Debates of March 1st, 2011

Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome back to the Chamber. Orders of the day. Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Language is about identity, who we are and how we understand and interact with each other. Promoting Aboriginal languages encourages the promotion of healthy lifestyles and family and cultural values.

In 1993, the Assembly of First Nations declared the Month of March Aboriginal Languages Month. Since then, the Northwest Territories honours Aboriginal languages and cultures in March. This year, Mr. Speaker, we not only celebrate Aboriginal languages through initiatives in place for 2011 but also recognize the achievements of 2010.

Mr. Speaker, 2010 was a very active year for Aboriginal languages, starting with the Northwest Territories Aboriginal Languages Symposium. The information generated from the symposium formed part of the Aboriginal Languages Plan. The strategy, “Northwest Territories Aboriginal Languages Plan - A Shared Responsibility,” was tabled during the October 2010 session of the Legislative Assembly.

The development of the plan was a collaborative effort involving many people across the Territory and reflects not only priorities of the people of the Northwest Territories, but also recognizes that languages strengthen our society and underpins our culture. Implementing this plan will help us strengthen awareness of our northern uniqueness and identity, part of this Assembly’s vision for a strong, independent North built on partnerships.

Mr. Speaker, the overarching aim of this document is “A Shared Responsibility,” because the

participants of the symposium told us about the revitalization, preservation and maintenance of the Aboriginal languages in our Territory are the responsibilities of all stakeholders.

Mr. Speaker, 2011 will also be an active year. We are developing a full implementation plan for the Aboriginal Languages Strategy, which will outline a time frame and give more detail for the actions and outcomes proposed in the strategy.

The work plan is framed over a 10-year period and will address issues including government services, education programming, actions required to support revitalization and language community activities.

Next summer the Government of the Northwest Territories will host a second Northwest Territories Aboriginal Languages Summer Institute, a partnership between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and the University of Victoria Certificate Program in Aboriginal Language Revitalization.

The partnership with the University of Victoria program benefits from the university’s relationship with the En’owkin Centre, the post-secondary education institute of the Okanagan First Nations known for its commitment to language revitalization. The two-week institute brings together community language workers and teachers representing official languages of the Northwest Territories. It is our goal that this is another initiative that will enable more people to speak their Aboriginal language in the coming years.

Mr. Speaker, Aboriginal Languages Month is a good opportunity to recognize the hard work of the language communities and applaud them for their ongoing dedication to ensure that languages flourish.

This government is committed to continuing its support of language and cultural activities. The involvement of each of the language communities is essential if we are to protect, maintain and strengthen language usage.

We hope all Aboriginal language speakers, language students and, indeed, all Northerners enjoy the celebration of language and culture in their communities during Aboriginal Languages Month.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Before I go on to Ministers’ statements I’d like to draw your attention to the gallery and the presence of a former Member of the Assembly, former Minister, former Sergeant-at-Arms, former Commissioner, marriage counsellor extraordinaire, Mr. Tony Whitford, in the gallery today.

---Applause

I’d also like to draw your attention to the presence of the Auditor General for Canada, Sheila Fraser, and her staff: Andrew Lennox, assistant auditor general; Jerome Berthelette, assistant auditor general; Glenn Wheeler, Tedd Wood, Eric Hellsten and Ghislain Desjardins.

The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A recent report commissioned by the Gwich’in Tribal Council has raised some questions about certain financial aspects of the devolution agreement-in-principle. The Government of the Northwest Territories does not agree with most of the conclusions of this report. We remain confident that the financial provisions of the devolution AIP are fair and reflect the best deal available. I rise today to set the record straight and address some of the confusion this report may have caused.

First of all I would like to point out that devolution is not just about money, it is about moving responsibility for public lands and resources from the Government of Canada to the Government of the Northwest Territories. With devolution, the people of the NWT will be making decisions respecting land, water and resource development that are currently being made in Ottawa. The financial components of the AIP are important but they need to be considered against the entire devolution agreement.

Anybody can pick and choose selected portions of the AIP and criticize them, but that isolated criticism is meaningless if it doesn’t take into account the benefits and advantages that have been achieved in other parts of the AIP. The Gwich’in report in fact concludes that “accepting the proposed AIP would be beneficial, but not optimal.” Taken along with the rest of the deal, it is the GNWT’s position that the financial arrangements of the AIP provide the basis for a final devolution agreement that will create real benefits for all NWT residents. Devolution negotiators spent considerable time and effort maximizing the financial benefits of the deal. All of the issues were raised and discussed at the table, from the treatment of resource revenues from Norman Wells to the net fiscal benefit and A-base

funding. If there had been any realistic prospect of dramatically improving the financial components of the federal offer, the GNWT would have pursued it.

The net fiscal benefit reflected in the AIP is a vast improvement over previous federal offers. Once we have devolution, the Government of the Northwest Territories will collect the resource revenues that are currently going directly to Ottawa. These resource revenues will reduce our formula financing grant, but only by 50 cents for every dollar collected. The net fiscal benefit or the difference between the resource revenues we collect and reduction in the grant is subject to a cap equal to 5 percent of our gross expenditure base; about $60 million right now. By comparison, the Yukon devolution agreement only allows them to keep $3 million in mineral revenues and between 20 percent and 40 percent of oil and gas revenues, with everything above that going to Ottawa. It’s no wonder that the Yukon government is already indicating a desire to renegotiate their agreement.

The arrangements in the AIP are completely consistent with what the provinces would receive under the Federal-Provincial Equalization Program. Under this program, 50 percent of a province’s resource revenues are excluded from the equalization calculation, not 100 percent like the GTC report claims. Certain provinces did negotiate special time-limited agreements for off-shore revenues 25 years ago, but off-shore resources are not part of the NWT devolution AIP. While provinces that do not receive equalization payments get to keep 100 percent of their resource revenues, no province receiving equalization gets better treatment than what is contemplated in the devolution AIP.

The GTC report questions whether the net fiscal benefit will be adequate for managing the resources being devolved to the Government of the Northwest Territories, but this is not the purpose of the net fiscal benefit. The Government of the Northwest Territories will receive funding -- known as A-base funding -- each year to cover the cost of operating the programs and services that will be devolved to the Government of the Northwest Territories. This is funding over and above any resource revenues the Government of the Northwest Territories will retain.

A-base funding will begin at $65.3 million per year and will escalate annually under the terms of the Territorial Formula Financing. This amount was based on the work that the GNWT did to determine how much it would cost to operate devolved programs.

