: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Minister drew in Royal Alex, because she is very adamant that this patient went to the Royal Alex. But I actually contacted the hospital; I contacted Capital Health, and she is not at Royal Alex. As a matter of fact, she’s at the U of A. So I seem to be a little…. And there’s no problem with the Royal Alex, but obviously the detail isn’t there.

The Minister said in her remarks yesterday that she spent all day trying to do her best to get this patient into a room. There is a reference to contacting or finding information about Calgary and Grande Prairie. Well, Mr. Speaker, I called these agencies. I called the Queen Elizabeth, too, in Grande Prairie, and they said clearly that there is no way they could see 34 hours as a reasonable amount of time.

I would like the Minister to show me what correspondence and efforts were made to reasonably demonstrate that there was a push from our government to make sure someone did not have to wait in the emergency room 19 hours for an enclosure and 15 more hours for a bed.

Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to provide the information as to the work the staff did, the calls the nurses made to talk to the patient’s husband in Yellowknife as well as Northern Health Services Network staff this government has hired in Edmonton to help our northern residents who are sent there. I don’t have that information handy, but I would be happy to provide him information on the steps we took to assist with this situation.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are about capital projects in the Northwest Territories.

I believe that when we are considering the priority placed on capital projects, the highest priority is the protection of people. To that end, I have been trying to get tabled in this House, or given to me or given to the education authority in Hay River, the air quality reports that were done at Diamond Jenness after it was discovered that asbestos was in there.

I have been told that perhaps I am asking for the wrong report. Maybe it’s not air quality I should be looking for; it should be the report on the content of asbestos in the air. Now PWS got the reports back. The air was sent out; it came back with reports. Why can I not get a copy of them?

We are talking about spending some $20 million on an office building in Inuvik to consolidate government employees. I would like to know if

where they are located poses any risk to their health. In Diamond Jenness we have windows that don’t open, inadequate heat in the winter and inadequate cooling in the summer. We have an air quality issue there.

I would like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services again: are there any reports that would indicate the presence of asbestos in the air in the high school in Hay River?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, after the Member’s comments yesterday in the House, we did a follow-up. We are and we will be providing the reports to the Member if not tomorrow, then early next week. The reports indicate that there is no asbestos in the air. The air quality reports all report that the air is safe.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that. I really do look forward to getting it and actually visually inspecting those reports myself, because, you know, rumours do abound. I have heard that the reports had come back indicating even in a very small quantity, parts per million in the air

—

I’m not sure how it is measured

— that there was asbestos in there. So I look very much forward to seeing those — not that I don’t believe the Minister, but I would like to see it with my own eyes.

Back to the issue, though, of the quality of the environment in which the students are educated in Hay River in the Diamond Jenness Secondary School. The school is old. We are told that some of the rationale for building this building in Inuvik is because the office where the government employees are is old. Well, our school is old. What is the priority here?

Mr. Speaker, in the case of the Diamond Jenness there has been a review done on the status and condition of the facility that recognized that there’s a need for a mid-life retrofit. We have identified a budget for it and have provided the recommendations to go ahead with the retrofit.

However, the school requires more than just a retrofit, which would bring it back to the same standards as when it initially was built. There is a desire from the community, from the education system to provide some upgrades in terms of programs; therefore, the functional review is being done by Department of Education. When that comes back, it will be put back in the capital list.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has referred to the replacement of the schools in Inuvik, and I do not dispute that schools

in Inuvik need to be replaced. You know, the Premier said they have been on the books since he was elected 13 years ago. Well, the problems in Diamond Jenness have been around as long as I have been here as well.

I would like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services: what is the priority of this government — the comfort of government employees or an environment that is good for the educating of our children?

Mr. Speaker, comfort is important for our employees, for our students. Safety is the bigger issue. In the case of the school in Inuvik we had a recommendation and assessments that the school should be replaced. In the case of our employees in Inuvik we have them housed in old warehouse buildings that were loaned by the federal government and converted to offices. There is an issue there, and also the Perry Building has been declared unsafe, unsuitable for use.

