Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Monday, June 11, 2012, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that the Legislative Assembly thank the members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada for the work they have done in the Northwest Territories and across Canada;

And further, that the Legislative Assembly honour the survivors who have shared their suffering with great dignity in order to promote healing and reconciliation.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Monday, June 11, 2012, I will move that Bill 4, Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2012-2013, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Monday, June 11, 2012, I will move that Bill 5, Legal Aid Act, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Item 17, motions. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

WHEREAS Section 16(2) of the Human Rights Act provides that the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission is composed of such members, between three and five in number, as may be appointed by the Commissioner on the recommendation of the Legislative Assembly;

AND WHEREAS there will be four vacancies on the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission as of June 30, 2012;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that the Legislative Assembly recommend the appointment of the following individuals to the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission:

Ms. Marion Berls of the town of Fort Smith, for a term of four years;

Mr. Charles Dent of the city of Yellowknife, for a term of four years;

Ms. Bronwyn Watters of the city of Yellowknife, for a term of four years;

AND FURTHER, that pursuant to Section 17(2) of the Human Rights Act, Mr. Yacub Adam of the city of Yellowknife, be reappointed for an additional term to expire on October 30, 2014;

AND FURTHERMORE, that the Speaker be authorized to communicate the effective date of these appointments to the Commissioner.

There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion.

The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

WHEREAS Section 40.2(1) of the Public Service Act provides that the Commissioner, on the recommendation of the Legislative Assembly, shall appoint an Equal Pay Commissioner to exercise the powers and perform the duties set out in this act;

AND WHEREAS the appointment of the current Equal Pay Commissioner, Ms. Nitya Iyer, expires on June 30, 2012;

AND WHEREAS Ms. Nitya Iyer has expressed an interest in reappointment for a third term as Equal Pay Commissioner;

AND WHEREAS the Board of Management has considered Ms. Iyer’s expression of interest and is prepared to recommend her reappointment for a second term;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Ms. Nitya Iyer be appointed as the Equal Pay Commissioner in accordance with the Public Service Act by the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories as recommended by the Legislative Assembly;

AND FURTHER, that the Speaker be authorized to communicate the effective date of the appointment to the Commissioner.

There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion.

The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the seconder of the motion for allowing this motion to come forward. As mentioned in the motion, there are only three jurisdictions in Canada that do not currently have an ombudsman office and we are one of them. There are innumerable situations where NWT residents could use an ombudsman to assist in solving a dispute or a disagreement. I’m going to mention a number. They include but are definitely not limited to:

•

rental officer decisions that either the tenant or

the landlord disagrees with;

•

landlord/tenant issues that are outside the

jurisdiction of the rental officer;

•

decisions by housing authorities that the client

may disagree with;

•

income support issues – a family may lose their

home due to income support not issuing cheques in a timely manner;

•

investigations and decisions by a self-regulating

body that the professional person feels was incorrectly handled or resulted in an unjust decision;

•

health and social service issues;

•

administrative decisions by officials in hospitals

and other medical facilities;

•

issues with how health care is delivered to

individuals; and

•

decisions made by the Workers’ Safety and

Compensation Commission.

Government staff generally do a wonderful job for our residents but there are times when a resident – rightly or wrongly – feels that they have been treated unjustly or without fairness. In most cases they have no option for appeal. Some organizations do have a complaints process. We do have some appeals within our own government organization. If you lose on that front, there is absolutely no other option to appeal except to go to court. I’ve talked about that before. Court is not a viable option for many people. An ombudsman office provides an impartial third party, someone who can evaluate the disagreement or the presumed improper treatment, someone who is an alternative to going to court. Goodness knows, our courts are busy enough. This would help to alleviate some of the congestion that we currently have in our court system.

We probably, as Members, all know at least one, I’m sure many people, many residents who are intimidated by the court system and by the court process, and they may have the courage of their convictions, they may firmly believe that they have been unfairly treated, but they will not even contemplate taking their case to court. This motion asks for legislation to establish an ombudsman office with the powers necessary for an ombudsman to do the proper job. In order for that to happen, the office needs to be at arm’s length, independent from government, similar to our other statutory officers offices.

As well as acting as an arbitrator, an ombudsman can act as an evaluator of the government and its boards and agencies. Members have often said that as a government we don’t do enough evaluation, and I totally agree with that. Looking inwards for ways to improve our services, we don’t do enough of that either. The office of an ombudsman can be tasked with that, can make recommendations for improvement to government processes and to the programs and services that we provide for our residents.

In previous discussions, the government of the day has said that residents have ways available to them to appeal a government action or a decision. That’s true. They can talk to department staff. There are appeal boards, in some cases, as I’ve mentioned, and people can talk to their MLA for help. But none of these possibilities provides an impartial forum. Even as Members we’re not impartial. We are also very political. When all options are exhausted and the individual has reached the end of their rope, they have nowhere to turn and they do not see where they can go, they still feel wronged, the only action left to them is to go to court. It’s expensive and it’s an intimidating solution for most of us. NWT

residents fighting a government or a board decision need an alternative to the Supreme Court, and an ombudsman office will give them that.