There has been some public discussion of a higher A-base amount supposedly negotiated in 2007. The GNWT and Aboriginal governments did propose a higher A-base figure to Canada in 2007, based on a best-case scenario that assumed very high levels of resource development in the Northwest Territories.

There was never any guarantee that we would experience that level of development and Canada never did seriously entertain the proposal.

What Canada has agreed to, however, is to negotiate a post-devolution resource development cooperation agreement. We recognize that there may be times when additional investment may be necessary to help the Government of the Northwest Territories deal with the pressures of high levels of resource development. Where there are major projects with considerable national, environmental, social and economic significance, it would be in the interests of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories to work together to address their implications. Rather than try to accommodate that through higher A-base funding, these implications can be considered through a post-devolution cooperation agreement with Canada.

Mr. Speaker, it is the Government of the Northwest Territories position that we have achieved a good deal on devolution that includes fair and reasonable financial arrangements. After years of negotiations we have an agreement-in-principle that can serve as a basis for a devolution agreement that will create real economic benefits for all NWT residents, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike. We have the basis of a deal that will give us access to substantial resource revenues and legislative authority over public lands, water and resources. We have the basis of a deal that will establish government-to-government relationships with northern Aboriginal governments and give them a share of revenues earned from resource royalties.

We have the basis for an agreement that will see Canada continue to contribute to the development of projects of national significance in the Northwest Territories. And we have the basis for an agreement that will see the Northwest Territories enter into negotiations with Canada over revenue sharing for offshore oil and gas resources.

Based on the current agreement-in-principle, the Government of the Northwest Territories would stand to receive $26.5 million in one-time transition costs from Canada. The first year of the agreement we would receive another $65.3 million in A-base funding. On top of the A-base funding, we would also begin to receive annual revenues from the development of NWT resources. Over the past five years we calculated that we have missed out on $200 million in resource revenues based on the current AIP. That’s money that the Northwest Territories governments could have invested in economic development, infrastructure and programs and services for our residents.

Today we are faced with all the potential impacts of resource development but have no control over the pace of development. This will be rectified with devolution and the Government of the Northwest Territories will have the tools necessary to manage

risks. Every day that goes by without a devolution agreement, opportunity is lost. Non-renewable resources are being extracted from public lands in the Northwest Territories and resource revenues are flowing out of the North.

We can hold out for a marginally better financial deal from Canada, Mr. Speaker, but we will never be able to make a deal rich enough to make up for the millions of dollars that we are losing each year that we do not have a devolution agreement. This is a fair deal and an important step. It’s time to get down to business and put NWT governments in charge of the decisions that affect our Territory and our future. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend the Arctic Gas Symposium in Calgary. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently planes were unable to land in Inuvik for a number of reasons, notably that runway did not have enough friction for the airplanes to land properly. Our region and our communities rely heavily on the airports, especially Inuvik. The reliability of infrastructure, wherever there is a telecommunications system at our airports, the airport systems are a critical process to the economic development projects and the people’s safety. It is a critical time to provide a certain standard of living for our residents in the Beaufort-Delta and the more northerly communities. Mr. Speaker, a friction problem at minus 20 degree weather might be allowable in Vancouver Island, but not in the High Arctic. It is unacceptable.

Airport managers have been working hard and resources that they have been... Our government needs to do more to help them. Airports all over the Beaufort-Delta require more resources. Some communities in Nunakput have recently had airport construction, like my three airport terminal buildings in Sachs, Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok. I would like to thank the Minister and rehabilitation he has injected are greatly appreciated, but our resources are referring to the technology. You would think that

especially in the High Arctic the government would have issues such as de-icing our services preparation techniques in and around the airport.

Most of the people in the Beaufort-Delta recognize unique challenges living in the region, but we are concerned if our flights are cancelled. We had three flights cancelled this week out of here, out of Yellowknife heading into Inuvik, which caused havoc with communities and doctors’ appointments. Resources, lack of certain technologies are used elsewhere. Other technologies of this government must be required to advance the aviation tracking communications, weather tracking systems. These systems are additional for pilots in conditions such as fog and blizzards.

As I expressed previously, small, remote communities in Nunakput solely rely on airports for all of our means of transportation. A schedule of chartered flights cancelled, preventing people carrying out business, medical appointments, visiting family and other unique opportunities like the kids’ hockey tournament in Inuvik coming up this weekend, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister of Transportation at the appropriate time. Thank you.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] I will be talking about things that are important issues to my constituents. One of the items that I would like to express is the Liard Highway, and since the spring, it has been hard to travel because of the condition of the highway. [Translation ends]

...from washboards to washout to bathtub-size potholes, highways No. 1 and No. 7 continue to challenge drivers in the Deh Cho region and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Poor road conditions in my region have a negative impact on residents, tourism and business, not to mention taxpayers who foot the bill for the repairs.

I am extremely disappointed that I see no investment in the upgrades to highways No. 1 and No. 7 in the 2012-13 capital plan. As MLA, I feel I have worked hard, yet my region has been kept out of the capital planning process. I feel government is forgetting about my constituents. Bad road conditions are a barrier to people who want to visit, do business and live in my region. Technology exists and is emerging that can help road conditions in the Deh Cho. Special chipseal formulas are being developed that are more responsive to our northern conditions. Our roads are valuable pieces of infrastructure. Highways No. 1 and No. 7 form a unique circular route from

Alberta up to the Deh Cho and Fort Liard and back into British Columbia. This Deh Cho connection is important in my riding and even for the North as a whole, Mr. Speaker.

In 2010, the B.C. government invested $87 million in its northern highway system, including a paving project on Highway No. 77 that connects to the highway just south of Fort Liard. As I have said before, these roads are not just a tourist attraction, they are a transportation lifeline for the Deh Cho. Nahendeh constituents make a living driving it every day. The Government of the Northwest Territories is eager to build new infrastructure without maintaining what they already have. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation must work to upgrade the highways No. 1 and No. 7 in my region in the capital plan for the next coming fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to revisit a topic I’ve brought to the House several times before. In May of 2008 and again last February I spoke of the need for the NWT to have an ombudsman’s office. The need for this service has not yet gone away, Mr. Speaker. We are one of only three jurisdictions in Canada which does not have an ombudsman. Our sister territory, Yukon, is not one of them. The Yukon does have an ombudsman office for Yukon residents.

There are many, many situations where NWT residents need an impartial arbiter, an ombudsman to assist them with a dispute or a disagreement so they can avoid having to go to court to settle it. Disputes such as landlord-tenant issues that are outside of the jurisdiction of the rental officer, decisions by a self-regulating body, decisions by housing authorities, income support issues where an appeal has been denied, administrative decisions by officials in hospitals and other medical facilities, decisions made by the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission. There’s many more.