In the case of Diamond Jenness it needs to be retrofitted and it needs to be upgraded, and it also needs to be enhanced with a program review and new programs. We need to take all those steps, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. For the benefit of those people in Hay River who are maybe following and are interested, what did the visit of the Minister and designating the Diamond Jenness renovation as a red flag project mean? And from where we thought it was going to show up in the capital plans, where is it now? Why the difference in the timing?

Mr. Speaker, at the time of the community visit and the visit with the school and talking with the people there, including the principal and the MLAs, we had indicated that the school had been reviewed for a condition rating and that it was earmarked by Public Works as needing a mid-life retrofit. The price tag around that was, I think, $21 million. What needed to be done was a functional review, a program review by the Department of Education.

Since the time those discussions took place, the Department of Education has embarked upon doing that, and I think those discussions are underway with the education people in the town of Hay River.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement earlier today with the Minister of Housing.

The fuel spills that are occurring in N’dilo and Dettah as a result of the aging fuel tanks are costing us a lot — two incidents, 160,000-some dollars, over $80,000 per incident — and it’s probably a couple of thousand dollars to replace the tanks.

Under the old SDPMI program, the Yellowknives Dene could replace the tanks and be reimbursed by the Housing Corporation, but under the CARE program it has to be approved ahead of time. This has proved onerous. This has been brought up with the Housing Corp for the last eight months. Again, it’s a straightforward, relatively low cost initiative. Is the Minister intending to act on this opportunity, or are there barriers to be dealt with here?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have standards in the NWT Housing Corporation that require us to review and assess our public housing units. We expect that we need to change the tanks at least every 20 years. We have our action plan where we have started doing.

In the area of private homes, we like to work with ENR to put the word out to private homeowners that they should assess and inspect their tanks on a regular basis to ensure there are no leaks. We have a program, as the Member has indicated, called CARE, that will provide for people in the lower income brackets to apply to replace their tanks if they need assistance. That program is for all the people in that income bracket.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for those comments from the Minister. That, too, is my understanding, and that’s the starting point for this discussion here. The Yellowknives Dene have raised this issue, as I said, over the past eight months on behalf of these elders who are low income private homeowners. Has the department assessed their tanks, and have you developed a schedule to replace those tanks according to the expression of concern and the tens of thousands of dollars this is costing both the Yellowknives Dene Nation and us?

Mr. Speaker, that issue has not come to my attention. I have not come forward with a plan to deal with the Yellowknives Dene. I have not been notified that there is an issue there.

Mr. Speaker, it’s been raised with the Housing Corporation, and I don’t think we can pursue this further if the Minister is not aware of this. I would take the initiative to provide correspondence, and I anticipate that the Minister, perhaps, could commit to dealing with this as soon as possible, since it is now eight months and the Yellowknives Dene First Nation has not heard back from the department on this. Would the Minister commit, once I provide him later today with this correspondence, to doing a quick response?

I’ll gladly take the information provided by the Member and follow up with our officials to see why it’s taken such a long time for a response to be provided to the Yellowknives Dene. We’ll also share that information with the Member.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you very much to the Minister for that commitment. This, again, is very costly all around if we don’t act. These are disasters waiting to happen. Rather than fiddling while Rome burns, I’d like to see some action. Does the Minister agree that this is an appropriate role for the Housing Corporation to play and that they have a responsibility under these programs to do this?

I would agree that the private homeowners have a responsibility to look after their own homes. We have programs that can assist them if their income is not adequate to meet their needs.

We have embarked on a campaign to replace our tanks that are on public housing units, and we will commit to working with ENR to launch a public information campaign to make sure people are aware there is a limited lifespan that these fuel tanks will stand up for. There are other concerns. There’s condensation and other issues that factor in there. There could be a shortened life other than 20 years.

There are a number of things I can commit to, but at the end of the day I want to make sure it’s clear that we need to be approached by the individual to assist, and we also need the individual to be providing due diligence in looking after their house.