This is page numbers 1859 – 1898 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 4th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was work.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. Yes, with 30-some students in second year, I think this fall would be a great target for the Minister.

The Minister announced the review of the implementation of the reorganization and so on with our Aurora College. It is just about to get off the ground. Will the Minister include consultation with students on their priorities and perspectives when he is doing a review of this reorganization? Thank you.

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Monfwi

The college review, we are talking about the clear roles and responsibilities of the staffing and so forth. With the programming, there are all of these opportunities for the students’ input. I would like to hear their perspectives. I have met with the students here, the post-secondary students, and also those students that were in the diploma-granting and Social Work Program. Those are the key people that we need to listen to. In order to have this program delivered here, we need to gather all the facts and what the students’ input is and so forth. Definitely, I will be passing on to the college, through the president and the board chair. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to ask the Minister a few questions in and around the Child and Family Services Act review that was done by the Standing Committee on Social Programs in the 16th Assembly. It was a great deal of work. The

Minister is well aware because he was chair of the committee at the time that we did that work.

This is the report that was tabled in the House. It has many recommendations, 73 to be exact. It was tabled on October of 2010. I have to say that I feel, at this point, that we haven’t made much progress on these recommendations. We haven’t made much progress on getting ahead on many of the recommendations that are in the report.

One of the things that the report asks for at the very end, it is almost the last recommendation I think, is for Health and Social Services to develop a strategic plan to deal with the recommendations from this report.

I would like to ask the Minister to provide for me and for the House an update on what the department has been doing, what recommendations he can tell us in regard to the strategic plan, what recommendations have been acted on and where we’re at with that plan. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A lot of the recommendations of the 73 recommendations involve revision to the act itself, the Child and Family Services Act. Our department is acting on some of the recommendations such as the incorporation of the child and family services committees in the communities which are not having much uptake. Also, expanding Healthy Families the quicker the better, it’s directly involved with early childhood development. But the majority of the work that needs to be done would be done after there are amendments to the Child and Family Services Act, and we’re on target to present a legislative proposal on the Child and Family Services Act in 2013. Thank you.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thanks to the Minister for that. I guess I’d have to disagree with the Minister, I don’t think it’s the majority that are legislative changes. Certainly, there are a lot of changes suggested to legislation and I’m really glad to hear that there will be an LP coming in 2013. That’s this calendar year. So that’s a good thing.

The Minister mentioned one of the actions the department has tried to put into place, and that’s child and family service committees within our communities. I appreciate that there has been some difficulty in getting these committees organized, but I have heard from my colleagues, from Members on this side of the House, that there are communities who do want to establish a child and family service committee and they are not getting any uptake from the department. So I’d like to ask the Minister if he can explain why we can’t get these child and family service committees established. Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you. I don’t know the exact reason. Reasons vary, I do believe, from community to community on why the committees were unable to strike these committees. They vary from not wanting to be involved in the child welfare of other people, and sometimes communities are so small that all child protection and child welfare issues seem to be of a relative child and so on. For some, actually, the fact that the authority staff are not consistently meeting with the community and putting a consistent push into trying to get these child and family services committees struck and operational is largely due to the fact that we have lots of social worker vacancies. So some of it is that, but a lot of it is just the communities not being interested in doing this. Although we think it’s an essential part of child protection, the communities see it as difficult work. Thank you.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

I thank the Minister for the explanation, and I guess I would encourage Members who feel they have a community that wants a child and family service committee to get in touch with their community leadership and have them, with the Member perhaps, get in touch with

the Minister, because I know there are at least one or two communities where I have heard that Members want to get a child and family service committee started.

A lot of the recommendations that are in the report require money, and that was accepted in the 16th Assembly by the committee, that there was a need to put money into budgets in order to get many of these recommendations done. However, I’d like to ask the Minister what money exists in the 2013-14 budget that is specifically addressed to Child and Family Services Act review recommendations. Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you. A lot of our work, our regular health and social services work does address a lot of these recommendations. Like I indicated earlier, there will be some that we can’t do because we will be waiting for revisions.

