Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It would depend on where the fuel spill occurs, in municipal boundaries, outside municipal boundaries, private property. There is a significant responsibility as we heard from the Member for Great Slave when he talked about leaky fuel tanks when it goes on your own property. Chances are you are going to be charged with that responsibility. There are a number of questions that we would have to figure out the answer to, to clearly answer that question. Thank you.

Can the Minister advise me if he is aware of who has the financial responsibility for fuel spills that are not necessarily within people’s properties or maybe within the areas outside people’s properties and more on the municipality roadways or ditches and so on? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If it is on GNWT property, then the GNWT would be responsible. If it is on federal property, the federal government would be responsible. I think back to the major spill at the college in Fort Smith where they had tanks that leaked for a number of years. It was a massive clean-up. I would suggest that the owner of the property would have a primary responsibility. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise us if there are any deterrents to creating a contaminated soil site in Fort Resolution? Thank you.

Without knowing the specifics, I could just indicate to the

Member, I know that when they had the major fuel spill at the college in Fort Smith, out at the landfill site they fenced off a fairly large area and they dug it out. They put in a big membrane and they did all the things necessary under that particular policy to set up a contaminated site area and they put all the dirt out there and they turned it over the years. It is possible. It has been done just down the road in Fort Smith. It is an issue of finding some assistance to get it done and identifying the land where it would occur. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to having the environmental protection staff of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources work with the community of Fort Resolution to work towards creating a contaminated soil remediation site? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My first commitment would be to work and talk to the Member to get a bit more information. The contaminated site area in Fort Smith was done to help remediate a very specific major spill. If there are issues in the community that would justify that kind of investment, what the Member has in mind in terms of a plan going forward, those are all the types of things that we need to talk about first and then we can involve the appropriate staff, instead of a meeting with myself and a deputy, to further discuss this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I spoke in my Member’s statement about some of the difficulties that some of my constituents have encountered in trying to access their client support officers at the income support office here in Yellowknife. I did want to express these are difficulties my clients have encountered. I don’t mean to say that all the staff that work over there create these difficulties, but there obviously are some problems that are encountered. My first question to the Minister is whether or not he can explain to me, or I hope he can explain to me, the rationale for the hands-off approach or the hands-off action that income support reception desk takes. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly we deal with a number of

clientele within the Northwest Territories and specifically for larger centres such as Yellowknife, we do have individuals that, whether they be a receptionist or a secretary at the front desk, should be able to assist clients whenever they approach the office, assisting them to connect to client service officers. They are certainly there to assist. There are certain hours of the day that they operate under, because it is under the federal building within the hours of operation. Those individuals should be there to assist with the clientele to forward them to client service officers. Mr. Speaker, they are there to provide services. Mahsi.

I thank the Minister for the answer. I guess if that is the policy that the receptionist or the secretary is there to provide assistance, perhaps the Minister ought to check in to see what actually happens and send in a few secret shoppers, so to speak. Because my information is that income support clients are not necessarily being assisted.

I mentioned in my statement that many clients have difficulty getting in touch with their client service officer, or their CSO, when they happen to be away. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of file backup or whatever. When a client’s officer is away, nobody else seems to take charge. What policies are in place to help those clients who are in need when their own CSO is not available? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we currently do not have a written policy specific to those individuals if the client service officer is away. But we do have a backup plan where in a larger centre such as Yellowknife, we have an on-call duty officer that takes those calls. If there are inquiries, then that individual follows through with that. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, that on-call duty officer also takes calls and is accessible any time, even without appointments. But in those communities outside Yellowknife, certainly we have client service officers going to the communities from a regional perspective. They do provide services in that venue. Certainly with the Yellowknife perspective, we have individuals who are dedicated to answer those calls that are coming in. Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister. I accept the explanation of the on-call system, but again I would have to say that this is a system that is not working. The experience of the constituents that I have heard from is that they go to reception, they are told to make a phone call, they phone their CSO who doesn’t happen to be there. There is then no opportunity for them to speak to anybody else. The receptionist doesn’t help them. They are not transferred to the on-call duty officer. Again, I think the Minister needs to do some investigation into this.

I understand that there’s confidentiality issues and that not anybody can speak to particular clients, but I guess my question again to the Minister with

regards to this on-call system is: if I phone my CSO and he or she is not there, how then do I get through to the on-call person if the receptionist won’t help me?

: Mr. Speaker, the on-call duty officer can certainly assist those clientele whenever a client service officer is not available due to whether it be vacation or on sick leave. So those areas and the filing system is also taken care of. There is strictly a confidentiality that every client service officer respects and takes into consideration. So whenever there’s a client that’s calling into the receptionist, the receptionist should provide assistance, support, and also the phone numbers of certain individuals that they can contact. I do believe that they should provide those services. If not, then certainly I’ll commit today to look further within my department. If there’s an issue there, we should deal with it. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the commitment from the Minister to look into this. It’s my understanding that clients very often have to leave the office without ever having talked to a CSO when their own is away, so there’s something wrong with the system.

Lastly, it suggests to me, from the experiences that I’ve heard about, that there are a few basic office procedures which aren’t being followed or aren’t evident from within the office. I come from a service background myself, so I find it hard to understand why there’s no things like an e-mail out of office reply which is automatically used, why there’s not a voice mail message on people’s phones which indicates that they’re out of the office. So I’d like to ask the Minister whether or not that’s standard practice for this office in Yellowknife and/or all income support offices. Thank you.

: Mr. Speaker, yes, the auto reply, whether by e-mail or phone call, is a standard procedure that we use in our office, whether it be Yellowknife or other communities. If it’s not being used, certainly those areas need to be looked at. Mr. Speaker, the procedure is in place and it’s just a matter of following through with that. So I’ll certainly make a commitment again to look into those areas. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I was speaking to the Food Mail Program in my riding of Nunakput and more or less all over the Beaufort-Delta and the

Sahtu in the small communities. Considering there’s northern nutrition and considering that only 62 percent of each dollar spent within the Food Mail Program actually results in reduced prices, the rest is being lost between Canada Post and they say the airlines, but I think it’s more the local stores not passing it along to the person who’s buying the groceries, the retailer.

Will this government work progressively with the Members of this Legislative Assembly and the Government of Canada to adopt changes to the Food Mail Program that will ensure that each dollar of the subsidy is visible and accountable to the northern consumer to actually assist residents in the small, remote communities to eat healthy and live healthy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.