In my last question and answer session with the Minister of Justice I was advised that a number of possibilities exist for someone who has a problem with a government decision to appeal it. I agree with them, there are some. People can talk to department staff, there are appeal boards in some cases and some people can ask their MLA for help. However, none of these possibilities provides an impartial forum and when all opportunities or all options are exhausted and the individual still feels wronged, the only action left to them is to take the matter to court and that’s an expensive and an intimidating solution for most people, Mr. Speaker.

On previous occasions when the establishment of an ombudsman office was raised in response to my questions, the Minister of Justice advised that his department had looked at it and determined that such an office was not necessary. However, he also said that the department would continue to look at options in conjunction with the Department of Executive. I figure it’s time, Mr. Speaker, to find out if either department has done any looking in the last 12 months, so I will have questions for the Minister of Executive at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In recent years the Northwest Territories has seen improvement in the number of alcohol-related vehicle collisions on our roads and highways and yet in 2009 there were 35 collisions involving alcohol, resulting in 18 persons injured and one person dead.

Back in 2003 the Legislative Assembly passed amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act that introduced new measures to reduce impaired driving. The amendments provided the drivers convicted of impaired driving were prohibited from driving the length of time depending on the number of offenses. It also identified conditions that could be imposed on drivers who want to have their licences reinstated. One of these was a requirement to use an alcohol ignition interlock device. This is a mechanism like a breathalyser that is installed in a motor vehicle’s dashboard. Before the vehicle’s motor will start, the driver first must exhale into the device. Basically, if the breath alcohol concentration is greater than 0.02 percent, the device prevents the engine from being started. There are also safeguards to prevent cheating. To my knowledge, requiring the use of this device has not been used as yet.

I think there may be reasons to consider such an option. Let me be clear that I do not condone or approve in any way people drinking and driving under the influence of alcohol, but sometimes a person needs a driver’s licence for emergency or safety reasons or to make their living either on the job or their commute to work. If the person’s licence is renewed on condition that an alcohol ignition interlock device would be installed in the person’s vehicle, this could provide more assurance that the driver will be sober.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the government to develop regulations as to what situations might warrant the use of an ignition interlock device and a

program to implement its usage. But, Mr. Speaker, at this time a judge cannot make an ignition interlock device a condition of a person seeking limited driving permission because such regulations as a companion to our Motor Vehicles Act have never been developed.

Mr. Speaker, I will have questions today for the Minister of Transportation on this subject. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be talking on behalf of my community of Lutselk’e in regards to a service. [Translation ends]

I speak of a winter road. A winter road to Lutselk’e will provide a service to their citizens that are enjoyed by 29 of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. That enjoyment is the ability for those communities to access their communities with their personal vehicles.

Where possible, I feel that this government should provide a road that can be used by community members to lower the cost of living by buying goods in larger centres and opening a door for tourists, even allowing the community to hold revenue-generating events such as fishing derbies. While the majority of the NWT wish to have better highways leading to their communities, communities like Lutselk’e dream of some day when they will no longer be isolated and can drive on winter roads to and from their communities.

As it stands today, the people of Lutselk’e are limited to even what kind of furniture they can buy due to transportation, and the amount of food they can transport to their communities due to freight costs or limited space when they can only use snowmobiles and boats.

Members of Lutselk’e have even indicated they would work with the Department of Transportation on a route and construction of the road. There exists several options for routing of a winter road to Lutselk’e. I have been provided with options such as coming off of the Ingraham Trail or building a road through the bush to the Great Slave Lake across from Lutselk’e all the way to building all the way on the Great Slave Lake around to Lutselk’e and a couple of options in between.

A winter road to Lutselk’e is much needed and would be much appreciated by the people of Lutselk’e and I will have questions for the Minister of Transportation at the appropriate time.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My comments today are in regard to the recent Norman Wells block land transfer lease decision. This action is wrong every way you look at it. Negotiations leading up to the 144 square kilometre lease or sale were confidential, not just ignoring but excluding the interests of the Town of Norman Wells. The department allowed the corporation 10 months to get their application right and the municipality 72 hours to respond, without even providing the necessary documentation on which to base their response. Our municipal partners were treated with contempt. Even the terms and conditions of the lease are confidential. The Town has been told that they are protected under the Access to Information and Privacy Act; more contempt.

This lease was granted even though there was no development proposal justifying the need for this huge total parcel. At a minimum, this makes a joke of the progressive improvements to our own Commissioner’s Land Act. How do you require security deposits if you don’t even know what the land use is going to be? We’ve debased our own law.

Lacking a clear development proposal, we can only presume the corporation is going to sit on the land. This is called speculation, which is specifically discouraged under our own land pricing policies, so we have violated our own policies.

This all makes a pretty embarrassing checklist. The failure to accommodate our own law, the secretive process, the exclusion of municipal interests, the preferential treatment and receipt of a deficient application, the buffet-style selection of lease versus sale. This is one of the most questionable government actions I have come across. The final outcome, putting this municipality at the mercy of the corporation with rights to all lands surrounding it, strangles and robs this community of its future.

The Minister recognizes the possibility of errors and is going to review how future major sales and lease agreements are handled. I’m not convinced he realizes the serious and flagrant failure to act in the best interests of our communities for this case. For the sake of our relations with all municipal government partners, I hope his review is done quickly and transparently and includes a look at the ethics of the actions taken. I’m calling on the Minister to do this in full consultation with committee and with the NWT Association of Communities. I’ll be asking questions.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to follow up on some conversations I’ve had earlier in this House with the Minister of Health and Social Services on the Community Health Nurse Development Program, the NP Program and the Introduction to Advanced Practice. The last two are delivered by Aurora College.

We all know that health and social services in the Northwest Territories is facing some significant challenge. As we move forward, our programs and services here in the Northwest Territories evolved as outlined in the Framework for Change to be more responsive and cost effective and better suited to the residents of the Northwest Territories. Some hard decisions are going to need to be made and we’re going to have to dig in and review our programs to make sure that they are meeting those needs. These training programs -- Community Health Nurse Development Program, Nurse Practitioner Program and Introduction to Advanced Practice -- are no different. We do need to review them. The Minister has indicated that the department is in fact reviewing them.

In reviewing them I think it’s critical that we’re aware of the facts. I’d like to talk about some of the facts here today and I’d like to actually start off first by saying when we were having our previous conversations, I was talking about one position in the Community Health Nurse Development Program. The Minister has kindly reminded me that there were four in 2010-2011, not one as I had indicated, but there was one enrolled when I was having that conversation. I apologize for that confusion.

