Ms. Lee's Reply

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This being the last day that Members have a chance to address the budget, I just wanted to convey a couple of points about the budget. Mr. Speaker, in many ways our discussions about the budget in the House have been pre-empted by a lot of things that have been happening outside of the House, one thing being the federal budget that we were anticipating, as well as the mobilization of the forces to get better health funding on behalf of the territories.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make it very clear that there should be a lot of concerns about the fact that in this budget, we've had to spend, spend, spend, as the saying goes. We had to get into a deficit position and increase our deficit level in order that we meet our spending needs. I don't think there should be any question out there that this is our preference or a way that we want to do it. It appears that we have stopped talking about the concerns about the deficit lately. We have, in the North, accepted the premise that this might be the only way to go or this is the only option and we can't do it any other way. I think that people here are more aware than anyone else that I have been speaking for extra funding for health care, especially with respect to the shortage of staff at Stanton and I have pushed really hard for the Minister to come up with extra funding. I have congratulated the Minister for putting $8.2 million extra. If it's a choice between going into deficit or not following up on our commitment to spend that money on Stanton, I find that I have no other real options than to allow the government to get into deficit spending.

Mr. Speaker, I think that our job doesn't end there. I don't think it's proper, responsible or prudent on the part of us as legislators to rely on deficit spending to manage our finances. I think that most people would agree that any government, and that includes us, can find a way to do better with the money that we have and I don't believe that we can say with confidence that we have done everything we can in that area.

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, I usually have what's called "coffee is on me" at Tim Horton's prior to each session and I find that the sessions at Tim Horton's are a very good way to get a pulse of the people and what people are saying. There were a lot of budget items that came out in my discussions with the people there. It was a good three hours spent there and I just want to go over some of the things.

The extra funding for the hospital has satisfied many people. I think people do agree that until the extra money came in, there was not a lot you can do. You have to have so many dollars to hire the people. But now that we have the money, the message that I am hearing from the people is that we have to find a way to better manage the money that we have. Another thing the people have brought up, and this is something I have talked about in the House, is there is an impression in this House or out there that Yellowknife has everything that it needs and it doesn't need anything and we get an unequal proportion of capital funding. That is absolutely not true, Mr. Speaker, according to the people who come and talk to me at Tim Horton's.

For example, Mr. Speaker, it has been brought to my attention that the Aurora College in Yellowknife is one where probably more students go through than any other campus in the Territories. I don't know the stats, but some even mentioned that we probably get 15 percent of the Aurora College budget, but serve about 85 percent of the student population. This might not be a correct figure, but the impression is that the Yellowknife campus for Aurora College is being asked to do a lot more than the money that it's getting. Another thing that people are telling me is that as a capital city and given that the focus of the territorial government is on training people and there are a lot of programs being provided in Yellowknife, it's time very soon to be looking at having a proper campus for Aurora College. I believe the more that I meet in political life, having a proper institution for academic and critical thinking of what's going on in the Territories historically, politically and culturally is important, and would like to see the day that we have a university-level institution in the Territories. I understand and accept the fact that we should have three strong campuses or more in the Territories and we do have Inuvik campus, Fort Smith campus and Yellowknife campus, but we are the only real campus without a proper place to call a campus because right now we have part of rented space in a building. So I would like to see in the very near future a budget for Aurora campus.

Another thing people have brought to me that's going on in Yellowknife that needs financial attention is the industrial role that's going to be needed in Yellowknife. I live in my riding of Range Lake and I commute daily from that area behind Wal-Mart to the Legislative Assembly. Perhaps it's because of the fact that it is the winter season and there is a lot of trucking going on to the industrial sites around the city, but I certainly see dozens and dozens of industrial trucks moving on the Old Airport Road. I remember a time, Mr. Speaker, when people hardly ever drove that area, but now it's become a main traffic area for commuters everyday. At the same time, we have industrial trucks travelling with us, especially during the busy times. I think that it's becoming more and more clear that we have to have an industrial road that is going through Kam Lake and not going through town. The wide load trucks or heavy industrial trucks making turns in and out of Old Airport Road between Wal-Mart and the airport and then coming to town is becoming more and more problematic and it's becoming an issue that we really need to pay attention to. I read in the paper that city council has passed a motion to set up a committee to look into that more seriously and I have no question in my mind that the city will not have the financial resources to establish that area until they get some help from the territorial government. Those are the kinds of things we need to look at.

