This is page numbers 611 - 644 of the Hansard for the 14th Assembly, 6th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was communities.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 44 and deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you. The honourable Member is seeking unanimous consent to waive Rule 44 and deal with his motion. Are there any nays? There are no nays, Mr. Krutko. You may deal with your motion.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS the harmonization strategy will unfairly treat single mothers living in social housing;

AND WHEREAS the strategy will result in family maintenance payments being treated as income and calculated in rent of the social housing unit;

AND WHEREAS it will result in a significant increase in rent and will lower the standard of living for families headed by single working parents;

AND WHEREAS those rent increases will force single working mothers to make choices between paying their rent and feeding their children;

AND WHEREAS the strategy will force single working mothers who have made productive choices back into income support so that they can support their children;

AND WHEREAS this strategy will further highlight the inequities between a single parent on income support and single parents who are only accessing social housing;

AND WHEREAS there are still far too many inequities and fundamental unfairness in the definition of calculating income for the purpose of income support and rent assessment and public housing;

AND WHEREAS further investigation of the impacts of the harmonization strategy on seniors, students and single parents is required;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that the harmonization strategy be changed to exclude single parents living in public housing.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. We have a motion on the floor and the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Krutko.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't think we have seriously realized the implication this harmonization will have on different segments of our population, especially single mothers. We have a lot of single mothers who, for reasons of their own, may have had break-ups with their relationships and have had children and have gone on their own. They've made a choice with regard to bettering themselves, getting off income support, going to school, getting a trade or being an accountant or working within an office administration position. They are on their own. They are raising their five children.

Mr. Speaker, I had a call Friday from a single mother who has five children. She's on her own. Presently, she pays $678 for public housing. She has a full-time job. Yet, because of the harmonization program, she met with the Housing Corporation and was told as of April 1st, her rent will go from $678 to $1,269, almost doubling what she's paying right now. Mr. Speaker, it's because she is receiving maintenance payments from her ex-spouse.

At the same time, it costs the individual to shop for her five children, she spends almost $800 every two weeks just to feed herself and her children. I don't think the intent of this program was to seriously affect those types of people. You can hear from the Minister, you can hear them saying there are no major impacts. That is a major impact. I, for one, have a real problem, Mr. Speaker, when we see the direct effect where single mothers find themselves on their own making a productive choice to go to school, get a trade, get themselves a full-time job but now are told you will now have to pay more for rent because of maintenance payments.

We talk about really understanding what this harmonization would do to individual people in our different sectors, our seniors, students, single mothers, single fathers. I don't think we've really thought this through. I have a real problem when I get calls from my constituents, especially single mothers, telling them their rent will double as of April 1st.

We talked about doing justice of the people of the North, make positive choices, get off income support, go to school, get a trade, get into the workforce and when they do, what do we do? We hit them in the head with a hammer. We have to start realizing that this harmonization is a lot more than just slapping two departments together. It might be easy for the Minister of Health and Social Services and the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to sit back and say it's going to do great. Sixty or 70 percent of the people won't be affected. The 60 or 70 percent of the people you are talking about are on income support. What about the people who have gotten themselves off of income support, made that positive choice and now they are saying I have made it and I am going to be able to raise my children knowing the income I have. Now they are being told sorry, your rent has just doubled as of April 1st.

I think, as a government, we aren't being fair. I think the implication of this decision is going to go a lot further than single mothers and our seniors and our students. This is a political gamble and a government that's on its last legs before an election is committing political suicide. As a government, on that side of the House, who stood up and voted down the bill a couple of days ago, I hope they take the moral choice here and let the people decide on this side of the House which way we should go. We've given you some direction and maybe you should follow it for once instead of asking questions.

So I would like to ask my colleagues on this side of the House who support this type of inequity with regard to harmonization on our single parents who right now aren't on income support. They are in public housing paying their way. They have full employment. They are taking care of their children. What is this going to do? Put them back into the cycle of saying I am better off going on income support. Why should she struggle to feed five children knowing this will have a direct implication on the cost of living to herself, her children and the community that she's in? I don't think we have calculated what it costs to maintain a home with five children or what it costs to maintain a home with ten children.