Since the program was implemented in 2007, 21 individuals were enrolled. Of those, 17 have graduated and are currently working in the Northwest Territories; 14 of them as community health nurses and three in other capacities.

We have 65 community health nurse positions in the Northwest Territories. Of these, 15 are filled and 50 are vacant. Given that 14 of them are from the Community Health Nurse Program, that means 28 percent of all community health nurses in the Northwest Territories accessed employment and were trained via the Community Health Nurse Development Program. This is something we can’t forget when we review the program. Without question, this program is a success.

The Nurse Practitioner Program is delivered by Aurora College and it’s my understanding that the

funding for that will end technically in June 2012 when the last of the current students graduate. This program is important and I will be asking the Minister some questions on that when we get to question period. I think it’s important that that program be assessed based on the value it adds and our potential value with putting nurse practitioners in the communities. We can’t forget the value that nurse practitioners will have.

I will have some questions on community health nurses, IAP and NP during question period.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to continue to speak about violence and crime in our Territory. I have the utmost respect for the words spoken by our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Honourable John Vertes, who appeared on Northbeat last evening. I appreciated what he had to say and I agree with him that we have to address the issues that face us. He stated that in the last five years violent crime has gone up by 28 percent in the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories. Our violent crime rate continues to rise and we have the highest incarceration rate in this country.

Yesterday I talked about recidivism, data collection, and the need to better measure the success of programs and services we have for those incarcerated for violent crimes. Work must continue in this area.

My opinion is we should be putting violent, dangerous, repeat offenders away before they kill or maim someone else. I’d like to see our prosecutors seeking dangerous offender applications on those individuals that continue to prey on our people and use violence as a means to get what they want. My point is: how many violent crimes does it take, how many people have to get hurt or even killed before dangerous offender status is sought?

Our problems run deep. I have to agree that we have to address the root causes of violence and violent crime in our communities, like homelessness, unemployment, alcohol and drug addiction, gambling, poverty and family breakdown.

Between Health and Social Services, Education, and Justice this government spends over $700 million a year. We have to start asking ourselves what kind of difference are we really making. Is all the money being spent on the right programs and services for our people? Do the programs and services that we have currently work and for their intended purposes?

We cannot afford to keep trying to spend our way out of all the problems that face this Territory or limp along hoping all of our problems are just going to go away. We have to continue to chip away at the problems. They’re not going to disappear overnight, but, again, we must continue to tackle the issues facing our communities every day.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Alienating the members of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 from the signing of the devolution agreement undermines the fundamental basis of treaty rights in the Northwest Territories with treaty Indians.

The majority of the lands in the Northwest Territories are covered by two treaties: Treaty 8 and Treaty 11. In 1898 Treaty 8 was signed in the southern part of the Northwest Territories. In 1921 Treaty 11 was signed in the northern part of the Northwest Territories, which goes all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

In 1973 the Dene Nation led a court challenge, better known as the Paulette Case, which clearly defined that the Dene did not extinguish their rights under Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 to lands and resources. It clearly defined that they do have fundamental rights to lands and resources throughout Treaty 8 and throughout Treaty 11. There was also the Calder case in B.C. with regard to the Nisga’a which clearly defined that there has to be a comprehensive claims process to allow for those rights to be negotiated and defined.

Under the Dene/Metis claim, which took place during the ‘70s and ‘80s which clearly illustrated and identified the rights to lands resources, the management of land, water and resources, and also the fundamental rights in regard hunting, fishing and gathering. The Government of the Northwest Territories are not honouring their obligations under the modern day treaties or Treaty 11 and Treaty 8 with regard to the fundamental rights of indigenous people that are protected under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution and also recognized under the UN Declaration for Indigenous Peoples.

That is the problem I see with devolution. You do not have the Dene people signed onto that agreement which affects treaty lands, Treaty 8, Treaty 11. The groups that have signed on do not have treaties. For me, that is the issue. The fundamental treaty rights of these indigenous people who are indigenous to the Mackenzie Valley which encompasses the largest portion of the Northwest Territories and who is going to be

affected by this devolution agreement is being undermined by the government and is not fulfilling its obligations and ensuring that they will be full participants and that this shall be included in all negotiations that affect them.

I will have questions for the Minister of Finance later.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about the GNWT’s Waste Reduction and Recovery Program expansion. This program has been part of Managing This Land Strategic Initiative to meet the 16

th

Assembly’s goals on

sustainable environment. This is a program I support.

One month ago the government implemented the second phase of its Single-Use Retail Bag Program. This program applies not only to grocery stores but also to all retail stores in the Northwest Territories. Therefore, outside of a few prescribed examples, every bag will now be charged a 25 cent environmental fee.

The purpose of this program is very clear: it’s designed to discourage the use of needless bags. I support that principle. It makes a lot of sense. Clearly it will divert plastic bags from our landfill sites and reduce litter and waste on our land. Clearly it’s a good principle that I think we all stand behind. With this good principle, we should hope that this will reduce landfill costs and create revenue which will help bolster the GNWT’s Environmental Fund. It’s a fund I support that has good initiatives.

I’m hopeful that this summer, as well, we’ll certainly see a reduction of plastic bags flying around our community and certainly stuck in the trees and bushes. A side benefit that’s not accounted for, but will certainly be seen.

While these are well and good intentions for this program, I’m being asked by many why this levy applies to paper bags. This is a surprise to many of my constituents out there who were concerned that the 25 cent levy is applied to paper bags. Paper bags are both recyclable and biodegradable. Anyone who has a woodstove out there will certainly tell you they’re great for starting fires. What is the point of having a levy on such a product that is recyclable and biodegradable? The big question now becomes, is it just simply a bag tax or is it an environmental fee.

These products are going just a little too far for what people are wondering why the government penalizes them on what is considered a good bag.

Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister of Environment about the thoughts as to why they approached this matter in this way. Paper bags are environmentally friendly, they are biodegradable, and they’re certainly achieving good land stewardship, which I wholeheartedly believe in. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a number of people that I’d like to recognize today. The first person I’d like to recognize is Chris Bassi. He’s in the front here. He’s a retired bridge engineer and, of course, he retired to Yellowknife where his daughter Sheila Bassi-Kellett works, as we all know. As well in the gallery, I’d like to recognize a constituent as well as a neighbour, Didier Bourgois, and he has, I believe, his cousin here from Paris, and her name is Dr. Elizabeth Dey. May I welcome her. The last person I’d like to make note, Mr. Speaker, while I have the floor, is I’d also like to acknowledge in the gallery our retiring or outgoing Sheila Fraser, who is our Auditor General. She is a giant among her peers and my wife happens to be her biggest fan. She will be dearly missed. Thank you.

