This is page numbers 3837 – 3872 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 4th 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

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

1. What are the total costs associated with

physician visits to Tsiigehtchic for the period between October 2008 and September 2009 and the cost per hour of physician services?

2. What are the total costs associated with

registered nurse visits to Tsiigehtchic for the period between October 2008 and September 2009 and the cost per hour of nursing services?

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

1. Can the Minister provide to me the GNWT or

Environment and Natural Resources definition of “consultation”?

2. Can the Minister outline the process that

supported his decision to implement a ban on hunting caribou in the area in question?

3. Will the Minister provide an explanation as to

why the caribou are calving two weeks later than the normal period for calving?

4. Can the Minister provide what types of interim

agreements were signed with the Tlicho or Yellowknives Dene communities to implement the ban on hunting caribou?

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, replies to budget address. Item 12, petitions. Item 13, reports of standing and special committees. Item 14, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 15, tabling of documents. Item 16, notices of motion. Item 17, notices of motion for first reading of bills. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.

Bill 10: Exemption Act
Notices of Motion for First Reading of Bills

Monfwi

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Minister of Justice

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday,

February 3, 2010, I will move that Bill 10, Exemption Act, be read for the first time.

Bill 10: Exemption Act
Notices of Motion for First Reading of Bills

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Item 18, motions. Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, second reading of bills. Item 21, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 2, Forgiveness of Debts Act, 2009-2010; Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act; Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Summary Conviction Procedures Act; and Tabled Document 62-16(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2010-2011, with Mr. Bromley in the chair.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Bob Bromley

Greetings, committee. We’re all set to go here. We have before us today for consideration Bill 2, Forgiveness of Debts Act, 2009-2010; Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act; Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Summary Conviction Procedures Act; Tabled Document 62-16(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2010-2011. What is the wish of committee? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Jane Groenewegen

Jane Groenewegen Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to continue with general comments on the budget legislation and proceed, if we get through general comments, with the first department for consideration, the Department of Health and Social Services.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. So we will start. That was general comments on the budget and, if we get to it, the beginning of the review of Health and Social Services. Is the committee agreed?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Some Hon. Members

Agreed.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Bob Bromley

Thank you, committee. Short break.

---SHORT RECESS

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Bob Bromley

Welcome back, committee. I’d like to call us to order. We are entertaining general comments on the budget. We’ll start with Mr. Krutko.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, with regard to the overall budget, there’s a lot of good things in it, but I think we’re losing sight of the reason why governments exist and operate is to provide services to its residents. For myself, that’s one area that I feel that is lacking with regard to this budget. We’ve done a lot of focus around infrastructure, we’ve done a lot of focus around building capacity for governments, government departments, large-scale projects, whether it’s the Deh Cho Bridge or looking at the Taltson project.

Again, I think that fundamentals for government and government responsibilities to providing services

and something this government should seriously look at is what were the programs being provided prior to division to what programs and services are being provided today. I think it will definitely show that we have seen a decline in programs and services, especially in the smaller communities and an increase in programs and services in the larger communities. I think it’s pretty clear to see that from the allocations to the communities based on the distribution of services based on per capita has declined in those smaller communities compared to 1998-99 to where we are today.

I think, if anything, myself, I see that without having healthy, vibrant communities that are socially and economically viable to sustain themselves and also providing programs and services so that people do feel safe, secure and have assurances that their health and well-being is being taken into consideration and that those services are being provided, we will see a decrease of student attendance, a decrease in regards to health and social statistic with regard to diabetes, cancers, those ailments which could be preventable if the government focussed on sustainable communities.

I think it’s also important to relay that this government has to quit passing the buck with regard to saying it’s not up to us, it’s up to a health board, up to an education board. The Ministers of those departments have sole responsibility to ensure programs and services are being delivered and if they’re not being delivered, that you take steps to remedy the situation or take those dollars back from those particular agencies and ensure that those programs are administered through a different mechanism. I know there were discussions earlier on with regard to board reform and the more I think about it, that’s probably the way we should go.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Some Hon. Members

Yay!

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

It’s important to realize that by doing that, it’s not simply a way of centralizing everything in one place, but ensuring that those dollars that should be expended in the area of education, the area of health care is actually being spent on education and actually being spent on health care and not being expended on administration.

