This is page numbers 2921 - 2956 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 3rd 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 work.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. It gets back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about some research that has been conducted. It appeared in the Canadian Journal of Public Health in regards to chronic diseases and indicators that would suggest that the trend in northern Canada is not a good one, Mr. Speaker. We need to be doing more in the area of prevention. It is not too late to look at prevention. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if her department is aware of the research that has been undertaken. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for the question as well as providing me with a copy of the research. Mr. Speaker, I can advise the Member that this is an issue that is on top of the minds of everyone who is involved with Health and Social Services system. There is a lot of research done on that and the need for work that we are all aware, Mr. Speaker. In fact, one of the writers, Dr. Kue Young was in my office last month because he is very involved with the research in the North, especially aboriginal health. He is pursuing a multi-year, multi-million dollar grant program to do further research. He asked me and the department for support. I was glad to do that. The research is important. There is a lot of research in the books already. All of the previous Health Ministers have been talking about how, and including myself, we need to make a lot more advances on this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

I am glad to hear that the Minister has been in contact with one of the researchers. Getting back again to my Member’s statement, the government spends millions and millions of dollars on prevention but the numbers just don’t seem to be corresponding to the investment that we are making there. How do the Minister and the department suggest that we get Northerners more physically active? What is the game plan going forward to try to get people who live in northern Canada more physically active? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Minister of Health and Social Services

I think the Member should be aware that this is part of our everyday work. There is staff in the department. We spend about $2 million. We could use more, but we spend about $2 million within the department to promote active living and healthy living. That is what our front-line staff work on. We work with other departments like

MACA and Education that work on that. I think the article that I read in Hill Times talked about the importance of investing in prevention.

In my meetings with the federal Minister of Health, we need federal Health to do a health prevention strategy and make some investment in this area because, ideally, you would want to spend at least 3 percent of your health budget on health promotion. We don’t have as much funding, but we do a lot of work with the money that we are spending. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Mr. Speaker, I have been here for five years. I know we do a lot of work each and every day on prevention. I know that work happens. What I am suggesting is that I don’t think things are getting much better. What I would suggest to the Minister and the government is we need to take more of a policy look at what we are doing. And I agree with something that the Minister said: it starts early. I think we have done a disservice to our youth by allowing curriculum to be taken out where it pertains to physical activity. Children today in the classroom or in a school in the Northwest Territories don’t get the physical activity that I had when I was in school. I know that. They get a half hour. They get 45 minutes a week. It is not enough, Mr. Speaker. Kids need to be more physically active. How is the Minister going to get children more physically active in this territory? Thank you.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Minister of Health and Social Services

More sporting events in schools, I know that the Minister of Education works on that area, but I think that the Member would agree with me that we need our people to eat healthier, exercise more, drink and smoke less. Our people drink more, and more heavily. We know the prevention strategy does work and the government has spent money on a non-smoking campaign that has worked. I think it is important to note that there are people in our community clinics who work on prenatal, on children, on healthy families, on Diabetes Strategy, even FSC is a preventive disease. That work is being done. I could update the Member on exactly what we do in that area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The numbers that I suggested are made in my Member’s statement. They don’t lie. The numbers are there. The thing I like about this research is that it is done over a five-year period. It is not just a snapshot; it is the whole nine yards, Mr. Speaker. Again, in terms of policy, what is the government going to do in terms of policy to get people more physically active in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Minister of Health and Social Services

I realize this is a longitudinal study over five years. I can tell the Member that I just talked to someone with Healthy Food North who is actively engaged. We have groups in the North, health care professionals, who are involved in communities who are talking to the people, doing a study actually as things happen, not five years ago, an academic study, but working with the communities to see what their eating patterns are, what their exercise patterns are and what they can do in their everyday life with the traditional food and things they can do around their communities that could help them. There is work being done. I think the Member could benefit from some of the profiles. I think I should provide that. I would like to really thank the Member for raising this issue, because we all understand that it is an important issue. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for Minister McLeod, Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, in light of the recent announcement of the housing funding that is coming to the Northwest Territories, I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of future plans going ahead. Would his Crown corporation look at sitting down with the regional bodies in the Sahtu or any other region and look at how they can design and make use of these units that are coming into the Northwest Territories? Would the Minister be able to look at some future consultation with the Sahtu region?