So I would like to ask my colleagues to support me on this one, knowing that this is injustice at its best. So at the appropriate time, Mr. Speaker, I will ask for a recorded vote to ensure that we do see where people stand on this one. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. To the motion, the honourable Member for the Deh Cho, Mr. McLeod.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Deh Cho

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I'm sure the Members of this House are aware that this is an issue that causes great concern to myself and all the people in my riding. A lot of people have said that rents are going to go down. What about the people that will benefit from this program?

Well, I haven't been able to point a finger to anybody in my riding that is going to see their rent go down more than $20.00. In fact, everybody is going to see an increase. This whole program is not only about income support and housing, it is about anybody and everybody in public housing. Mr. Krutko raises a good point, that it is going to cause undue hardship to the single parents in the communities because, from now on, we will see all income rolled into the assessment. Child support payments, that are being received by some of the mothers, including some of the fathers, will now be calculated. Child maintenance payments, child benefits, something that we are trying to improve the quality of life, we are trying to eliminate poverty. We are giving it with one hand and now we are going to take it back with the other. It really doesn't make any sense.

The programs are not consistent. They are running head on into each other and that affects all the single parents in the communities. The income tax payments are now going to be clawed back, they are going to be forced to pay a portion on them. That is going to draw a huge spike in income. So we are going to have to be chasing all tenants in social housing on a monthly basis. I can't believe that this government can sit there and say it's not going to cost us any more money because we right now have calculated everything under the sun, even honoraria, that some of the parents and some of the people that live in housing are collecting will be taxed, and clawed back. Babysitting money will be clawed back. That is just unrealistic and it goes too far. Where is the line drawn?

I think this whole initiative has been derailed; the Cabinet is just refusing to look at reality. They don't want to be seen as backing down. They don't want to be seen as making a decision that will make them look like they made a wrong uninformed move at the outset. We have to really take a good look at this. We don't know what the effects are going to be. We are, in a sense, going to be forcing everybody, especially the single parents, onto income support. We won't have any alternatives in our communities. We won't have all the different programs that the larger centers have; we don't have that benefit. We only have social housing. So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to encourage my colleagues to support this initiative and if anybody needs assistance, it is the single parents and I'm going to be supporting this motion. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion, the honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise in favour of this motion as a seconder of this motion. Mr. Speaker in three weeks, unless something is done to rethink this or defer this or change this in a drastic way, this will become a new rule for the government and I realized that when this was introduced and the details of it, that it will benefit some people. It will benefit two-thirds or more of the people out there who are under this program, but I think we cannot ignore the situations that the rest of the people will face with this new rule.

Mr. Speaker, I am aware that whenever we do change the rules there are some who fall between the gaps but I think that I cannot ignore the fact that a difference of $500 to $1,000 is a big jump for those who cannot afford it. When I was briefed about this policy, I was assured that the gap, the biggest increase would be no more than $200 and that those increases will be phased in and now the information that I'm getting is that might not be the case. I have to be concerned about that, Mr. Speaker.

As I sit here and listen to the debates going back and forth, two things come to mind. One is that I have never seen a policy with this much discord, this close to implementation. I think that that has to give us something to reflect upon. You know, we are a consensus government and perhaps if we had a different sort of government, government as a majority, it could pursue policies that they believe are right and that are in line with their political philosophy or the political platform that they ran on. That is not the kind of government we have here. The rule that we follow is that there has to be some general consensus that this is the right thing to do and I don't see that happening, Mr. Speaker. I have to be concerned about it.

The other thing is something about this really reminds me of the federal gun law legislation. I think somebody, you know, sitting in Toronto decided guns are a bad thing, and we've got to get them registered, and that should not be a problem. Well I don't think that they ever knew what a big part of life guns are to some people in Canada. It's only when they started going out and counting them, that they realized they were way behind in terms of how to implement it, having the people to do it, what people use it for and we know the sorry story of that.