I’m glad to see that the Department of ECE and the Housing Corporation saw the light in regards to dealing with public housing and income support. I think, if anything, there is also an area that Housing has to take a closer look at and consider exactly how do they calculate rents by way of using a formula used now, which I believe is unfair in regards to using gross income versus net.

I think, also, the other issue has to be dealt with around the area of affordability for housing. I think in most cases that we have to realize that we do have aging infrastructure. We do have people that

are having some challenges with housing. We continue to put rents up and kick them out of housing but we still continue to pay to put them somewhere else. It is something that we have to grapple with. I think we have to look at housing in light of people that are homeless, people that are hard to house and the aging population of the people in the Northwest Territories. I think we do have to get back in some means, because the Department of Health and Social Services and Housing are finding a way to put more seniors housing or seniors facilities in the communities where basically the numbers allow it to be delivered by way of keeping the elders in the home communities, keeping them close to their families, but more importantly allow them to live out their days in comfort.

Again, like I stated, the overall budget is something that I think goes a long way to dealing with the infrastructure challenges that we face, but, again, we do have to find ways of ensuring the public that we are not spending public funds for basically government or non-government agencies regardless if it is the mining companies or the oil and gas companies or where we don’t receive any royalties or any real benefit by way of resource benefits in which all that flows to Ottawa. I think, at the end of the day, the federal government has to pay for those infrastructures regardless if it is a road to a mine, hydro development to a mine, and through those power purchase agreements that they should be able to stand on their own without any public funds being expended on it. Until there is some heritage fund of some sort established, and I think on the heritage fund idea, I think it is a great idea. I think what we should do is be requiring that the federal government take some of the Norman Wells resources that it presently receives today and put it into the heritage fund immediately. The federal government owns one-third of the Norman Wells field. They own it. It is a Crown corporation or the federal government has one-third ownership of the Norman Wells oilfield. If anything, that is what we should be asking for, is that we take a portion of one-third ownership, take those revenues that they receive, which I believe is somewhere in the range of $200 million a year, and put it into a heritage fund regardless if that fund is going to be used to build the Mackenzie Highway or used to ensure that we have dollars there to develop the infrastructure that is going to be needed to extract other resources regardless if it is oil and gas or minerals or even for tourism.

Again, on the Deh Cho Bridge, I think that it is long overdue. It is on its way. I do support the concept of the Deh Cho Bridge of how we can develop infrastructure in the Northwest Territories. I think the government has to think outside the box and realize the Deh Cho Bridge is the first of many bridges we need in the Northwest Territories and

start focusing on those other crossings regardless if it is the Liard, the Peel, the Mackenzie up around Tsiigehtchic or in regards to the Mackenzie Valley. The Mackenzie Valley, we have invested some $30 million on bridges. I think, by doing that, we now have a better case for the Mackenzie Highway to finding ways of actually connecting those bridges and building the Mackenzie Highway up the valley and, more importantly, working with the private sector, working with the aboriginal organizations to get there.

Before I close, I don’t want to lose sight of the issue that is still on top of my agenda, is the access road from Aklavik to the gravel source. Again, there is nothing even mentioned in this agreement or this package. It was mentioned previously. Again, this government has an obligation to ensure communities have access to the gravel sources and not to find a way that, sorry, now it is the federal government’s responsibility. It is the Government of the Northwest Territories to find a way to strike gravel from public infrastructure in communities such as the gravel source in Aklavik which, again, I see very little by way of this import of this government. I don’t know why, but for some reason they are totally reluctant to step up to the plate.

There was a motion passed in this Legislative Assembly supporting two projects. One was Tuktoyaktuk to the gravel source. The other was to Aklavik gravel source. Again, this government, for some reason or another, and I don’t know if it is a feel good capital item or not, but again I will be stressing that I was hoping that we could see something added in this budget. Again, there is nothing there mentioning that. I think also realizing that the community of Aklavik is very frustrated with the way they have been treated on this matter and not being fair to that community. With that, Mr. Chair, I will leave it at that. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. We are open for general comments. Mr. Yakeleya.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Chairman, my comments would be brief in terms of the budget. I do want to thank the staff members and the Ministers for putting together this budget. I know that the budget process is quite contentious and that the needs are always greater than what we could afford and that priorities have to be considered and sometimes when I have issues that want to be brought forward to see if they can get any attention, sometimes they go in with the mix of other things and sometimes they don’t come out on top or it has to be considered at another time.