Mr. Speaker, another thing I really need to bring attention to is the class sizes in our schools. This is an issue that I have brought up many a time and I do believe that in the current budget we are working under the laws that we passed at the beginning of the Assembly, which reduced the pupil/teacher ratio from 18.5 to, by the end of this year, we will be going into 16.5 or somewhere near there. The reality of the situation is that this isn't resulting in a class size as small as we were hoping to see with this new formula. I do appreciate that with the deficit situation that we have, the Minister has made it clear in the response to the petition signed by my Range Lake constituents, that he's not able or prepared to look at reducing the class size at the moment. I have to really reiterate once again it remains a big issue for the constituents in my riding.

It's really hard to understand when they are being told by the government that more money is being put into education and that we are funding better than we have ever in the last three years and yet we see still a very crowded class size in that school. One of the problems the Range Lake School has is the fact that each class size physically is not built in the same way as the old schools. In old school buildings there just seems to be more space than the newer schools that are being built where to meet the safety standards or the way things are designed, the school classrooms in Range Lake are physically smaller than some of the old buildings, yet they are being asked to put a lot more students there than is physically possible or is educationally desirable. It's an issue that the parents and teachers at Range Lake want me to keep pursuing and is something I will be addressing with the Minister as we go through the Education budget, Mr. Speaker.

Another thing that was brought to my attention is the fact that something is not going right in our education system... I have this conversation all the time with parents of our community and teachers. We are spending more money on schools, but the one area that isn't being addressed very well is the need for special needs students. We have increased the funding for special needs, but I think that most parents would agree that that's not meeting the needs of special needs students. I think we cannot reduce the classroom sizes because we don't have enough money. Dealing with special needs students in classes will make it easier for the teachers to teach in class. So I am amazed at knowing how many students we have with special needs in our school systems that we don't have a comprehensive program that would train special needs assistants to make sure we have enough of them going around in our schools in Yellowknife and I am sure there are needs in all of the Territories.

Also, there's another thing my constituents brought up. We have the need to reduce the student population in the school. If that's not possible, we have to increase the funding to get more money for special needs students. One of the parents brought to my attention that their kids are graduating at grade 11 or 12 level, but from what they know from talking to these students they don't think they should be pushed through if they are not able to meet the standards of the school and there is not enough proper testing of the level that these students are at. I don't want this to sound like a criticism of our education system at large. I am a product of our education system. I know we do a lot of good work in many corners of our education system. But I hear more often than I would like to about situations where students are having much difficulty, whether it's because English is their second language, and I am not talking about only those who are coming from outside of the country. Students who are from the North whose first language may not be English or there might be children coming from the communities, they come in and they are not obtaining the educational level that their grades are saying that they are. So, for example, somebody who is in Grade 10 may be reading at a Grade 6 level or 7 level or even lower. I know of a case where the parents had to push really hard to get a test for this student and then found that her child was reading at a lot lower level. I don't think we are doing any favours to those students if we are not providing them with the level of education and support that they need. Pushing them through when they are not ready to take on the next task is not the way to meet the needs of our students. So I would like to see more in the Education budget to address the needs of those students who seem to be falling through the cracks.

Another thing of the education system that I want to talk about is something we need to address in future budgets and I don't know if this is being discussed or included in this budget, and I will be pursuing that with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, is we don't seem to be prepared to deal with those students with disabilities that we put in the inclusionary education system. Mr. Speaker, the policy of this government is to have our students with various levels and kinds and categories of disabilities go through our school system and they do manage to get through from grades 1 to 12, but it seems like we just let them loose and let them fend for themselves when they get beyond grade 12. Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister is well aware of cases I have been working with where students with disabilities graduate from high school, they manage to get accepted to other programs after they finish high school, but our Student Financial Assistance Program doesn't cater to those students after they get out of high school. So we just leave them to fend for themselves and most of them will end up having to go and get support from income support or something else. That's not the way to do it, Mr. Speaker. I think if we have made it as a policy to have an inclusionary policy in the Territories and put them through school, then we have to be prepared to assist them as they pursue their post-secondary education or education beyond high school.