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of the Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Deh Cho

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The new funding has not been decided upon, as we all know. The agreement has not been signed yet. We are anticipating that these new dollars will certainly assist us in the area of housing needs across the Territories. We would like to have something brought forward fairly quickly. I don’t believe that is going to give us an opportunity to meet with all regional leaders. Certainly we don’t have a budget to travel across the Territories and set those up. Our plan was to have our allocations based on some of the needs assessments that have been done, and have a discussion with Regular Members and my Cabinet colleagues and see if we can have everything in place for the new fiscal year as that is just around the corner. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, I say this in terms of the uniqueness and challenges in the Sahtu to construct houses. I am very happy. Yesterday the Minister had some positive exchanges with Mr. Menicoche in terms of the threshold communities like Colville Lake or Fort Good Hope. They need to come together and look at some of the challenges in terms of land and buildings, in terms of reading requirements to obtain a house here. That is why I asked the Minister if he would consider from his department to bring people together in the Sahtu and look at some of the unique challenges of constructing these homes here and see where people can actually build the houses that are empty right now in the Sahtu.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Deh Cho

Mr. Speaker, right now our biggest challenges in the communities, especially in the area of public housing that has been raised in this House many times, is having our units brought up to a better standard, having our units a lot more energy efficient and to place a lot of these units so our targets or intentions are to focus on doing some of that work in the public housing area, and also to look at the programs we have so that we can deliver more opportunity for private houses in the communities. Those are the two areas that I have been really looking at for the last while. Along with that, of course, we are doing some evaluations, some tweaking on our programs in terms of changing our thresholds and looking at providing a better forgivable mortgage if that is possible. There are a lot of things that we need to do that I have raised in this House and that Members have brought to my attention. Those are the areas that we are focusing on. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, the challenges that we have in our region is the short construction period by the time the materials get to our region. Again, in terms of going forward, if the people from the Sahtu could somehow sit down with the district office and list some of the concerns from the 2008 Auditor General’s Report -- the inspection, the construction, the material -- this would be very beneficial to the corporation. Again, I would ask the Minister in his reviewing of this budget, would he be able to get the leaders and people from the Sahtu to sit down in the district office and say this is how we see things, housing in the Sahtu?

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Deh Cho

Again, I don’t know if there is going to be opportunity for me to do that. I am sure the Member has heard all the concerns from his leaders and his visits in his communities. He probably could package that up just as well and deliver it to us for consideration, Mr. Speaker. I would certainly be open to hearing anything that the community leaders want to bring to my attention.

I have heard from most of the community leaders over the last while. We have had opportunity to

have some discussions around housing with some of the aboriginal governments, the Beaufort-Delta. The visit gave us a chance to talk to the Gwich’in on some of the issues and also the Inuvialuit. We have had discussions with the Akaitcho people also, Mr. Speaker. I would be glad, if there are other aboriginal governments that want to provide input, we would certainly be open to have that discussion.

I don’t think time is going to give us that opportunity between now and the time we need to have our houses on the ground, Mr. Speaker. We have two years to deliver $104 million worth of projects. We need to be able to hit the ground running and have them on the ground over this two-year window that we have in front of us. We understand the direction is use it or lose it. So we want to be able to spend all the money. We want to be able to put them into where the projects across the Territories have the needs in the area of housing lessened. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. A final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly I will be sending over a housing package to the Minister in terms of the needs here. Again, Mr. Speaker, because of the uniqueness of the challenges in the Sahtu, hoping that over time here the Minister will be able to look at some of the unique challenges in the Sahtu. I think he needs to hear from the people in the communities who are actually right on the ground in terms of what challenges are faced here. Yesterday I received a call from an elder whose house was frozen up. They wouldn’t give any service because he was in arrears. This is an old man in Deline that Housing had a hard time with. Again, it would be more beneficial for the Minister to have a regional meeting with the leaders.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I don’t think I heard a question there. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was listening very attentively to the questions raised by the Member for Weledeh. I certainly support the issue of trying to support our daycares in any way possible. The fact is the support that they need is certainly a very worthy effort that they do taking care of our youth as well as providing education. Mr. Speaker, when I was listening to this, it kind of made me think of the argument municipalities used or often the argument that the territorial government uses which is when they go to Ottawa and they talk about base plus. I am just wondering in the context

of providing stable funding that it is really important to help keep the lights on and the staff paid, has the Department of Education, Culture and Employment ever put a lot of work into developing a new formula based on base-plus funding for these types of agencies. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Monfwi

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The funding we do provide, the contribution agreements to the daycare centres are to cover the operation and maintenance costs and also the rental costs and the mortgage. Those are the expenses that we cover for ongoing daycare operations here in the Northwest Territories. We do continue to provide the funding and whether it be the capital or base plus, that is the area of discussion that we can certainly have.

As I stated earlier, wherever we can improve our program, we are always keeping our options open. We are always improving our programs. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.