Mr. Chairman, the budget here shows an increase of 7.6 percent from 2009-2010. This shows for me a huge increase in terms of our operations. Mr. Chairman, the budget also shows that there are some changes to the sunset within the government.

There are some decisions that need to be made, if we are going to continue funding some of these sunset programs that are not yet being secured through this government in terms of if the federal government would fund these certain programs. They have been funded in the past. That is quite a concern to me in terms of some really good programs that did come out from the sunset programs such as the HELP program. That is a concern to me. How do we continue in this type of funding?

Mr. Chairman, the funding for the TSC, for example, seems to be a department that always seems to be increasing their funding each year. It doesn’t seem that we have any type of control. I would like to see in the future the government can have some discussions as to polling the TSC in line in terms of increasing funding. They have been asking for a few dollars every year that seems to increase to a point where it questions what the increases really are for. I want to say to the Minister in terms of putting this budget together not knowing the certainties of the federal government, I think in the future in terms of revenue that it’s going to be quite challenging for the next couple of years. The programs in the communities are desperately needed and should be continued. Looking at some of the programs, I don’t quite believe that it should be there in terms of some of the funding. There are other basic needs that really need to be looked at, such as health care in our communities, education programs in our communities.

Even the energy initiative programs, Mr. Chair, that seems to be a priority for other communities. However, in the Sahtu region it seems that the energy initiative programs are not given a priority in our region. Just looking at the energy initiatives in areas where there’s lower prices per kilowatt, just on the Energy Initiative, for example, there seems to be a lot of programs or support for communities with very low costs to their energy, the power. It seems like communities such as Good Hope, Deline, Tulita or Colville Lake, even the Wells, they’re not getting that much attention as opposed to other communities like Fort Smith that has a huge number of projects going there to look at the energy efficiency of certain operations there. So I’m not too sure of the consultation or the qualifications for having other communities being considered for these types of projects, because in our communities there’s a high cost of fuel through the barge system, transportation of the fuel, the isolation.

We, as you know, are not on the all-weather road system. I’m very happy with the Ministers who are looking at the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway in the Sahtu. We certainly want to look at continued support of the bridging program, which is a lot of money, and we want to look at other infrastructure that would support our communities.

The health program services we see certainly need to be stabilized and we certainly need to look at programs such as the Diabetes Program, programs that need to be run in the communities where support is there for people. There’s certainly an increase in terms of diabetes. The communities are looking forward to seeing how we could have more programs like that in our communities. When you look at operations and maintenance for health services, for example, in Yellowknife you’ll see we have allocated some $2 million for a dementia facility and when you look into the communities where you want to see some basic programs such as health care, dental care, doctor care, we seem to be told that the money is not there and that we have to look elsewhere or we’ll do some other creative solutions to take care of the health of our people.

Mr. Chair, it’s quite disheartening. It’s almost to a point of is the government really concerned about the health of our people in our communities where other regions have, compared to the Sahtu, really good health care in their communities.

So I’ve got some points that I want to point out in the budget with each department and, overall, I want to say that I welcome this budget and hope that there are some changes that could see some benefits to the people in my region that I represent. Mahsi.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Thank you. Next on the list I have Mr. Jacobson.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m really happy with the budget that’s been provided to us, especially seeing the enhancement to early childhood programming in the rural remote communities. That is really going to be a big help for the communities that I represent up and down the Valley in Tuk, Sachs, Paulatuk, Ulukhaktok, especially with the monies that we’re getting for support with…(inaudible)…support for regional sporting events. That’s going to be able to bring the youth in from the outlying communities. I think this year, Mr. Chairman, they’re heading into Fort McPherson for a soccer tournament or a basketball tournament. They’re flying in from all over the region. So I look forward to going over and supporting our youth in sporting events like that.

