This is page numbers 4889 - 4926 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 5th 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 million.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do applaud Minister Bob McLeod in terms of his announcement of lowering the cost of living in our small communities. I want to ask the Premier what tools would he be using in terms of monitoring the reduced cost of living in our small communities. What tools would he be using and how soon can he get back to me in terms of saying this is what we can do in Fort Good Hope in terms of protection from the high cost of foods in the co-op store?

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

Mr. Speaker, the questions that the Member is asking will require us to look at it as to what we have available within our authority. Some of it falls outside of our authority and goes back to the private sector and how they carry on their business. We may have to… It depends if Members of this Assembly feel that we need to initiate some action on the legislative side to be looked at, but at this point all I can commit to the Member is sitting down with my colleagues to go through what we have available outside of the initiatives we are undertaking, like I responded earlier, to the electricity rate review, the Food Mail Program as we will hear from the federal government on, those types of initiatives and get back to the Member on a number of those. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier and they are related to a Member’s statement I made last week about a process convention that was agreed to by Caucus in Fort Smith and reconfirmed later at Blachford Lake, I think.

I don’t think it would be any surprise to any of the Members on Cabinet or on this side, we have had some communication problems in this building. As a result of those communication problems, we ended up being faced with a motion of non-confidence against all the Ministers. As a result of that, we got together as a Caucus and we talked about some of the communication challenges that we had. We came up with some process conventions that allow us or place procedures on how we are going to work together. I believe these process conventions are valuable.

I am curious if the Premier could tell me, is Cabinet still committed to these process conventions that we agreed to, specifically the process convention on the Standing Committee review of proposed policy initiatives and implementation plans. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have, in fact, held by our conventions that we have put in place, the conventions when this policy was first put into the system in the 15th Assembly. Since the 16th Assembly and our initiatives -- and I must say I thank the Member for being kind, because when I came up to that vote, there was a little more to it than just communications and we all know that. The other area of the work and the policy since coming together as Members and renewing our relationship and working together, we hold to that. We continue to work with that. In fact, the supplementary health policy has been to committee now from the earliest days of this Assembly, was taken back and reviewed, come back to committee and another set of reviews were done and coming forward now for implementation in the fall. Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Premier for his response. I’m glad that he brought up supplemental health. That is obviously what I was concerned about. Yes, supplemental health has come to committee and we have been informed time and time again on what the department intends to do. I don’t believe that it is consistent with the intent of the process convention. I believe the process convention is about working together to find reasonable solutions and listening. Coming to us and telling us what you are going to do is a radically different thing. I am wondering if the Premier can help me understand exactly how this process that they are moving forward with complies with the process convention that talks about specifically under clause 8 that the standing committee and the Cabinet must be briefed and have all the significant implementation tools such as things as ministerial policies, eligibility criteria, program guidelines presented and discussed with us when in fact there are no program guidelines at this point, yet they plan to put a program in place in June and implement in September, which pretty much kills all opportunity for public discussion and debate. How does that comply with the process convention that we have today? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

The process convention provides standing committees with the opportunities to influence the policy development and implementation, but ultimately that decision still remains with the Cabinet. After seeking the input and redesigning or altering what was initially put forward, and I’d say in this case that has happened, in fact ongoing discussions are going on to look at what that final piece may be as we get through this stage.

So we continue to work with that convention around all the policies that the Government of the Northwest Territories is looking at and developing. In fact, again, this particular policy has been discussed through this session and has been into committee quite some time ago. It was pulled back, it was launched again earlier in the year, and pulled back again to go around again and have more input on that, and that’s been done. We are now at the stage, feel that we have the best of what we have to put forward. Now there’s a number of things that do need to be looked at before implementation, and we’ll be going to committee with that as we progress. Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you. In I believe it was the Yellowknifer on May 12th, the Minister of Health indicated that the changes are going ahead this year regardless. So I’m curious how we can apply these process conventions fairly and consistently if it’s clear that the Minister is going to be proceeding this year regardless. I agree there are some things that need to be looked at. I’ll agree that there are some changes that are required, but I’m curious, once again to the Premier, how can we apply this process convention when the Minister is so clearly moving ahead regardless. Thank you.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you. We all know that the newspapers are like gospel, I guess, to certain corners of our Territory, but at the same time we’ve also learned that the quotes that are taken at times can be stretched a little, and I can speak from my own experience as well.

This area has had much debate. In fact, when it was first brought to the 16th Legislative Assembly, it was publicly put out there as well and there was even support granted at that time. Since people have had a look at that more, there were issues raised, concerns raised, we pulled it back based on discussions with Members, had another go-around in redeveloping that and brought it back to committee, had more input. Now the policy convention that we have in place is being used. In fact, it has affected how that policy has been developed or redeveloped as we go forward. There was a recent meeting and some of the substantial issues were raised again and we’re looking to deal with a couple of those substantial issues in a time frame that would still allow us to implement the policy as has been decided.