The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two constituents of the Great Slave riding: Mr. Mark Bogan and Mrs. Theresa Crane. Welcome to the gallery.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome Mr. Tony Whitford again, a past Member. I’d like to welcome Tony. It’s always good to see you. And Ms. Sheila Fraser and her staff Andrew Lennox. Good to see you, Andrew. The most important person in the building for me today is my wife, Jenny. She’s up...(inaudible)...and back home. She just flew down from a five-day blizzard so it’s good to have her in the House today watching us work. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize one of my favourite constituents, Ms. Joy Watt, who’s in the audience this afternoon. As well,

I’d like to recognize the former Commissioner, former Member for Kam Lake as well, Mr. Tony Whitford. As well, of course, the Auditor General, Ms. Sheila Fraser, and her staff as well. I’d like to welcome them and everyone that’s in the gallery today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Chamber. We hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister for Executive, and it’s quite convenient because he also happens to be the Premier and my questions go across several departments.

I mentioned in my Member’s statement that I think that there still is a need for an ombudsman office. I also mentioned that I have heard from another Minister that apparently they are working in conjunction with the Executive to consider options for an ombudsman office. I’d like to know from the Minister for Executive what action has his department taken in the last year with regard to the establishment of an ombudsman office. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Executive has worked with the Minister of Justice and his department in this area and looked at jurisdictions across this country as to where an office may be situated, an office of the ombudsman. The research shows that for a position of that nature needing to be arm’s length from government and not tied to a particular ministry, most jurisdictions have that position tied to their Assembly. Thank you.

Thanks to the Premier for those remarks. I didn’t really get any idea of whether or not there’s been any action over there, but I’d like to ask the Minister if he can explain to me and to this House just what priority an ombudsman office has in this government’s total priorities. Is there any hope that it might soon be on the radar? Thank you.

As I was trying to say, in the research that was done, a position of that nature is not put in place by the government in the sense of the Cabinet. It is put in, in this case it

would be through the Assembly and the Board of Management, is my understanding. Thank you.

Thank you to the Premier. I now understand where he was going. Not in my backyard, I guess. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not the issue of an ombudsman office is far enough to the forefront of this government that it might be included in transition documents to take us from the 16

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Assembly to the 17

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. Thank you.

The government, at this time with the existing arrangement, we have one seat on the Board of Management and, I don’t know; we’d have to sit down and talk with members of the board to see if, in fact, it is on their agenda. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not too sure what I can ask at this point. I have no question, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Deputy Premier, Mr. Miltenberger, in regard to my comments in regard to the alienating of the treaty and the people in the Northwest Territories which make up the Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 and includes the majority of the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories. In light of that, we do have some obligations.

I’d like to ask the Deputy Premier exactly what are we doing to mend the fences to accommodate the treaty people in the Northwest Territories who basically have fundamental rights under Treaty 8, Treaty 11 and the modern day treaties and also in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As this question is directed, if I was not able to do the job then we would obviously go to the Deputy Premier in this case. As Premier I take direction from the Cabinet and Members of the Assembly in much of the work we do. In this area, the Member has raised a number of concerns and issues around the devolution agreement. As the devolution agreement is spelled out clearly, we look at the constitutional protection and rights of Aboriginal peoples throughout the Northwest Territories and that’s been incorporated. As for reaching out and looking towards working with the groups towards signing and joining us as we go down this path of negotiations, that door is open and we’re, as I have

pointed out in the review of Executive budget yesterday, that we would have to this Assembly in a supplementary appropriation to ask for additional resources and we’re prepared to do that once we have a framework and a budget put out. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as I illustrated in my Member’s statement, there have been fundamental court cases in the Northwest Territories with regard to the Paulette case, the Calder case in B.C., and also other court cases in Canada in regard to the Delgamuukw decision, which clearly illustrate that the governments, regardless if it’s the Government of the Northwest Territories or the Government of Canada, have a fiduciary obligation to protect the rights of indigenous people in the Northwest Territories and in Canada under those particular court cases, but more importantly, under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. So we do have a basic fiduciary obligation to protect those rights. By this transfer taking place without those indigenous people signing on and not endorsing this, are we fundamentally breaching that accommodation to ensure that we protect the rights of indigenous people especially the treaty Indians in the Northwest Territories?

Mr. Speaker, the signing of the devolution agreement, the work that is going to start in preparation for negotiation is part of a long process that has included Aboriginal groups from the very inception of the framework through to a signing of the past government and a number of the groups that went into the federal government to the process we’ve engaged in as the 16

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Legislative Assembly. Clearly, again, the AIP has language throughout the agreement that talks about protecting the rights of Aboriginal peoples across the Northwest Territories under Section 35, under the land claims agreements and many of those areas, so we have, in fact, written into this agreement and we practice it as the Government of the Northwest Territories. For example, in any legislation that comes before this Assembly, if it has language that talks about non-infringing an Aboriginal people’s rights. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the indigenous people of the Northwest Territories, especially the ones with treaty rights, basically have a fundamental right spelled out in Treaty 8, modern day treaties and also under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. Mr. Speaker, it is clearly illustrated that we have a duty to consult and include and involve them in these processes. From what is clearly stipulated, they haven’t been involved in this process. If anything, they have been alienated because of their views and the government that does not like to accommodate those views and basically remove them from the table. I would like to know what are we doing as a government to accommodate treaty Indians in the Northwest Territories, ensuring that their

fundamental rights are not being breached by this agreement.

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with what the Member stated about not honouring those agreements. In fact, clearly, during the life of this Assembly, we can show many examples of where we have gone above and beyond working with Aboriginal organizations and governments across the Northwest Territories, right from working together on the Water Strategy, the Wildlife Act, where the groups have joined us in writing the act, to the agreement-in-principle and devolution process. In fact, the door remains open for them to join the process and, in fact, help design some of the negotiation mandates that would be there when it is a joint mandate that we would approach the federal government on, for example. We have gone a long ways. In fact, right from when the letters were initiated by the chief negotiators to Minister Duncan’s office and to my office, as well as letters gone directly to each regional leader about the agreement-in-principle and the work done.