The $450,000 regional youth officer positions to support youth and programming also in rural and remote communities was really good to see, because this year we had a little bit of problems in Ulukhaktok for the settlement maintainers. So it was really good to see in the budget that Ulukhaktok, Sachs Harbour settlement maintainers, so it could properly maintain the schools and all the government buildings. So that’s good to see. The overall school replacements I’d like to see for next year so I could get the addition for Mangilaluk School put in and I’ll be pushing that this year.

Our formula funding for the communities was really good to see so our communities or our hamlets’ community infrastructure funding is getting a good $28 million in the budget once passed. I think that’s a really good opportunity for us as a government to help our local community governments succeed in what they’re trying to do and cover the shortfalls.

The airport infrastructure improvements, this year we’re getting the two airports in my riding. So I’m looking forward to the grand opening of that with the Minister. I look forward to that, Mr. Minister. Good job.

One thing that we do have to worry about is with the health care in our communities where our doctors and the dental teams coming into the communities that are such a short time frame. I asked this last year, just making sure utilization is to the max in regards to that, because we’re having to send kids out to Inuvik now for dental and it’s not maintained, it’s probably taken out. So we have to really start working with the local health centres to see if we could help them with that.

Another one is housing. We still have a real shortage of housing units in the community. So what we have to do is… Especially in Sachs Harbour and Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok, those communities are short units. So I hope we could put somewhere in the budget for this coming year if we could get one or two units extra in the communities.

Like Mr. Yakeleya said earlier, our power costs in the community and the cost of living is 80 percent to 300 percent cost difference in regard to just general items to try to feed your family. It’s pretty tough. You know, I have a family of nine, so it’s “Kids, chew your food slowly.” The cost of living is really great. If you’re not a two-income family, it makes it tough. Not only that, not everybody has jobs in our communities. The biggest thing is ECE has to come on side in regards to maximizing and giving and they’ve got to really see if we could work on the allocation of the funding that they’re getting.

Other than that, right through the whole budget I’m happy, and I look forward to going through the page by page with my colleagues on a go-forward basis of this and getting this job done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Mr. Bromley.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There certainly are some good things in this budget, and I appreciate those. I think, at the same time, though, that we are missing opportunities. Here we are on our third budget. Things should be very clear to us now and, like I say, I see some missed opportunities.

I’d like to start, though, with concerns about capacity and implementation. We have a lot of what I think are very good strategies either developed or under development: the Water Strategy, the Hydro

Strategy, Energy Strategy and so on. The biomass strategy, I hope to hear about soon, but I really have serious concerns about capacity there. We can have all the strategies we want, but if we don’t have the capacity to implement, then that’s not going to get us anywhere. I don’t see that aspect of it reflected in the budget. The devil is in the details and perhaps there are details on that to come out. But that’s an area where if we do not nail down the expertise required for some of these things -- some of them do require very specific expertise -- all other jurisdictions are dealing with these same issues and will be nailing down that expertise.

So again, I say this is a missed opportunity if we’re not moving on building that into our system and that means, of course, that we need to, to stay within our means, drop some things.

There again, I’d rather see a more productive program review office. I think they made some good achievements with the general purpose office space review, but there’s so much more that they could and should be doing and it’s very difficult to find out information about that. One of the things on that is a cross-departmental thing, basically the role of integration and coordination; connecting the dots, basically. So many of our programs, so many of our issues and needs are cross-departmental, and yet we have these isolated, independent… I’m starting to sound like I must have sounded -- many of us did -- during our first budget review. So these things keep popping up and I don’t see us being effective at this yet.

On the policy development side, I haven’t seen much on that and compared to the need, I’m very happy to see the heritage fund highlighted in the Minister’s remarks. Let’s get that designed and in place ASAP. I think that’s been clear, both from the public and from my colleagues.

On the revenue side, I think we are again missing opportunities on the resource tax and the capital tax side of things. We heard that the pipeline, the Mackenzie Gas Project is moving forward and yet so many things… We’ve known about this for years and contemplating this and other sorts of non-renewable resource projects and haven’t moved on these things. These are missed opportunities, and the rates that we establish can be sensitive to economic situations, so that when we do have a kerfuffle like in 2008-09, they can respond automatically to that. But to keep postponing them, these are very unlikely to happen now in the life of this government. We were certainly talking about them when I joined, so presumably they were talked about before. We don’t even have the basic policy done to implement those if and when we decide to.

