Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement today is on the water treatment plant and plans in Jean Marie. Firstly I’d be remiss not to thank Minister Robert C. McLeod, the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, for the tour in the Nahendeh riding this spring.

---Applause

And also for the second day in a row I find out how a Minister’s statement is appropriate to my issue.

---Laughter

The Minister this morning spoke about health, sustainable communities, and as well as the key issue for Jean Marie, which is a stronger, safer community. Just about a year ago I spoke in this House about the quality of the drinking water in Jean Marie and once again this spring people in Jean Marie River are facing discoloured water when they turn on their taps. Although this water passes the current safety guidelines, it is still unpleasant and unpalatable to the people.

I understand that Jean Marie will get an upgrade and a proper water treatment plant sometime next year, but right now, however, the community needs a temporary solution for this coming fall, winter, and through the spring season until this plant is constructed.

I am told that the military has portable units to ensure the safety and clarity of drinking water. These can be set up reasonably quickly and serve a population the size of Jean Marie River. It would be valuable for Municipal and Community Affairs to have such information on these units and to have even these units available for emergencies and situations such as I am describing.

I think that more needs to be done to ensure that smaller communities have the support they need to make sure that the water is safe and palatable for the people.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about something that I consider to be an incredibly positive step that the Department of Health and Social Services, Aurora College, and the Registered Nurses Association of

the NWT and Nunavut are taking to enhance the role of nurse practitioners in the Northwest Territories. Specifically, the establishment of a PLAR process for registered nurses in the NWT. PLAR stands for Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition and is defined as a process of identifying, assessing, and recognizing skills, knowledge, or competencies that have been acquired through work experience, unrecognized training, independent study, volunteer activities and/or hobbies.

In the nurse practitioner PLAR program, northern nurses who feel they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform competently as primary health care nurse practitioners will have the opportunity to have their existing education and experience assessed, complete some required mandatory courses, complete necessary case studies for assessment purposes, validate their competencies, and then write the Canadian Nurse Practitioner Exam. If these nurses complete the program, they will be registered as primary health care nurse practitioners in the Northwest Territories.

This is a one-time opportunity for northern nurses and in total seven northern nurses entered the process and are currently in Phase 2, which involves the completion of mandatory courses and the beginning of some of the case studies. This is a great program and three partners -- the Registered Nurses Association of the NWT and Nunavut, Aurora College, and the Department of Health and Social Services -- should be applauded for the hard work and commitment to nurse practitioners in the Northwest Territories.

The Department of Health and Social Services is providing financial assistance to the nurses as they go through this process. This is good and I support this direction. They’ve provided financial assistance for NP students in the past and I hope they do it again in the future.

My concern is that in the past, when northern nurses have completed their nurse practitioner training where the department provided full financial support, some came back to work and were told that there were no nurse practitioner jobs available for them. To me this was a bit short-sighted. Investing all that money and time and not utilizing the skills when the nurses returned was a poor use of resources.

Fortunately, Members on this side of the House raised concerns and NP jobs were created and maintained. In the end all were offered NP positions in the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, it did cause a significant amount of stress in all of those involved. I don’t want this confusion and uncertainty to happen again.

Prior to the completion of their studies, the department must ensure that a proactive plan is in

place to ensure that all of these new nurse practitioners are placed into nurse practitioner positions in the NWT.

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted.

As I was saying, the department must ensure that a proactive plan is in place to ensure that these new nurse practitioners are placed into nurse practitioner positions in the NWT upon their registration as nurse practitioners. We must avoid the confusion and uncertainty.

At the appropriate time I will be asking the Minister of Health and Social Services some questions on this topic.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make a few brief comments on the huge issue of regulatory reform and the resource management regime and make some suggestions for progress we can make now.

This issue has been moving on and off the back burner for as long as there has been resource management regulation. All players -- government, industry, aboriginal groups, non-government organizations and regular citizens -- agree that the systems are complicated and frequently don’t meet the needs of society as a whole or the individuals and groups who have an interest in seeing them work. It is certainly a matter worthy of rigorous review and it is crucial to all our interests that resource management regulation works efficiently and effectively. But we need to make progress.

Lately, Members have been presented with another stack of documents outlining the current state of reviews and the various interests competing to see their needs met. We have the McCrank Report and the GNWT’s approach to regulatory improvement; we have Alternative North’s thoughtful analysis of the McCrank Report; we’ve seen the five-year NWT environmental audit; and we’ve heard a submission in committee from the NWT chambers of Mines, Commerce, and the Construction Association. Where do we go from here?

I’d like us to make a start on the things we can do right now. The analysis we now have in hand contains several points of common agreement that we can move on swiftly.

Board vacancies have to be filled. Board action freezes when quorums can’t be met. This government can make it our business to lead and push, keeping our own appointments up to date

and pressing our partners to make the appointments needed to keep all our business moving. We need to be persistent and insistent. That’s a simple one.