I was reading a government document on Maximizing Northern Employment. There was a clause in there about there being special programs for those with disabilities. What that told me is that I think Maximizing Northern Employment is an excellent one. It's one I have had a lot of positive feedback on, but once again we are probably falling short in addressing the needs of students who may finish programs they were able to get through, but they will not be graduating from a proper diploma program. There seems to be a gap in how we address those students that may have had a special program that they graduated from. It might be a certificate program or it might be a life skills course, but not what is conventionally known as university or a diploma program and when they do return, we are not able to provide them with internships or other transitional programs that this government has created. That is working really well for the mainstream students, but there isn't one that is designed for the students with disabilities or students who are not in the mainstream.

It looks like I have a minute left and I have only covered education. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to state that there should not be any impression out there that we are happy spending our way into a deficit. I think maybe the Minister of Finance has done such an excellent job convincing everybody this is the only way to go and we need every cent of the money that we have and we are spending it at the most optimum level and the only way we can do everything we need to is get into deficit spending. I, for one, would like to see a situation where we are not increasing the deficit, where we can manage our own. We've gotten extra money now from a very united effort on the part of everybody, Premiers, our Members of Parliament or our senior officials, media attention. I think we have gotten a response from outside. I think though we have a job to do here in doing our part and doing less of blaming other people for our financial situation. My time is up. I will end it there and I look forward to pursuing more discussions further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Item 10, replies to Budget Address. Mr. Delorey.

Mr. Delorey's Reply

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't intend to take up 20 minutes, but I feel obligated to make a few comments on the Budget Address. I can think back, Mr. Speaker, better than three years ago when I first came into this Assembly and when we sat down as a group to look at our fiscal situation and where we were, and the importance that we put on our fiscal situation at the time and where we were going and how we could not afford to go deeper into deficit and what would happen if we just continued to spend. I guess, Mr. Speaker, to some extent -- and it's been said before -- that we probably have changed our views on that. I agree with Cabinet that we have to continue to spend and there are many things that we have to do to prepare our people to meet the challenges that are coming forward in the NWT. I, like everybody else, am very hopeful that things will turn out at least in some cases, the way we envisioned them and that the territory will gain a lot of benefits from the resources that we have. I am certainly not comfortable yet that we have reached the point where we have the arrangements with Ottawa that will give us those resources. However, we have to continue to work towards that area. I am sure if we do, we will gain some cooperation with Ottawa to get more of the resources that we so rightfully need and deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I was a little disappointed when the Budget Address came down. As a matter of fact, I was quite disappointed because some of the areas that I am very close to from the part of the Territories where I live and represent, represent some of the renewable resources that we have. A lot of my constituents deal in the fishing industry and I can tell you right now, Mr. Speaker, that the fishing industry is not one that's going to make the NWT a stand-alone territory, but we do have a lot of residents that depend on the fishing industry as a livelihood. We have mentioned many times that the fishing industry is a traditional industry in the Territories and we don't want to see it die. But to not even have it mentioned in the Budget Address, Mr. Speaker, gives me cause for concern.

Agriculture is another area in the South Slave region and we have some people working very diligently trying to promote, trying to make a living. Again, Mr. Speaker, it's not an industry that I see putting the Northwest Territories on the map as a stand-alone territory, but is that a reason to totally ignore it? I don't think so, Mr. Speaker. We can at least give the people who are working in those industries enough recognition to mention them when we make public comments about where our government is going, what we see as important in the NWT, what we want to see our territory become.

I guess if all we are going to depend on is the multi-million dollar corporations to come in here and take our natural resources that we have, non-renewable resources, take what we can from them and then when they are all gone, hopefully we've made enough money to sustain us forever. I think, Mr. Speaker, if we are going to be a profitable territory and one that is going to live on with wealth, we are going to have to develop some of our renewable resources as well. We do have renewable resources. For me, I don't think we are paying enough attention to them, we are not letting them develop. I see people trying to make a go of our renewable resources, make a living, create an industry, create employment for other people in the Territories that are going out of business because our government does not want to do anything with our renewable resources. I know that some of the things that are stopping that are maybe out of our control, but I think we could be doing more to get some cooperation from everybody in the Territories to get some of these industries going.

