The Speaker Paul Delorey

Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome back to the Chamber. Orders of the day. Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Floyd Roland Premier

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Jackson Lafferty will be absent from the House today to attend the federal/provincial/territorial Labour Ministers meeting in Ottawa.

I also wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend events related to the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, between 2004 and 2009 the housing needs have grown from 16 percent to 19 percent across NWT. Mr. Speaker, that should not happen. My estimates are that the NWT Housing Corporation has in excess of $100 million per year to address social housing needs across the Northwest Territories.

In addition to that, CMHC’s affordable housing money, the NWT Housing Corporation, in my estimate, spent around $900 million to address social housing needs between 2004 and 2009.

Mr. Speaker, how does a corporation that is designed to address social housing need to spend that much money and lose ground? I can tell you how, Mr. Speaker: no strategy, no focus and simply not knowing the real needs of the small communities.

Mr. Speaker, from 2004 to 2009 the core need in Yellowknife remained constant at 9 percent and since 46 percent of the households are in Yellowknife, that means the actual core need in the other communities is actually 28 percent.

Mr. Speaker, when you remove the regional centres and Yellowknife, the needs in the smaller communities are at 42 percent. Mr. Speaker, that shows the NWT Housing Corporation is not focussed in the right areas and does not have a strategy that combats the core need issue for housing. That, after spending 800 to 900 million dollars in that time period.

Mr. Speaker, the NWT Housing Corporation needs a strategy to address core need issues for housing in smaller communities. The NWT Housing Corporation has to develop programs and policies that actually work to take people out of core need. Mr. Speaker, this type of miserable failure should not be ignored by this government. I have made many suggestions on how things could be improved. Very few of my ideas were taken seriously. I will have questions for the Minister at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past few days I was in Deline and I was witness to the hand games that were played there, Mr. Speaker. This is the first annual traditional hand games that the Deline First Nation have hosted. There were 37 teams from the Yukon, Alberta and Northwest Territories in total.

Mr. Speaker, there were just over 260 to 280 hand game players. There’s about 40 hours of singing and drumming. The traditional hand games brought out a lot of excitement from the people in the tournament. People played all hours of the night.

I want to say that on behalf of the Sahtu region I want to congratulate the winner from the community of Wrigley who won the hand game tournament. Meander River came in second. To put on this type of event requires a lot of volunteers from the community of Deline, to the First Nations, to the land corporation, to all the volunteers that came out and cooked and looked after the people who came out to visit.

The hand games were a truly successful event. You could just see the culture come alive when the young kids come and play with the hand games. They educate themselves to learn about their culture and way of life, working as a team. They are being educated on how to play the game in a good manner.

The hand games are a lifelong tradition of the people of the Sahtu region. Certainly when they played, a lot of people came out to witness it. It was a fun-filled weekend and I want to say to the people of Deline and the organizers how much I appreciated being there to witness a part of our culture I’m certainly proud of.

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to follow up on a return to written question asked by my colleague from Weledeh, Mr. Bob Bromley, on October 26, 2009. I have some very deep concerns about this government’s relentless pursuit of sole-sourcing contracts.

I would welcome former employees, senior managers, and deputy ministers to bid on contracts with the Government of the Northwest Territories. My difficulty is when contracts are handed over to former senior staff on what would appear to be a silver platter.

Is there not something wrong with a deputy minister who is relieved of their duties and months later handed a sole-sourced contract by the very government that let them go? Who are they hired by? Oh, that’s right, other deputy ministers. Isn’t that convenient? Where does the direction come from? Other DMs or is it a political direction to hire these former deputy ministers?

There are a number of communications and consulting firms here in the Northwest Territories. Why would we sole-source contracts to former senior staff without going to, at the very least, an RFP or tender?

The public asks us as political leaders to govern in a fashion that is fair, open, and transparent. We are the protectors of the public purse here in this Territory. With all of the latitude given to this current

cabinet to sole-source contracts to former staff, it is apparent that this Cabinet just does not care about what the public thinks or what I or other Regular Members think about their addiction to sole-sourcing contracts to former senior staff. Why is this happening when the work should rightfully go to RFP? If the government listens, they might actually get a more thoughtful and better product at the end of the day.

I have some very grave concerns over the contract to coordinate the Northwest Territories cultural participation at the Vancouver Olympics. Why was this contract sole-sourced and for how much? I will have questions at the appropriate time.

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some researchers from famous American universities and large management consulting firms were interested in why public sector projects sometimes fail. They studied 75 major initiatives since World War II and found that three major problems are caused with well-meaning endeavours and it caused them to fail time and time again.

The first problem is known as design free. The project looked great in theory, but when everyone supported it and it moved forward, it certainly was unworkable in the real world.

The second problem was overconfidence. No one took the possibility of failure seriously. The budget was unrealistic, the timelines were impossible, and there certainly was no backup plan.

The third problem was complacency. This is when the government does something poorly simply because that’s all it knows. It seems to me that the Deh Cho Bridge in some fashion has plugged into these plagues in one various way or the other.

Mr. Speaker, for facts here, the legislation was passed to build the bridge back in the 14th Assembly. It was hailed at that time as a great leap forward on this particular project. Then, Mr. Handley and his Cabinet in the 15th Legislative

Assembly went alone and entered into a Concession Agreement at the last hours of their government as it ticked away, and, of course, the express overwhelming confidence of this project, which in essence isn’t really on record for the fact that it’s tied the hands of this government.

Now, we all know about the glitches of the Concession Agreement along with the zero support from Ottawa, which I would define is truly the real scandal. Where is Ottawa’s help on this project?

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Minister of Transportation in our 16th Assembly is working hard

to help through this project with the cost overruns, and is now, through our time-tested process, as usual, is calling upon Members to ask us for $15 million more in supplementary funding. Mr. Speaker, I will agree that in no way a 9 percent increase to this project should be viewed as a scandal in any way. It should not be painted in that fact, because most of our public projects have bigger bumps that they’ve ridden through. But, Mr. Speaker, the Deh Cho Bridge Project has been fraught with challenges from the beginning. I wonder if it ever got off on the right foot.

Mr. Speaker, our choice is clear right now. We must find a way to complete this project, the challenge before us. Mr. Speaker, I’ll have questions for the Minister of Transportation about what have we learned to make sure this project does not fall off the rails again, and certainly what is being done to get money from Ottawa to help us support this project that needs to be built as infrastructure in the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Jane Groenewegen Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One more time I’m going to stand up in the House and I’m going to speak to the accomplishments of Brendan Green, and this in the context of a day on Friday, February 26th , when Brendan will compete

at the Olympics in the Men’s Biathlon Relay Competition.

Mr. Speaker, in honouring this and sending our best wishes to Brendan for this competition, people in Hay River in the schools, in the businesses and in many other places will be wearing something green on Friday. So, Mr. Speaker, although we are not allowed to have props in the Legislature, I would like today to also challenge my colleagues here in the Legislature as a show of support for our young Olympian from Hay River to possibly look through your wardrobe and if you could find something green to wear on Friday, I think that would be a tremendous show of support for Brendan, and we wish him all the best.

Just getting to the Olympics, Mr. Speaker, of course, is a tremendous achievement. I know there’s been a little bit of disappointment in some of the Canadians on the part of owning the podium, but, you know, we are still hopeful for Brendan and the Biathlon Team. But whatever they do, we will still remain very proud and supportive of his achievements to date. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.