Mr. Speaker, I think this may put into question the whole notion of what people think of as an income, how people use social housing in our communities. I'm starting to get phone calls from people in the communities to tell me that this has to be relooked at. People in the communities are saying what can we do to change the government's mind. I stated on Friday that I might be the only riding without social housing, but I cannot ignore it when I get calls from people who are genuinely concerned about what this means. If this is a really good policy, the government should be able to convince the Members, and Members should be able to go out there and be able to explain the pros and cons of this and be able to explain the net benefit of this. I don't see that, and that is a concern to me.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned on Friday, that I don't have any direct communication from my constituents but I have been privy to communication from single mothers in the city who are going to see their rent go up by hundreds of dollars in a month. I don't need to state again, that every $50 or $100 in the pocket of single mother with four kids, who has to budget every cent, that's a big thing. I simply want to get the Ministers and the Cabinet to reconsider that and work out what is the impact of this, how will it be implemented, what it means for one category of single mothers, and others who are in income support and who's not, ones who are in social housing and who's not.

We have already seen different categories of senior citizens, those who move in or who has been there forever, who are there already. They are not going to be impacted because they are going to be grandfathered. Those who move in April 1st will be treated differently. Maybe this was a bigger thing than the government thought it was, maybe it is not as simple as the government thought it was. I am prepared to be convinced of that, Mr. Speaker, but I know that having been in the shoes and having argued on my point, it is a very frustrating thing when you can't get your questions answered. So, for that and all the reasons that I've stated, I am in favour of this motion and I am pleased to be seconding it again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion, honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Steven Nitah Tu Nedhe

Mahsi Cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I too am standing up in support of this motion. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I don't particularly agree that we should plug a little bit here and there but April 1st is coming along right around the corner. The government is not budging on this harmonization. Mr. Speaker, you know the Special Committee on the Review of the Official Languages Act, just submitted a report to this House. It is a good report. That is something I wanted to spend my time talking about this week and last week, but this harmonization has taken all my time and energy. I wanted to speak about recreation and sports activities for youths and elders in our communities, but harmonization has taken all my time and energy.

Mr. Speaker, in this House, when you were absent, our colleague, Mr. Krutko had to take your place. That left three of us Members on this side of the House to represent 28 communities and their interests. When they put government officials forward, they cannot represent the interests of their constituents, so they come to us. That makes it very difficult for those of us who represent the smaller communities in this House. The votes in this House do not represent the communities. They represent the population, but they do not represent the diversity of the Northwest Territories, the diversity of the communities and the challenges that every community faces. Every one of them are different; some greater than others. But harmonization is taking that away from us.

Communities tell us, we need your help to make life a little easier for us, but this is the help the government is responding with. Elders are saying we need to participate in our communities so we can help pass along our traditions and languages, et cetera, but this obviously doesn't make it easier.

Mr. Speaker, I've been asking the government, through Committee of the Whole, to tell me where their employees are. Harmonization, income support and public housing are something that's an option in the communities. Employment sometimes is not an option. People are being forced off of income support because of the vigorous delivery mechanisms and design in the system. They fall off the face of the earth, they are no longer unemployed because they don't bother answering that question. They are no longer looking for government assistance because they're tired of government over handling this. When they have to explain their bingo incomes, their little carving incomes, all of the other incomes, that forces them away from government. They end up in the regional centres, capital cities, end up on the streets. Is that what we're telling our citizens?

I told the House, Mr. Speaker, that this affects the Constitution and the political representation of this House, as well. When these kinds of policies force people away from their communities because we don't provide them with other options, they move here. That population base has an impact on how we represent in this House. To me, that's the biggest issue, the scariest issue. If our policies are going to force people into the regional centres and into the capital, then our communities are going to disappear. That diversity that we know as the Northwest Territories will disappear. We'll have maybe six communities, but no representation in that area. It will likely be a lot easier for government and its bureaucracies then. The question I ask the government is if they don't want to be in public housing, if they don't want to provide services and programs to those who are needy, then why are they in them in the first place? Why can't they just give the money to the communities and let them deliver it so they don't have to feel the headaches from it?

Mr. Speaker, single parents will feel this the most. But we don't look at them for phasing in projects or programs. No, you make this much, you're going to pay now. If you can't afford to pay, we have income support that you can fall onto.

I'd like to see this harmonization die. I'd like to see the government pick up the tools again and start building from scratch. Maybe then, knowing our feelings, knowing the situation in the communities, they'll do a better job. So if this is going to help weaken harmonization, then I support this. As I said, single parents will feel the most pinch, but there are other people out there. One of the areas is the confidentiality of people; people's human rights to privacy we don't seem to recognize or respect. When we ask them to sign a letter of waiver so that other agencies of government can dig into their private lives, are we asking hey, you're down, sign this thing. If you don't sign it, we're not going to help you. That's harmonization and I can't support that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Mahsi, Mr. Nitah. To the motion. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Handley.