Mackenzie Gas Project, again, JRP report, what are the financial implications? These things are huge that are called for in the recommendations.

Again, I don’t see that well addressed. The policy side, the point of sale, as I understand it, the pipeline is being built 100 or 10 metres into Alberta, so the point of sale is down there and that removes an incredible opportunity for income for us. Where is our policy work on that and making sure NEB requires a point of sale to be Northwest Territories?

In a similar vein, the Petroleum Products Tax Act. We do not tax natural gas right now, and they’re talking about generating a lot of power with natural gas. Again, we’ve talked about that ever since I’ve been here, and presumably people talked about that before. That gets into the whole need to review that act and realign taxes on petroleum products to reflect the carbon content of our fuels, of those fuels, and thus also provide a foundation to any carbon pricing we might contemplate in the future and, again, a huge policy area that should have been highlighted.

There was a positive thing I wanted to mention there. I see on the property tax side… Sorry, I’ve got to seek those out. The property tax side, we did get some work done last year, and I think there are more opportunities there. The pipeline would certainly be a huge piece of infrastructure. How are we taking advantage of that given our limitations?

The public housing review subsidy -- thank goodness. Really good stuff there. Stanton Territorial Hospital; again, where are the plans for that? Those of us in Social Programs had a tour of the hospital. It’s been talked about ad nauseam in the House. Well, perhaps it’s in there in the details and I didn’t see it, but all of the Northwest Territories knows serious work is needed there. Let’s get it going.

Nutritious foods studies, and yet more, and nutritious food education programs, we have so much going. I think we can do better than that. We’ve talked about a milk subsidy. I think some real opportunity lies there.

Sole-source contracting work, I hope that we’re going to do a review and get… It should not be just used so much. It should be… And it shouldn’t be internal. We should really be putting that work out competitively much more than we are.

Cost of living, it’s so tied to our energy costs and energy initiatives, so I think there’s much more, again, opportunities to achieve more with the dollars that we’re spending in that. As per my statements and discussion earlier today, we need to ensure that whatever we do in these energy initiatives, they address the cost of living, the affordability of energy, and contribute to the development of the local economies by ensuring development of renewable, local energy, which would also, of course, build the ability to pay.

Aboriginal languages; I see we have some support there, but I don’t see enough support in that area.

Goyatiko, for example -- the local Yellowknife standing program based in Dettah -- offers courses for the ALSIP program, but they’re isolated courses, they’re not a program. We’ve moved, I understand, to a community-based delivery of that, and yet where is the support so that a full program can actually be provided rather than just isolated programs that don’t deliver the certificates that are needed.

Child care; you’ve heard me talk about child care before and you will again, I’m sure. Early childhood; very happy to see the $600,000 for rural and remote programs and I think there are further opportunities there. I wonder if we should start thinking about full child care services for the people of the Northwest Territories. That’s provided in Quebec and possibly other jurisdictions in Canada and has yielded a lot of benefits. So that’s something I think we should be thinking about.

Finally, the arts industry support has again increased a little bit. I am very happy to see that. I think that is giving us good returns. One area that needs additional work is the area of the film industry. Really big opportunities there. We have incredible talent that is not able to be put to work. Our support there is kind of Mickey Mouse. Of course there are some caribou issues that we are hearing about and could use a little additional spending to try and get at what the real reasons are for the exceptional declines we have seen.

Mr. Chairman, my time is up. Mahsi.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

General Comments. Mr. Hawkins.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said on Friday, I would have a few more comments to go through the opening address and highlight. Mr. Chairman, as I said on Friday, I am very supportive of working towards making our communities more sustainable through environmental investment, but one of the things that I find to date, we still have to realize that we need to find real savings for our cost of living issue. We continue to invest in cost of living initiatives but, as I said on Friday, several businesses all in the end say costs keep increasing. You go to anyone’s power bill, the power bill keeps increasing. The oil bill keeps increasing. Of course, the cost of living makes it very unbearable to live here. I suspect that that is going to be one of the most significant emerging issues going into the next election for this Legislature which is, what has this government done to lower the cost of living? Although there continues to be good investment stewardship and, if anything, as I have said before, I think that may end up being one of the incidental hallmarks of this Legislature where it will be known for is a very green Legislature. It has taken on very positive initiatives to recognize its responsibility and role in the future. But setting that aside, what have we

done to address the cost of living? I think ultimately what we keep coming back to is nothing has changed. We just keep shuffling costs around and the cost of living here continues to grow.