We’ve been talking about the need for an ombudsman office for years now. There are references to it in Hansard from 1992.There was a proposal for an office as far back as 1993, and a report tabled in this House made recommendations to establish an ombudsman office. But we have had, unfortunately, no concrete action to establish an office to date. The office is needed. The need is evident. Our territory has grown and we have grown up. Part of being grown up and being a grown up is recognizing the need to help our friends and neighbours. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. I’ll allow the seconder, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to thank Ms. Bisaro for bringing this motion for discussion in the House here. I think the timing is right in terms of creating an ombudsman office here in the Northwest Territories. It is an office that would be independent from the government, at arm’s length. It will have the powers to look into matters and issues on behalf of our people, and it will have the powers of, hopefully, the full scope of the government services that we provide. It will be centred around people much like our jobs here in the Assembly.

I see this office here having a lot of visibility for our people, being accessible to the people in the Northwest Territories and that it will focus around resolving issues, differences and finding solutions and being very proactive.

Mr. Speaker, 45 years ago, Alberta was the first government to get an ombudsman office. This issue has been raised three times in the Legislative Assembly through Members’ statements, one in 2007, 2009, and 2010. Our sister neighbouring to the west of us, the Yukon government, has an ombudsman office. That office runs about $500,000, just a little over. It is a powerful office. Again, it can handle complaints from the administration of our government, and I see this as being very, very powerful because it will look at the accountability issue and how we can be accountable to our people, especially to our elders.

I looked at the pros of this office here and it gives us an access point. Right now, as MLAs we are the access point to our government, and we are sometimes swamped with work on a 24/7 basis, and that’s fair, that’s a given. That’s the job that we asked for and that’s the job we accept. Also, we need help. Sometimes a creation of an ombudsman to us would be a godsend support for us. I look at it as we know where to sometimes tell people where they can look for help, besides us, but if they have an ombudsman office, people know where to go. There is a place. For us, we can say, well, go to this

department or this department, but sometimes it gets quite confusing. So we ask that this motion be supported so people then know where to go, and at the office they will tell them what can be done. They also can help us as MLAs and they can be a proactive approach.

Like I said, I looked at the pros and the cons, and one of them is the cost of this creation. This is a huge budget and the Minister has been preaching to us about the fiscal responsibility and we need to look at and take that into serious consideration. We need to weigh out the benefits and the cons of this office, and we have to look at the cost of this office here. I mean, certainly, we need to do this here. Like I said, the office outweighs the cons, so I’m fully supportive of this ombudsman office on this motion and I hope this motion does get implemented. I thank the mover, Ms. Bisaro, for bringing it to the floor. I fully support this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being part of the Standing Committee on Government Operations, the issue of an ombudsman did surface early on in our mandate, as we prepared for the people of the Northwest Territories, and it did receive unanimous support in coming forward, so I really welcome the Member for Government Ops Ms. Bisaro for bringing it forward, and Mr. Yakeleya for seconding it.

Really, in essence, this is an opportunity for this government, for government in general, to become more accountable to the people of the Northwest Territories. There is obviously a gap in our system. There is an obvious gap in terms of offering of services to the people when they need it most. Our legal system, if anyone was paying attention during the budget deliberations on the Department of Justice, we have backlogs. In fact, backlogs as far back as four months. This is very difficult in times when people are looking for that independent advice and may not need to go a legal system for that. An ombudsman would offer that segue and, I hope, unblock some of the unneeded, unnecessary legal actions that are required.

As Members indicated here, we as Regular Members are plagued and we welcome to help our people in the Northwest Territories, but we can’t do it alone. Many of us are quite busy with a lot of the affairs of just being legislators, and sometimes even ourselves, we have a backlog of constituents needing help and we can’t get to them in time. This is where an ombudsman office would offer that opportunity to be independent in nature, as mentioned by the Member for Frame Lake. We, ourselves, are not totally independent. We are in the government process ourselves and we can’t offer that full independence because our being part of the system. That is where an ombudsman office

would have its definite praise and opportunity to be a better tool for the people of the Northwest Territories.

Really, what an ombudsman means, is part of the beginning of what I have been talking about in the government standing committee, is about the government accountability office. This is something we’re going to hear more of in the future of the 17th Assembly. This is a brain child of many other governments and jurisdictions across Canada and North America, where the government itself is evaluated for what it does, independently, and where people can access this information via website with a simple click of a mouse, where they can see where their dollars are being spent, how it’s being spent, if it’s being spent wisely, and is there comfort knowing that this government is doing well.

That’s a future opportunity that I see here for this government, but it starts with an ombudsman office, and for that, I will be speaking in favour of this motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand here and regret that I cannot support a motion of this type. I know that I am not really convinced that this is a right time to have an ombudsman office. As well, I think my biggest concern is I was in the Yukon and the ombudsman office got initiated I think some seven years ago at a cost of around $9 million annually to the government. I don’t think that we can do that right now. The other consideration, as well, is I believe that such a territorial office will be located in Yellowknife again. It is nothing that I can certainly support when it comes to that planning. In the end, I’m not convinced that this is the right time for our government to be spending those type of funds. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Bromley.