We have worked with the groups starting in November, after the chance to do their internal review. We sat with them early in November, in December, in January. In fact, January 23

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we held the meeting and had more work done towards the protocol and even provided that I would be available to pull myself out of meetings if they wanted to change some of that language to go forward. What happened there? The groups, instead of working on additional language and requesting that I come out of those meetings, worked on a protest. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I clearly would like to stipulate that we do have an obligation to include First Nations people, and more importantly, that they do have fundamental rights to lands and resources in the Northwest Territories, not only the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Again, it is those rights that are being questioned here. I think it is not a question of process, it is a question of fundamental rights. What is the Premier doing to try to accommodate those First Nations groups, especially ones with treaties who have not signed, and to allow them to continue on either especially in their opinions, more importantly having a process that they can be fully integrated into the negotiations of the process than simply sitting on the sidelines? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, everything the Member said and his recent comments about the rights of Aboriginal people in the North, we agree. That is why the agreement-in-principle has the language it does about protecting Aboriginal rights. The section where the Constitution, Section

35, the land claims, we have that language throughout the agreement-in-principle. They are on the sidelines because they choose to. We have, in fact, invited them to be a part of this process going forward.

Following the signing, I have sent the letter to all the regions asking them to join with us again in this process as we go forward. In fact, again, I committed to Members of this Assembly, through the Executive budget review, that we would be prepared to put a budget in place to engage with communities and leaders on the AIP process towards the signing and joining them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today it was regarding the trouble that we have been having in Inuvik at the airport with the aircraft not being able to land due to high winds and the friction. Mr. Speaker, will the government allocate resources to enhance the airports to develop operating systems that will lead the world in Arctic aviation in regards to airport runways? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I personally take full responsibility of all the issues that come forward on our projects on any of our operations. However, I certainly can’t control the weather that has been posing a lot of challenges to us. Mr. Speaker, this weekend we had a number of flights cancelled, as the Member indicated. We had a total of six flights that were scheduled to go into the community of Inuvik. Only one aircraft was able to land. It was not due to runway conditions. It was due to the high winds that we experienced over the weekend, especially in the Beaufort-Delta.

Mr. Speaker, is the Minister able to get us some starting staff and paying maybe a little bit of overtime to start getting the sweepers out at seven o’clock in the morning instead of eight, to make sure that runway is open so the planes could land? It wasn’t only the high winds and the cross-winds. The friction on the aircraft, the weight and balance issues, Mr. Speaker. Is it possible to get the Minister to let the department in Inuvik at the airport start at an earlier time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure where the Member is getting the indication that we are not allowing our people to work overtime. We provide all the resources to ensure that the

aircraft that can land, that we have the right landing conditions. This year and over the last three years, we have been challenged with conditions that reduce the friction. That concerns the carriers. We have tried all types of methods to improve that. We have utilized our resources a lot more than we did historically, including the use of sand. We have tripled the amount of sand that we use on this airport. We certainly need to revisit the challenges that are being brought forward by climate change, where we have conditions of unusually warm weather followed by a decrease and a drop in temperature that freezes the moisture that is on the runways. That may be a requirement for us to look at using rather than sand and dry chemicals. We may have to look at de-icing through liquid form. We are trying to address the issue. There are challenges in doing so. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, why is it we are getting so much frost on the runway? I heard reports. It is not only the condensation. Are there any chemicals that were put on there by the Canadian military regarding the CF-18s? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, all the information points to the issues being brought forward by climate change. We had zero degrees temperature for several days followed by extreme cold in that area. We have this year applied 230 tonnes of sand where historically we have provided 50. You can tell that there are some challenges in dealing with ice conditions. We need to look at what are the jurisdictions doing and including some testing of our own to try to address the issue as we feel that this is going to be an ongoing issue occurring every year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know that having that airport open 24 hours a day is a main key to the Beaufort-Delta in regards to the communities of Inuvik and all the surrounding communities because of the air medevacs and the jet service and that not having any flights per day causes havoc. We had over 200 people stranded in Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to me today to talking to the department regional superintendent in Inuvik to see what we can do if they have to start early, and is he willing to do that in regards to getting a commitment from him? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have to make sure that we identify the difference between what happened over the weekend with the high winds and what’s been happening on the days that we have warm temperatures at the Inuvik Airport.

This weekend, as the Member is indicating, there were a lot of cancellation of flights. We have no

control over that. The runway was dry, the runway was extremely good for landing conditions, it was as a result of the high winds. The airport was open and there was no concern over the staff hours at that point.

If there is an issue that the Member is wanting us to address over and above what we’re doing, we’d be glad to sit down and talk about the circumstances. We provide overtime, we provide materials, we have provided a lot of extra this year and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve committed to meet with the municipality, the town council in Inuvik and we will continue to have our staff available for discussion on this issue. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up with my Member’s statement with questions to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. First I’d like to ask the Minister to explain his actions on the granting of a 147 square kilometre lease in the Norman Wells block transfer area. Since the Minister thoroughly informed himself of his powers and obligations before signing this lease, what particular legislative, regulatory and policy references guided the Minister in the lease of this land, which the sole unclaimed lands in the block land transfer are surrounding the community of Norman Wells, to a private interest? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Norman Wells Land Corporation made application for this land and we had a look at the application. All the proper processes were followed and so the land was hereby leased to the Norman Wells Land Corporation.

So I can assure the Member, regardless of what he says and the accusations he makes about a deficient application having not seen it, then I can assure the Member that all proper processes were followed. Thank you.

Thank you. I have seen a lot of documentation here provided by the community. The departmental correspondence indicates that beyond standard leasing conditions, the terms and conditions of the lease are confidential under the ATIPP legislation. Without being able to see the lease, this probably means that the conditions fall under the category for proprietary business information, but a development proposal is hardly confidential business information. It’s essential

public knowledge for review of a proposed land use. If there is no development proposal and the land is just being held for future development, this is speculation. So which is it, Mr. Speaker, a secret business scheme or a land grab for speculation? Thank you.

Thank you. The Norman Wells Land Corporation has indicated that they want to use the land for future economic base for their membership and they do have some ideas as to what they want to use the land for. Obviously if they go to develop it in the future, there are a few issues that need to be taken care of and the appropriate bodies have to be applied to, but they have made it quite clear that this land is supposed to be and they have a future economic base for their constituents. They also have indicated preliminarily what they want to use the land for. Again, I will say for the fifth time, they’ve met all the proper processes in the disposal of Commissioner’s land. Thereby the land was leased to the Norman Wells Land Corporation. Thank you.

Thank you. In my humble opinion, it certainly did not meet all those requirements and I will be asking this government to include in the review the specifics of this case. So I’m wondering if the Minister can confirm that his review of the leasing policies of this government will include a specific review of the processes in this case and the ethics that were followed in doing this. Thank you.