Mr. Chairman, although I was listening very closely to the last speaker, I am glad to see we had no tax increases coming forward in this budget. I think that our economy has taken enough of a beating in the last year and I have said before that our corporate taxes will have a difficult time keeping up with our government’s need for spending. I have often said that, and I really do believe this, that we don’t necessarily have a revenue problem, we just have a spending problem. I would often look with high hopes to the program review office that it would find ways to tackle some of our larger spending. If I could take that further, I wish the program review office is more engaging with Members specific to where would we believe an initiative should be targeted and focused in on saving money. I think it is a real policy question on how we fund our programs and see our future. I think there needs to be more value put into that.

There are a couple of other areas that I would like to highlight. Certainly investments in children, youth and families is one. Something that I have heard this summer when I was doing some door knocking is that different people in the constituency talked about junior kindergarten and pre-kindergarten and noticing that it seems to be an emergence on some of the latest trends of what people are having as an expectation of where should education go and how should it be reflected. Long has passed the day where people sort of drop their kids off to someone who provides a day home and probably a very loving day home that is safe and secure, but the parents are starting to demand things such as a little earlier child education than what is being offered out there in an organized sense. I think their expectations are growing. The modern parent these days does not believe that parking your small child in front of the TV calling that day home child care management. A number of constituents have told me that they would like to see some organization evolve into that sort of area. It is not a simple answer. It is just to say now we are going to add junior kindergarten to all schools throughout the Territory. It is not an easy thing. With those things come costs as well as priorities, but it is an emerging issue that I think our government should start examining about what fruits of our labour will deliver positive results.

It is nice that we spend money on tons of programs. We can be here all day talking about them, but ultimately I hear it constantly everywhere I go. Education is the best employment program we have. We should start investing in it as soon as possible. A number of parents have talked to me about on the horizon they would like to see our government start addressing these issues as a

future initiative. I don’t think that there is a case where people would assume that it would be there… They ask for it today and it would be there for the next education season for the school year that is, but yet I think it is an emerging issue. People would like to see that the government is focusing in on that direction.

Under stabilizing the health care system, I would like to congratulate the government on moving forward on the downtown clinic in Yellowknife here. I think it will have a significant benefit in a few areas. The first is obviously cost. Rather than having multiple leases throughout other buildings, the government will be able to help focus some of its financial resources into a particular area and, furthermore, doctors will be able to provide more walk-in services for patients. The coordination of those services would probably be a major factor. It would bring the administration of those separate offices together and we augment that with the new benefits of being able to do X-rays there and tests. I think it will be a huge step forward for health services here in this community. I think, in the long term, it will provide excellent value for what we are getting.

I think that is a bold step forward in the way the government has been doing business in the past. I certainly hope this will sort of drive out a model that should be expanded upon for other types of thinking. How can we consolidate services in a manner that makes sense in a particular community? When I emphasize consolidate, I don’t necessarily mean for the community community. I mean within a community to make sure that we are getting good value for money. As I was complaining the other day about my concerns about local housing and moving the housing program back to the housing LHOs, what we have done is stepped away from a service centre or one-stop shop. I think initiatives like that shouldn’t be frowned upon. We should be finding ways to do better business from a service centre of excellence point of view.

To continue under the health file per se, although it is not related to health directly, it is the housing for disabled people. In our community under the LHOs, we don’t have stock of housing or an available stock for people when it comes to families. I know one particular family had been trying to get into housing for some time now and because of the disability, it is easy to find… Their response to me was it is easy for the housing authority to find a place for them to stay, but then it gets into a problem about is it a place that is of quality whereas it is safe. It is built with a person who has a disability in mind. With the aging population wanting to grow a little older and still be a little bit more dependent on their own rather than being put into a sort of centralized institution type service. People want to be able to be independent as long as possible.