Joe Handley

Joe Handley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Motion 10-14(6) be referred to Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you, Mr. Handley. We have a motion and it appears to be in order. Do you have a copy of the motion for the Members to be circulated? Just a minute; we're hearing points of order being asked. Let's keep cool here. We have a motion that has been put on the floor. The House has not seen the motion, and I think this would be an appropriate time to take a short break until we get a hard copy of it. The House will rise and return in a few moments.

---SHORT RECESS

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

The House will come back to order. When the House took a short break, an amendment to Motion 10 had been made. For the record, I'd ask the Minister to re-read the motion into the record. All Members can have a copy of it. Mr. Minister.

Joe Handley

Joe Handley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Motion 10-14(6) be referred to Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you, Mr. Handley. We have a motion and the motion is in order. The motion is not debatable. Is the House ready for the question? All those in favour of the motion? Thank you. All those opposed? Thank you. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Motion 10-14(6) is now referred to Committee of the Whole. Item 16, motions. We have a point of privilege. What is your point of privilege, Mr. Krutko? Point of Privilege

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Mr. Speaker, the whole idea of having people come forward and making our issues heard is through this House. It's through the floor of this House that we are enabled to raise issues, give direction to this government so that they can deal with some of the policies and regulations that aren't working in this government. I, as a Member, have the responsibility to be the voice of the people that have voted for us.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

I've allowed you a little bit of leeway there, but what is your point of privilege? What is the point of privilege, Mr. Krutko?

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Mr. Speaker, in regard to a motion that's put forth on the floor giving the government direction, the direction of dealing with it on the floor of this House through this forum and dealing with it in Committee of the Whole does not have the same weight. A motion that should have been dealt with on the floor should have been dealt with on the floor. The motion that we dealt with last week, the government basically said that they had to stand up because the direction that was being given was a change of policy. Now we have a policy here basically where it's being quashed by this government...

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Mr. Krutko, I need you to be more specific than that as to what your point of privilege is. Do you realize what privilege means? What is your point of privilege?

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Mr. Speaker, it's my privilege as a Member of this House to ensure that my constituents' concerns and issues are raised in this House, not through Committee of the Whole. The only avenue we have to us is through motions, and for this government to put forth a motion to defer basically shows us how weak this government really is, and basically they're a lame duck government. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Tony Whitford

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. I needn't take this under advisement any further. The point of privilege that the Member raises is not, in fact, there. The House has followed the rules, and the rights of the Member have not in any way been disenfranchised. There is no point of privilege, Mr. Krutko.

Item 16, motions. Item 17, first reading of bills. The Chair will just go back to item 16, motions. The Chair will call again for motions. Motion 8-14(6) is on the orders paper and will be called again tomorrow as the mover is not here to continue. Item 17, first reading of bills. Item 18, second reading of bills. The honourable Member for Thebacha.

Bill 12: Nursing Profession Act, Carried
Item 18: Second Reading Of Bills

Page 631

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nunakput, that Bill 12, Nursing Profession Act, be read for the second time. Mr. Speaker, this bill provides for the continuation of the Northwest Territories Registered Nurses' Association, the professional association for nurses as a registered nursing association of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The bill also provides for the regulation of the profession by the association and requires, with some exceptions, that persons engaged in the practice of nursing be registered with the association. The bill consequentially amends a number of acts. Some of the key provisions of the bill are concerns of the following matters:

  • • describing the scope of the practice of registered nurses and nurse practitioners;
  • • setting out the powers of the association to manage its affairs, including the powers to make bylaws, to elect and appoint members to its governing body, and to register members and issue certificates;
  • • authorizing the association to establish or adopt the mandatory competence program for its members;
  • • setting out the duty of the association to review the conduct of its members;
  • • providing for the possible termination of the functions of the association with respect to the nurses in Nunavut;
  • • setting out rules respecting various aspects of the practice of the profession, including the use of the title Registered Nurse and Nurse Practitioner;
  • • providing for the enforcement of the practice restrictions set out in the act;
  • • providing for certain transitional issues, including the continuation of membership in the association.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.