The Member is throwing accusations out there and talking about ethics and I take offense to that. All the proper processes were followed, it came down to -- and I’ve heard from folks in Norman Wells -- the fact they just don’t like it and in the words of one member of the Norman Wells Community Council, we got beat to the punch. That’s the basis for all of this. If there needs to be a transparent review of how this land was disposed of, we welcome that, because all proper processes were followed. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I disagree with the Minister. The community put in their interest for this land in 2002. So the Minister knows full well that they have expressed a long-term interest in this.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has given away all of the land surrounding this community. There are no options for this community. Do we not have a fiduciary role to our municipalities and how much trust can we expect from our municipalities in the future as a result of this action? Thank you.

Thank you. The Member disagrees with the Minister because he doesn’t like it either, as he disagrees with a lot of

things that go on in this Legislative Assembly. Mr. Speaker, the land in question is not going to impede the Norman Wells community from expanding. There’s still plenty of Commissioner’s land within the municipal boundaries. The Norman Wells Land Corporation saw an opportunity to acquire some land for the future of their people and what they want to do with them, so they made application. The application was reviewed. Hereby they now have the land.

Again I say, Mr. Speaker, that all the proper processes in this particular case were followed and it just came down to the fact that they didn’t like it. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the concerns, but certainly with support, for the single bag program that really I think demonstrates good environmental stewardship and I think makes a lot of sense when it comes to plastic bags. I’ve heard a lot of people, if not every person I’ve spoken to on this particular issue, that they do support the initiative that is targeting plastic bags.

Mr. Speaker, where the concern arises from people is many people have been shocked, or certainly taken by surprise in one manner or another, that paper bags are included. I’m wondering if the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources can explain the rationale as to why paper bags were included in this particular levy when most people feel that they are recyclable and biodegradable and they don’t even meet what would be considered good stewardship of our environment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we looked at the lifecycle of the plastic bag, the paper bag and even the ones that are called biodegradable bags and compared it to the lifecycle of reusable bags, clearly all three were found wanting in comparison to the reusable, and that while paper may biodegrade in a landfill somewhat faster than other products, it takes more energy to produce and ship, it weighs more and in effect causes just as much waste or more than plastic because it’s bulkier. In fact, we have an initiative currently underway in its second phase where we are canvassing the North to see what interests there are and what options and innovations are there to deal with some of the

massive amounts of paper products that we now currently put into our landfills. This is one way to reduce some of that burden on our landfills. Thank you.

Thank you. I wouldn’t disagree with the Minister on his comments about is it waste and is it needless waste, and I’m paraphrasing, in my own way, that more bags are probably bad. I think that that’s a common understanding out there, but the problem is, I don’t think people understood when they were supporting the bag levy process and certainly the reduction initiative, that paper bags were included in this particular initiative.

Mr. Speaker, in going forward on this particular case, is the Minister’s department going to do further work on this initiative? Would he be willing to inquire with the everyday citizen, and I’m trying to step aside from these special interest groups, would he inquire with the everyday citizen as to what type of cost this has on the lives of Northerners, what type of impact on the cost of living has it affected Northerners? Thank you.

Thank you. I would suggest it’s had a marginal and probably positive impact on the overall broad cost of living in the Northwest Territories. This is entirely a voluntary fee. People do not have to use plastic bags or buy bags at the store. As well, we also know that we are extending the life of our landfills, which has a significant cost for all of us who are dealing with Municipal and Community Affairs. You look at the cost of maintaining landfills and putting new ones in place, it is significantly less burden on the environment, as the Member himself pointed out in his comments, where you see bag products scattered across the landscape no matter which community or how far north, south, east or west you go.

Undoubtedly the Minister and I are certainly on the same page on this particular issue. I believe in the reduction initiative. That shouldn’t be confused over the concern that’s been raised to me, the fact that paper bags have been included. That’s really the particular issue, which is what type of consultation specifically pointed to paper bags would be part of the reduction initiative that the 25 cent levy would be applied to them outside of the average special interest group which was fully in support of banning practically everything.

The work we’ve done in this area has been I think very successful. There’s been significant consultation and the recognition that there are, in this particular issue, three types of bags that are clogging up the landfills and scattered across the countryside. Paper, while in some people’s mind it may be something that’s seen as what’s the problem, is very energy intensive, it’s bulky, it takes up a lot of

waste that when you combine it with all the other paper product waste -- for example, the tons and tons of paper generated by business and government or the wastepaper products with cardboard in them -- it’s an enormous impact and negative impact on our environment. This adds together to help us address that issue.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m in full support of reduction where we can and certainly where it makes sense. The question I really have now for the Minister is: is part of this program, what type of analysis and evaluation was ever taken into consideration about the spurred off, unforeseen industry of making all these recyclable bags that people now have tons of and in the sense that instead of using paper bags as a clear, biodegradable, environmentally sound, reasonable option, a lot of people are now buying all these multiple bags or getting stuck with them when they go to conferences and meetings? It’s created an industry in itself. Did the department do any type of evaluation in that regard?

I will commend the Member for taking full advantage of the niche opportunity that appeared as I am as well a personal recipient of some of the bags that he’s put out as Member for Yellowknife Centre. I think he’s to be commended for that. We know just on the plastic bags alone, that we’ve eliminated millions and millions and millions of bags from the environment and replaced them with reusable bags that have a much greater life expectancy and are reusable. I think it’s a very good step and I know the Member fully supports that.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and follow up on my Member’s statement. I know we have a lot of hard decisions coming at us with respect to health and social services as the system evolves and becomes more affordable. Clearly, without question, our training programs need to be considered and reviewed as well. I just want to make sure that we’re reviewing them with full knowledge.

As I’ve indicated earlier, the CHN development program, the stats speak for themselves. Things like the NP are a little bit more questionable and I think if we’re going to be reviewing things like the NP program, or, rather, the department’s going to

be reviewing the NP program, we need to make sure that we’re doing it fairly. The intent of the program and what the college is doing is northern training for northern nurses for northern jobs is why we’re running the Nurse Practitioner Program. The college is doing that, there’s no question in my mind. Health and social services on the other side has to employ these nurse practitioners. I’m not sure that is necessarily happening.

My question for the Minister is: what is the Department of Health and Social Services doing, what work are they doing with the nurse practitioner students currently at Aurora College to help them transition into northern employment with us as nurse practitioners? What is the department doing? Have they met with the students? Are they doing grad placement with them? How are they going to ensure that those northern nurses practise nurse practitioner in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for the information he provided in his Member’s statement, because it is information that we are aware of. We had our briefing session on that. We are aware of the successes and challenges in the human resource programs that we have for the health care professionals. As the Member stated, I’d like to confirm that we are reviewing the program. We have to look at it fairly and comprehensively because we do have limited dollars, but at the same time we need to meet our priorities. So we will continue with that review.