But when it comes to family services out there, they are very few and far between. In one particular case now, I think we are paying well in excess of what can be considered a normal market rate in order to house somebody properly. Our housing program by itself, compartmentalizing that point and pushing it aside for a second, is not focused in on enough about trying to get people out onto their own feet, sort of the old helping hand approach. That is one of the big focuses, I think, that is now being hurt by separating the housing component out of the income support, as service centres continue to strive to get people to work harder and to stand up on their own and take advantage of the opportunities before them. Mr. Chairman, I think moving housing back to the local housing authorities was a step backwards.

Mr. Chairman, the big thing that as we all came into this Assembly, we talked about was the big thing that is coming forward on everyone’s mind at the time were things like environment. I want to emphasize that I think the territorial government’s focus is in the right direction, but we always have to keep cost of living in mind. Although we are going to spend a fair bit of money to continue expanding projects, I just want to end on the point that we still have to always keep the fact that the bottom line is always going to matter more than anything else.

We don’t have to look too far than our southern states, that is the United States of course, and see that when people have a choice, they certainly like to do the good stewardship process, but when people’s backs are against the wall, when it comes to being able to put food on the table, they tend to choose the economy over the environment, which, you know, up front is a mistake and over the long term it will be a mistake, but people are forced to do what they need to do. So I would exercise caution to this government by saying the more competitive we can be, the easier it is for people to live here under the conditions that we do survive under, whether it is heating your home or putting food on your table. I mean, those are very important issues and although we would like to do things constantly better, those are primary issues on people’s minds. So, Mr. Chairman, for my opening comments, I will leave it there and, of course, with anything else, I will have questions during page-by-page review. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Comments. General comments. With that, we are hearing more general comments as we read, we are going to begin with the Department of Health and Social Services. So at this time I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services if she has any opening comments. Ms. Lee.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the Department of Health and

Social Services main estimates for fiscal year 2010-2011.

At the outset, I want to identify that our system and the whole of the Canadian health care system is stressed to capacity due to a number of evolving challenges. These include changing demographics of both patients and care providers, rising health care costs especially in pharmaceuticals and technological advances in health care, recruitment and retention challenges, and the increasing prevalence of chronic disease nation-wide.

The current spending rate of our health and social services system is not sustainable. If left unchanged, our ability to provide access to quality, timely and safe services in a way that is affordable for this government will be impacted.

The department’s initiatives under A Foundation for Change are a blueprint for action that faces this challenge head on. Sustainability, as well as wellness and accessibility to health and social services are three pillars of the Foundation for Change. This plan is based on the principle that while sustainability and bending the trend of the health and social services future cost trajectory is our primary focus, system change to reach this must be managed well to ensure service delivery and quality of care are also sustained.

We launched A Foundation for Change with the support of the Members of this House through the Standing Committee on Social Programs and I am committed to continuing to work with the Members as we move forward.

Mr. Speaker, ensuring sustainability and addressing the changes in our health and social services system will not be easy and requires the full support of this Assembly and our stakeholders. It will require support for a planned, managed, multi-year approach to change and a committed focus on long-term sustainability envisioned in the plan.

Under this budget, the department is requesting just over $326 million. This reflects an increase of approximately $13 million or 4.2 percent over last year.

Twenty million of this $326 million is forced growth which includes ratification of the physician contracts for $4.3 million and ratification of the Collective Agreement for approximately $10 million.

I would also like to note federal funding initiative sunsets of $7 million, which includes $5 million for the Territorial Health Access Fund (THAF) and $1.8 million for the Patient Wait Times Guarantee. The Patient Wait Times Guarantee was a federal government initiative and will not be re-established. The department and relevant authorities are looking at options for wait times monitoring and assessment to be provided within existing resources.

We, as a government, are continuing our discussions and lobbying of the federal government to continue THAF funding. It will, however, be some time after the federal budget in early March that we will learn if any THAF funding will continue and under what parameters and time limits. In the meantime, the department and authorities are developing plans for how we can manage without THAF funding or with a reduced amount. I need to be clear this is not something the system can absorb, so we are looking at what we may continue under new models with existing resources and what will end.

This concludes my opening remarks and I would be happy to answer questions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.