't this go through the normal process? Thank you.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we were working on the detail that carried on past the budgeting process. We had a committee in place from the region that had staff people and local representatives and staff people, as well as from the Inuvik region. The work wasn't complete in time. We didn't have the detail. We didn't go to Cabinet for the final approval until May. We didn't get FMB approval until August. We had to keep working on the numbers and the costing and the interim financing arrangements. Thank you.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Is some of the new money that we've received from the Government of Canada through the health accord being used to set this up? Is this new money from the federal government? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can certainly appreciate that people in the Sahtu region are interested in taking on their own responsibility for managing their own programs and services; that makes sense. But obviously there is a cost to this. We've just talked about what that cost might be. I am wondering if the Minister is concerned that we won't be able to afford this on an ongoing basis. Thank you.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the issue of a sustainable health and social services system is one of concern to us all. On the governance side, which is the issue in terms of setting up the board, what will be coming in early in the 15th Assembly will be the discussion of the role and future of boards and agencies and whether we should use an approach like the community services board, should we have any board at all, should there only be a couple? We've seen the discussion around the Stanton board, for example. So it's going to be a discussion that's going to carry on past the life of this Assembly. I don't have the final answer on the governance side.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's been some discussion earlier today that this may have come about because of self-government negotiations processing. Would the Minister agree that this new structure is being created in order to meet the requirements that we have in bringing forward self-government?
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would agree that that is definitely one of the factors.
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Brendan Bell Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the Premier -- it's reported in the media anyway -- wrote a letter to the Inuvik Drum on January 16th indicating that the new board was being considered because of self-government talks that created a regional authority through the Inuvialuit and Gwich'in. I hope this was being reported accurately. I am wondering then if the Minister would characterize this as an incremental cost of self-government.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that case will be made as the negotiations proceed, as the Members of the 13th Assembly will remember, the incremental cost with the federal government is very difficult. In the meantime, we are seeing a lot of pressure there. It was there because of self-government. We are proceeding to fund this with our own resources. It's also part of the political and program evolution that has taken place across the North in the last decade or so when you look at how regions have become more self-sufficient. Thank you.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Minister has indicated that the health accord funding isn't new. Can he remind us about the health accord funding, if it's ongoing, how much in total it is and where it has to be spent?
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Mr. Chairman, I didn't catch the first part of the question; I'm sorry.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to get a reminder of the health accord funding, what the program encompasses.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, the health accord money carries us through from 2003-2004 to 2007-2008, and for 2003-2004 it's $13 million and then going each year after that to 2007, it is $8.6, $11.3, $6.7 and $8.0.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could we get an idea of how much of the money that we are looking at in terms of health accord funding is then being allocated to operations expenditures? Since it's being sunsetted, I just want to know what challenge we are going to be facing here in three or four years as the money disappears.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, for the 2003-2004 year, $3.315 million is spent on O&M incrementally.
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Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the items on this page that particularly intrigues me is the $277,000 for an increase in the nurse practitioner program. I think this is the program that many of us are quite anxious to see expand in the Northwest Territories. I was wondering if we could get an idea of how many more nurses we can see with this $277,000 in this fiscal year and what are the plans in the subsequent years to increase their numbers in the Northwest Territories.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, the $277,000 allows for additional intakes to the 16-month program. We anticipate 24 nurses in each intake into the program over the 2003-2004 through to the 2006-2007 time period.
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Bill Braden Great Slave
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. An area that I don't particularly care to delve into in great detail because I am not a great fan of it is information technology. A lot of it, quite frankly, escapes me. But I do try to look for value for money, Mr. Chairman, and there are a couple of things in this area that I just really felt compelled to inquire into.
There is one item there, Mr. Chairman, under program delivery support, a bit of information is described for $25,000 to portable training and laptops and projectors for the vital statistics project. I would start to asking, Mr. Chairman, what is the vital statistics project? Thank you.
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Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, I will refer that question to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't have my earpiece in. The question on the $25,000 I caught, but I didn't catch the...
---Interjection
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
...information systems that are very old, very inefficient. We have significant problems doing the work that's required. The plan is to upgrade the systems; vital statistics is one. I can tell you, as Minister, there is a lot of concern about the ability to do the job with health care and birth registration and such. So the intent is to get the systems upgraded and have the equipment to in fact get out there and train people.
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The Chair David Krutko
At this time I would like to rise and report progress. I would like to thank the Minister and his witness. I will rise and report progress.