Mr. Speaker, I look at the community that I come from and I go to other communities around the North and I don't see anywhere in the North that has more activity on the industrial side of things and what a place, when I think about it, to have a trade school; Hay River. Promote the trades and use the trades people who are in town and get a good trades industry going to supply industry in the North with good qualified trades people. There is nothing happening in Hay River for the trades. For some reason, Hay River is not a good place to set up a trade school. I think it's a fantastic place to set up a trade school. I don't know what it would take to get this government interested in doing something like that in that area to set up a trade school in Hay River, but from my perspective and when I look around and talk to businesses in Hay River, everybody thinks it would be a great place for a trades school. I think we could do a lot more promoting the trades and using what we have, the businesses we have established in the Northwest Territories, to promote that.

I am certainly hopeful that the government will come around to do more trades. Every time we talk about trying to promote people in certain areas, we spend so much money setting up programs, hiring more consultants and doing studies, we would have enough money to build a school and get a project going. I think we have the partners out there who are quite willing to work with the government and put resources into it that would help promote that. I think we need it in the Northwest Territories.

We talk about education. Again, we will never do enough for education, I think. We need our people educated, but sometimes we need to put the resources down to where they belong, to the students. I hear it all across the Territories. Every time we put more money into education, it's another position somewhere. Very little of it gets back to the students. I think we can do a lot more in that area. I would like to encourage the department and Cabinet to make sure the programs and extra dollars we are putting out there get to where they are going to produce something, at the grassroots.

I worry about our health care situation. We continually put more money into health care, but we have a situation developing in the Territories trying to retain professionals in the health care field. I don't know where it's going to go or how long we are going to be able to keep up with the increases, not only in the services but in the professions, the doctors. How much can we pay our doctors and still have an effective health care system? I think it's going to be a question that is going to continue to plague us because right now, I don't know if we can keep up with the forced growth issues in health. The $60 million that we got from the federal government for a separate fund is fantastic news, but I don't think it's going to get us out of the woods or anything close to that. By the time we split it up and put it out there, we are going to have to be very diligent in how we spend that money to get the best bang for the dollar. I am hoping we can continue to work with Ottawa to put more emphasis on that and get more dollars.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to bring out a couple of points in there, especially the ones that deal with our renewable resources. I don't think our government is doing enough in that area and I would like to encourage the government to do more in our non-renewable resource sector. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. Item 10, replies to Budget Address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 14, tabling of documents. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motions for first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 3, Bill 6, Bill 7, Bill 8, Committee Report 3-14(6), Committee Report 4-14(6), Committee Report 5-14(6), with Mr. Delorey in the chair.

I call the committee to order. We have a number of issues to consider in Committee of the Whole: Bill 3, committee reports 3-14(6), 4-14(6) and 5-14(6) and the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to recommend that the committee continue consideration of Bill 3 and committee reports 3-14(5), 4-14(6) and 5-14(6) concurrently and continue on, first of all, with the Department of MACA.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. The Chair will call a short break and come back and review the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.

---SHORT RECESS

I will call the Committee of the Whole to order. Mr. Minister, would you like to bring in any witnesses? Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I would.

Does the committee agree?

Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort the witnesses in? Mr. Steen, please introduce your witnesses, for the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on my right is Ms. Debbie DeLancey, the deputy minister of MACA; and, on my left is Sheila Bassi-Kellett, director of corporate affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. We are reviewing the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. General comments. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't really have any general comments, but I do have a question. I know the department has been working for some time on amendments to the municipal statutes. I was wondering if we could get an update on whether or not we are going to see the Municipal Statutes Amendment Act in the life of this Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we had the statutes amendment act scheduled for this session. However, we are told we may not be able to get the French translation done in time, so we are planning for it to be tabled for now and then we will have first and second reading in June.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that sort of timetable, is the Minister confident that there will be enough time between the June session and the tentative schedule for the committees to do their work? Over the summer, we have a lot of assemblies, it's difficult to get the public hearings in over that period of time. I understand this is a fairly extensive bill. Is it likely that we are going to have the time to get the work done before the fall session when it comes to the consultation? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am certainly hoping there is time for the committee to do their work. We will be allowing for some consultation process by tabling the bill in the House during this sitting, so that communities or the general public could have an opportunity to review what we have as a draft bill.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. General comments. Mr. Nitah.