This is page numbers 4991 - 5034 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 territories.

Topics

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Minister of Health and Social Services

Mr. Speaker, as the Member is aware, we are a small jurisdiction and our health care facility or system doesn’t do actual organ transplants or anything like that. This is the reason we work with a national body. We are part of the National Registry System. I believe we have a mechanism in place with personal directives as well as driver’s licence, but I need to confirm that, but I believe we are part of that process. Thank you.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Mr. Speaker, I am a realistic type of person, so by no means I was trying to assume that we were going to perform organ transplants here in the Northwest Territories or run the system by ourselves. It is more about making sure that it is available and available here in the North. We have had advocates return to the North, long-term Northerners who have come here and actually met with the Minister, that I am aware of, and certainly spoken to me about how important this is. One of the things that they keep highlighting is that it seems to be elsewhere but not here. The promotion of this opportunity is either non-existent or it is extremely low. That is kind of the point I am trying to raise here today. I would like to know what the Minister of Health and Social Services can do to help raise the awareness and sort of accessibility of these types of programs for individual citizens so they can take part in it. Thank you.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Minister of Health and Social Services

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman in question no longer lives here but he is an advocate for government’s action to encourage and promote and raise awareness on organ transplant and organ donation. In fact, he was quite surprised at how advanced our personal directive legislation was. He asked for a copy of that because that legislation goes further than other jurisdictions in terms of making options available through living will and personal directives so that people can make choices about whether or not they want to donate organs while they are able to make those decisions, and is not done in the traditional way which is done by way of a will. I think the gentleman was quite pleasantly surprised at the advanced stage we are in in the Territories. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With all due respect, those are fantastic things. I don’t mean that they aren’t, but the fact is those tend to be the end of the road decisions that people are making. The fact is they tend to be the last minute when people don’t know what to do. I guess that is sort of the whole purpose of my set of questions today here, is the fact that the awareness of these types of things seems to continue to be significantly low and how important they are cannot be magnified enough, these gifts of life that we can provide other people, whether it is blood, a kidney, a lung and those types of things.

I am well aware of many cases where people have received organ transplants through the different donor programs. That is the whole issue that I am trying to raise here today. Will the Minister take the step by trying to raise the awareness of this initiative, what our government can do and certainly the network our government works with to make sure that people are registered and certainly a way or a direction so people can get more information on these types of initiatives? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Minister of Health and Social Services

Mr. Speaker, I do agree with the Member that this and other initiatives or services or ideas that the government supports has to be made aware on an ongoing basis. When this personal directive, for example, first came out, there was lots of awareness raising, but I do take the Member’s point that it has to be continuous. The department is lending support to the Stem Cell Challenge for example. We will continue to do that. I take the Member’s point that we have to do that on an ongoing basis. I will get back to the Member on how we do that and how we could do this better. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have spoken in this House numerous times about the secondary diamond industry in the Northwest Territories and the fact that it is floundering right now. It is dormant. There is not much happening in the cut and polish industry here. I think a lot of that stems from the government’s inability to deliver a policy so that people know what the rules of engagement are, if they are going to invest in the Northwest Territories and if this government is going to back this industry up. I think it can work, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister, I know we had gotten together last September, there has been a framework developed, but where exactly is the Diamond Policy that is being developed by this government? When are we going to get that out the door so that people know what the rules are and how things are going to work here in the NWT? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are very pleased to be able to work closely with committee on developing this Diamond Policy. We have been working with them every step of the way. We met with them in November. We fully briefed them on the old Diamond Policy and what areas needed to be changed. We certainly appreciated

the direction we received from committee. We have gone out to consultation. We want to make sure we do this properly, make sure that due process is followed and we have consulted internally first. There are a number of other government departments that play a very important role in promoting and delivering on the secondary diamond industry in the Northwest Territories. We have also consulted externally. We have had to consult with stakeholders such as the producing diamond mines, manufacturers and now we are in the process of analyzing what we have heard. We fully expect that we will finalize our policy within the next two to three months. We do continue to have well-functioning secondary diamond industry. We continue to have people working and cutting and polishing diamonds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Mr. Speaker, my fear is the investment that should come as a result of the new policy, the jobs that should be here, my belief is we might be losing these cut and polish folks who have moved to Yellowknife if we don’t bring in the new policy sooner rather than later.

I’d like to ask the Minister if there’s anything the department can do to try to evaluate if we may lose people, and I’m talking about the cut and polishers that have shown up here in Yellowknife and live and work, or they’re not working now, but live in Yellowknife. Has the department done any kind of study to see if these folks are going to be around three months from now when the policy is finally done and people know what’s going to happen? Thank you.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you. It has been a challenge in trying to change, to review our Diamond Policy for a number of reasons. One is we’re working with the express direction that we should no longer provide loan guarantees. So our whole objective with the review of our Diamond Policy is to make a system in place that makes it more feasible for manufacturers to operate so they have a better opportunity to have a sustainable business.

As well, making these changes, we want to find a way to keep the existing cutters and polishers that are in town to continue to be able to find full and meaningful employment. As well, we need to find ways so that we can access more rough that we are entitled to through our agreements with the various producers. So that’s what we are working on. We have a number of proposals that are in the works and we are expecting to be able to come up with something meaningful in the next two to three months. Thank you.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you and I know the Minister is committed to seeing this industry survive and committed to seeing it flourish. It is, I believe, a bit of a shame that we’re taking as long as we are. In the real world, in the business world, things move a

lot more quickly than they do at a government pace and that’s unfortunate. I’d like to ask the Minister if, and I know he said two or three months, but the only time that I think Members are going to be back here, there’s a bit of a timeslot mid-June and also at the end of June. Can we get maybe a commitment from the Minister to try to get that finalized product to committee the last week of June before everybody heads back to their constituencies for their summer recess? Thank you.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you. I think that would be an ideal time, now that we’ve committed to having committees meet in June. I think that would be an ideal objective for us to work towards and I’ll certainly commit to the Member that we will finalize or have in place our draft policy in final form to be reviewed by committee in June. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The time for question period has expired. Item 9, written questions. Item 10, returns to written questions. Item 11, replies to opening address. Item 12, petitions. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 14, tabling of documents. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Minister of Finance

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled List of Interactivity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 for the Period April 1st , 2009 to March

31st, 2010.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Transportation

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Minister of Transportation’s Report to the Legislative Assembly for 2009 on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act (1990). Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Northern Voices, Northern Waters – NWT Water Stewardship Strategy. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Tabling of documents. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Housing Solutions Developing Communities – Northwest Territories Housing Corporation Annual Report, 2007-2008. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a letter written to me dated May 16th ,

2010, by a constituent. The constituent’s name is Mr. John Murray. It’s a well-written letter regarding his concerns on perhaps the history of the supplementary health benefits changes, and I’d like to table it before the House today. I’m certainly hoping the working group will have a chance to look at it.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Pursuant to Section 35(a)(b)(c) of the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, I wish to table the Annual Report Respecting Members’ Indemnities and Allowances for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31

st, 2010.

Item 15, notices of motion. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.