Second, boards can’t work when they are starved for funds. We’ve bought into these processes, so we’re committed to make them work. We can’t let individual cases languish while we look for a solution to overall costs. We must help ensure sufficient resources to allow our processes to work while we look for ways to maximize value across the board.

Finally, this government has shown strong leadership in pursuing comprehensive resource management plans. Everyone agrees that land use planning is a major key to success. Land use plans provide certainty and the essential knowledge base for major decisions. We need to keep the momentum of our leadership going and push forward this major area of common agreement.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to speak today in regard to the negative impacts we’re seeing in income support and the household rents that are being charged by the Housing Corporation by way of economic rents. The ideal situation that everyone should have a job, everyone should have an opportunity to work, but, more importantly, we all know realistically we have high pockets of unemployment in our communities.

A lot of people in our communities have an average income per year that is less than $18,000. Yet the economic rate charged in our community is $2,300 a month. That is totally unjustified. The take home pay of an individual who might find himself getting a job, which in most cases our jobs in our communities are seasonal at two months or three months a year, yet those individuals have to also continue to raise a family, continue to maintain their lifestyles, continue to provide for their families and provide for the individuals and other family members in our communities.

I think it’s very important that this government seriously considers looking at the policy that was in place prior to the decision to move the income subsidy to ECE from Housing. There was a policy in the Housing Corporation where it clearly stipulated that if an individual who was employed for a number of months was able to find a job, that there was a probation period allowed for those individuals to retain some of those earnings over a period of time -- a couple months -- make them aware what their economic rate was going to be so

that they were prepared for the economic rate when it was given to them so they knew ahead of time. They knew what it was going to cost if you continued to work, but at least we gave them the opportunity to save during those periods of time and get themselves into the employment opportunities in our communities. In a lot of cases those individuals ended up being homeowners, being able to access programs in our government because they had a good paying job.

What we’re seeing now is that as soon as an individual goes to work, he basically…

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted.

I believe that we have to allow individuals and the people in our communities to be able to build capacity, not only in regard to human resource capacity but also the skills that they need to take advantage of other economic opportunities, regardless if it’s in the oil and gas industry or the mining industry or even for apprentice programs we’re trying to deliver in our communities. Fulfill those obligations so we don’t see employers coming in from outside our communities, taking these jobs away and leaving. Because when even our employers in our communities are stating themselves that they have had a lot of good employees. They’ve had people working for them part time in regard to municipal contracts. But because of this policy, the incentive for these individuals to work part time, they’re penalized in regard to the economic rent where they’re not able to carry it through.

I believe this government has to reconsider this policy and implement something similar. I will be having questions in regard to the Minister responsible for ECE.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure today to recognize a young constituent who has been working for us all week. Alan Huynh has been working as a Page and he’s been doing a great job. I would like to comment that all of the Pages have done a very good job for us this week. Thank you very much to all of them.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

It gives me great pleasure to recognize as a group, of course, all the students

from Mildred Hall School who have been paging. Mildred Hall, of course, is a school in my constituency. In particular, the Yellowknife Centre constituents are Paige Elkin and I believe it’s Kaine Kindla.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’d like to welcome anyone visiting in the gallery today. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I talked about public housing and the rent difficulties tenants are having once they find employment. I have questions for the Minister of the Housing Corporation or the Minister of ECE, I suppose; whoever is going to be addressing this issue. Is the Minister prepared to work with the other Minister from the other department to incorporate a grace period for public housing tenants so that the rents don’t change for six months when starting a new job?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an issue that has been raised by a number of Members in this House over the last while. As we move forward with our discussions to look at ways to remove disincentives for employment, certainly this is an area that has to be explored. This is really not an area that the NWT Housing Corporation is responsible for anymore and we will bring this to the attention of ECE as we continue our discussions. Yes, we will look at this issue.

Considering the response of the Minister that it’s not really an area of the Housing Corporation on the grace period, my understanding in any event is that the public housing rent scale is passed down to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to ask if the Minister understands the long-term benefits to the GNWT and the tenants of incorporating a policy such as the grace period policy.

I believe the Member’s asking my opinion on this and I’ll have to respond by saying absolutely.

Again, because there is no policy, this is becoming a difficult line of questioning. Does the Minister have enough units in the communities right now through the detached Public Housing Program or public homeownership

units that are built in the communities should such a policy be put in place for the tenants to move into as homeownership clients?

The Member is raising the grace period that the NWT Housing Corporation had as a program historically. It’s something that’s been transferred over to ECE and we’d be glad to have that discussion with ECE and we’d also be very happy to keep the Member informed. The Member has raised the issue of having tenants that are, could potentially or historically would have gained benefit from this program being considered for tenants or as clients for homeownership. The answer is yes, they would probably make perfect candidates for homeownership and we certainly are encouraging our tenants that are changing their careers in their life and move on to higher paying jobs to apply to the Housing Corporation to purchase some of their public housing units that they may be staying in and are having difficulty meeting the full economic rent. Our staff are out there encouraging people. There is a public campaign to increase the awareness of our housing programs and this is part of it. We certainly support the suggestion made by the Member.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.