So, yes, a decision has been made to move forward, but implementation in those areas need to be clarified and changed to fit what we feel can be acceptable for the majority of people in the Northwest Territories and the majority of Members. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

I’d like to, once again, thank the Premier for that answer. I’m not 100 percent sure that we’re getting the answer to the question I’m asking. What I’m talking about is the process convention itself, it talks about the implementation tools and all those types of things. I hear the Premier saying that they have to consider some different aspects of it before they move forward, which seems to suggest to me that there’s no way they’re going to have a plan done in June. If they don’t have a plan done in June, how can they still implement in September? We need to have an opportunity to review, once again, anything that comes forward and have a public debate in this House on anything that comes forward in the future. So how can we do that if they don’t have a plan? If they’re going to make some changes, can they really get them done by June and can we really implement by September? I think the timeline is a little excessive and I think it will hurt the people of the Northwest Territories, not help the people of the Northwest Territories as the Premier wishes to do. Thank you.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you. We believe that June, coming forward with the minor changes as a result of discussions with Members, that we’ll be able to come forward in June for implementation in September. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of our Power Corporation and the first one is very short. What has been the cost of our electricity rate review and NTPC review? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Roland.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work on the Power Corp review was undertaken by the Executive. It wasn’t a direct initiative out of the Power Corporation. I’ll have to look in my notes, but I’ll get that information to him before the end of our session. Thank you.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you. I appreciate the Premier’s commitment on that. Obviously the recommendations that our current report provides does very little to reduce the actual costs of power, which is what is ultimately required. You know, if we just keep putting the costs behind the scenes, what that does is remove the options we have for doing other things, providing services and other things of value to our people. So we can’t keep doing that. When will we actually see real reductions in the actual costs of electricity so that real savings can be provided? Thank you.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you. Just further to the first question the Member had, the Power Corp review was in the neighbourhood of $200,000 to get that done. The initiatives we’ve undertaken under the electricity rate review does do substantial changes to the way we deliver power.

As the Member pointed out earlier, yes, the Member feels it’s a shuffling of the deck, but it is real change because if we did not do any changes, in fact, the Power Corporation would be coming forward today, in fact would have already been working at a general rate application that could go towards just what was raised by Member Bisaro as well when you talk about adjusting the prices and price shock.

This is not going to come as a result of the changes that we’re proposing. It is something that we’re faced with on a day-to-day basis within the existing system. That is why the government has decided, with support of our Members, to put $60 million into alternative energy development like run-of-the-river hydro, wind and biomass initiatives, and, yes, we’re disappointed as well that a number of these projects haven’t moved as fast as they have, and we’re putting the feet to the fire, in a sense, to move these along as much as we can with the time we have left. Thank you.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thanks to the Minister for those remarks. I think we have some common ground there. I appreciate the $200K estimate for the Power Corporation review and I assume I’ll still be hearing about the electricity rate review costs.

As the Minister said, and I said in my question, we have not had real cost reductions yet and we all hope that there will be some eventually. What I want to know is, will we see any during the life of this Assembly, the four-year life of this Assembly. Thank you.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you. That is our goal. In fact, every business plan since we identified that money for the Legislative Assembly, we push the departments to show progress, and not just internal progress but to get projects on the ground and put in place. So the wind turbine technology that’s been looked at has been delayed for a year. We were expecting it this year but it will go ahead in the next year, I believe. The area of biomass, we’re looking at, as we have already done, some exchanges for heat in a number of our facilities that will need replacement of boilers. As well, we’re still working with the Power Corporation for biomass for electricity generation. As well, as I’ve just been informed, the electricity rate review was in the neighbourhood of $550,000 to complete that work and that shows the cost of having to do that type of business in the Northwest Territories on large-scale consultation. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just totalling these things up, that’s almost another million dollars. So we’re pretty close to an additional $10 million of subsidies this year and this is in addition to our apparently now routine at 10 to 12 million dollars per year and this is what I mean about we’re not really reducing costs and we’re removing options for services for our people. So I’d like to ask the Premier, during the life of this Assembly what community will actually have an electricity system with reduced costs. What community? Even one community.

Floyd Roland

Floyd Roland Inuvik Boot Lake

I can name probably in the neighbourhood, let me see, how many thermal communities will go into that zone? About 22 communities. Now, I know the Member feels that’s just a shuffling of the deck, but that is real lower costs in our communities that will be spread out to the commercial base and to the customer base and the overall cost of living in our communities. Structurally as the Power Corporation and as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we know we need to increase our rate base in the sense of more people and more businesses in the Northwest Territories and to invest in these other alternatives requires cash that we have to, as the GNWT, invest in that system, because the Power Corporation, under the existing structure, is within a defined set of parameters that it can operate by. So we as the Government of the Northwest Territories have chosen to invest in alternative energies and we’re going to be doing that and putting some of these initiatives on the ground by the time this Assembly has concluded its business.