We will continue to run about a half a million, $500,000 in trying to create child and family services committees. Also, we’re expanding the Healthy Families. Again, another key program that was requested through the recommendations of the review and we’re expanding that. We are trying to, I think this coming year we’re expanding into all communities in the Sahtu. That would be an expansion into all of the regions. In Deh Cho we’ve gone Simpson, Liard, Fort Providence, as an example, Inuvik, McPherson, and the Healthy Families there want to expand into Tuk and Aklavik. So as we expand the program and provide supports to the authority, it seems like that program is going to grow, and we’re going to try to accommodate that, and we’ve put money in the budget now to expand into the Sahtu and then we’ll continue to put money in the budget to expand that very important program. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I agree that the Healthy Families program is a good program, but I would suggest to the Minister that the lack of focused money in the ‘13-14 budget, apart from that one program, is not going to the recommendations from this report.

I want to ask the Minister, I have a special concern for a recommendation in this report that talks about a gap in services for youth aged 16 to 18. The act talks a lot about children, it does not talk about youth. What is the Minister and the department doing to address the gap in services for children aged 16 to 18? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you. Unfortunately, I do not have the latest detail on what we’re doing to close that gap with 16 to 18 year olds in the NWT within the act. I’m almost positive that it’s going to require revision to the act as per the legislative proposal, but I can’t say 100 percent that we can do

more without a revision. So I will commit to the Member and to the Assembly to update the Members on that specific item within those recommendations. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the Minister of Finance. Our fiscal relationship between Ottawa and the NWT will reach an imminent crossroad in less than one year when our current Territorial Formula Financing, or I’ll refer to it later today as TFF, comes up for renewal.

I cannot stress enough, the very fabric of our territory’s survival depends clearly on this funding. Yet, with less than one year from now we have not discussed the austerity effects should a major shift occur.

Could the Minister of Finance clearly indicate to this House what is the current landscape and ongoing discussion with the upcoming renewal date of the Territorial Formula Financing arrangement? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Formula Financing Agreement as we know it is going to be continued until 2018. Thank you.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you. Ottawa expects a North of self-reliance, vital communities, the management of our own affairs, strong and responsible and accountable governments, but it appears that the subject of how to finance these healthy initiatives are being offered, as we heard, a status quo position. It is clear that we have inadequacy of federal financing for the North, so what is this Minister going to do to mitigate the situation? Thank you.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you. This agreement we have with the federal government has stood us in good stead and will continue to do that. It recognizes the commitment from the federal government to provide certainty until 2018, especially with the health transfer and the social transfer. In fact, we’re one of two jurisdictions that saw an actual benefit and increase on the health side because of this new arrangement.

We’re doing the things that we’ve talked about as a government to control our expenditures, to put money aside for infrastructure to do all these types of good things. We have devolution coming which is

going to give us royalties, resource royalty sharing agreements, which is a very critical piece. This is real money coming from development that currently happens where the benefit to resources now goes to Ottawa. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Before we continue with oral questions, I’d like to welcome former Member Mr. Krutko back into the House today. Welcome, David. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you. I disagree with the Minister. I don’t believe our territorial financing formula has served us well. In fact, our constitutional principle is that every northern Canadian should enjoy, “reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.” This is coming from the Government of Canada Northern Strategy: Our Vision and Our Heritage, 2009. This clearly shows that the TFF falls short of this principle. So what is this Minister of Finance doing for all NWT residents to address our right to equality for a better deal with Ottawa? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are getting about $1.1 billion. Over 70 percent of our income as a government comes from the Territorial Financing Formula for 43,000 people. If the Member does the math on a per capita basis, we have one of the best deals in the country.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I categorically disagree with the Minister on that comment. We have been told too many times in this House that devolution dollars will solve all our financial problems and I say, with caution, this is not so. I equally say that the TFF is also not the panacea for the territorial expenditures that we have. We have had long-standing deficiencies in infrastructure and socio-economic development in the territory. What is this Minister and what is this government going to do to balance the equation with Ottawa? Thank you.