With respect to the Nurse Practitioner Program, obviously I’m very interested in making sure that the program we fund to train these people will translate into employable positions within our system. We will evaluate that and monitor that and take actions accordingly.

Thanks to the Minister for that. My question was a little bit more focused on the current class. Right now if we’re going to evaluate the Nurse Practitioner Program and the end result is that the northern nurses don’t want to work in the Northwest Territories, I question the value of the program at all. If it turns out that the northern nurses do want to practise as nurse practitioners in the Northwest Territories but we’re not offering them employment, that doesn’t mean the program is a failure, it means we haven’t done our job of helping them transition in.

I talked to one of the nurse practitioners this weekend and she indicated to me that nobody from the department has talked to them at all. Nobody’s gone to the school to talk to the nurse practitioners about future employment. If we’re going to fairly assess this program and evaluate its future, I think

we need to make every effort to make sure that we’re meeting with those people and helping them transition into employment to meet the need and intent of the program as it was originally designed.

Going back to my original question: is the department planning to go to the college and meet with these students and talk about future employment for nurse practitioners outside of Yellowknife? Hay River, Fort Smith, Inuvik, smaller communities? Even Yellowknife. Is that going to happen?

Placing all of those nurse practitioner grads into our system would require partnership between the department and the government as an employer and the graduating students. I could tell you that we have a history of really good work in employing those nurse practitioners coming out of Aurora College. We have enough nurse practitioner positions within the whole Territory to employ every one of them if they wanted a job. It is difficult to always match nurse practitioners and other health care professionals who graduate from our education system into the exact positions and communities that they would like to have.

Earlier in the House I committed to meeting with the nurse graduates of Aurora College. I’ve e-mailed them and they said they’ll get back to me. They were very excited to hear about that. I would commit to doing the same thing with the nurse practitioners.

I fully understand the challenges of trying to place nurses and nurse practitioners in the system and I’m very pleased that the Minister is committing to meet with or have her staff meet with the nurse practitioner students. I know they’d like that as well.

Secondary, sort of, to this is the IAP Program, it’s delivered by the same instructors who deliver the Nurse Practitioner Program and it’s all interrelated with the Community Health Nurse Development Program. For instance, IAP is an integral part to the CHN Development Program. My question to the Minister is: after the assessment, if the program is going to be eliminated, Nurse Practitioner, will there be additional consideration given the IAP to make sure that we continue to deliver it in some capacity? We need to think long term on this one. This is long-term planning. That program is critical. All nurses that work in health centres need it or should have it. The CHN Development Program is dependent on it. I’d like to know that it’s going to be given some consideration separate and above and apart from the Nurse Practitioner Program as well.

The short answer is yes, we would review each program separately and give them all due consideration. Just for the record, I think we should make it clear that a decision has not been made to discontinue the Nurse

Practitioner Program. We did let them know that current funding commitment is until 2012 but, as the Member knows, because we had an in-depth briefing, we are reviewing the entire, well, we’re reviewing the Human Resource Training Program that we have with Department of Health and Social Services, not only because we’re always under financial constraints, but also because we want to make sure that the people we train are in line with the demands of the jobs that our system needs.

As I stated in our briefing session, we do need nurses and there are practitioners, but we’re also in need of other health care professionals such as home care workers, dental therapists. We need more people to be trained in counselling. We need personal attendants to get ready for the two long-term care facilities that we’re building in Behchoko and Norman Wells. As the Minister and as a department and as the government, we want to review who we are training so that they’re in line with the needs of jobs that are coming forward for the next number of years.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with everything that the Member is saying. We have to look at the system as a whole. I think that’s where I started my whole statement from. What I’m suggesting now is that it’s important when you’re looking at the NP and IAP as one program that you don’t think of them just as one program. They are two different programs and they need to be considered that way. Ultimately I support the Nurse Practitioner Program and don’t want to see it go anywhere. My question to the Minister was: will she look at the IAP as part of the whole, but also as an independent, important aspect of a separate program, the Community Health Nurse Program?

Yes, I said yes, and I’ll say it again. I understand the challenge that the Member is pointing out is the fact that right now we block fund the program to Aurora College. Yes, I will commit to reviewing that separately on the merit of each program.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the need for a winter road to Lutselk’e. I have questions for the Minister of Transportation on that. Will the Minister direct his staff to start working on the possibility of a winter road with the community within the next few weeks?

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Constructing a winter road into Lutselk’e is not something that we have on our capital plan at this point. We’d have to have further discussion as to routes that the Member or the community is considering and the rationale behind it.

Will the Minister work with his department and the community to complete a feasibility study of a winter road to Lutselk’e?

As the Member knows, there are challenges in looking at construction of an ice road over the lake to Lutselk’e. There are serious issues when it comes to ice conditions and pressure ridges and things of that nature. There’s also the safety of travellers on a lake the size of the Great Slave Lake. We are also monitoring the possibility of future development such as Avalon, which is in a stage where it’s still being considered as to what their plans will be in the long term. We can certainly start looking at routes that might be preferred, that would work, and start costing them out, but it would be very preliminary at this point.

Will the Minister work with the community, then, to determine those routes looking at all the routes? In my discussions with community members, I’ve been given three or four different options, maybe even five different options on what they said would be good routes. Everybody has their reason for doing it. I recognize that the Minister has responded to me in the past about pressure ridges on the lakes. A lot of the possibilities are over land. Can the Minister work with the community to determine the routes and look at all the routes?

We certainly can undertake to do what the Member has requested. There are serious challenges, of course, as to what the mines or exploration companies are going to be doing and that would be something we’d have to have a lot better information. We also would be challenged as to how we would pay for such a road that the Member is suggesting. Those things have to be looked at. I don’t have any problem directing our staff to start having those discussions with communities. There may be other routes that haven’t been considered yet and we’d like to look at that, if we can get that time to discuss it with the members of his community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister take a look at the preliminary possibilities in the infrastructure plan to construct a winter road in the next capital planning process? Thank you.

I can commit to the Member that we can do some class D costing of what it would take to build a winter road to his community and maybe look at a number of scenarios to see what we’re spending now and what it would cost to do a winter road overland to his communities. Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Transportation and I have many debates and discussions over Highway No. 7 and I’d like to continue that once again.

This fall he had indicated that there was an engineering study done on Highway No. 7, some samplings of geotechnical work. I just want to know the results of it and was there a report that was completed on that. Mahsi cho.

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