Yes, the review is complete. We are actually looking at making actual changes to the medical travel, to improve the medical travel system for the patients. I don’t have the specific dates on when the changes will occur, but the review is completed. We know what the problems are. It’s just a matter of incorporating change into the system now.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Mr. Speaker, as the Minister indicated, if medical travel is required, a physician is required. Communities that don’t have health centres, in particular Kakisa, if a patient has to travel to either Hay River or Yellowknife, they make a decision. If there’s going to be a review of the policy, can that be considered to accommodate the needs of residents from Kakisa that doesn’t have a health centre? Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, yes, that is going to be part of the review. In places where they don’t have any nursing or places that don’t have any actual health centre or nursing station, we’re going to try to accommodate those communities as much as possible in the new changes to the Medical Travel Program.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement. I mentioned in my Member’s statement that a possible option to assist with the teachers’ housing is to change the regulations to allow education authorities to own property. So I’d like to know from the Minister why the department has not considered that as an option to date and why it’s not allowed for district education councils and authorities. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is an area with a broad perspective beyond the ECE department and beyond the school

boards. It is the GNWT as a whole, because we do have all the professions within the GNWT. So if we need to change that regulation, then it would have to be the GNWT changing the regulation. If we do it for one, then there will be others lining up.

So I think we need to strategically look at the overall regulations we have, how they impact on different departments. So that’s what we need to discuss, and we have discussed that with the Housing Corporation and Human Resources in the past. Maybe we can review those areas.

There’s also the education renewal engagement that we’re going through, and part of that is small schools and professional staff. So I’m sure that will be captured as well. So those are discussions that we are currently having. Mahsi.

I’m not quite sure why these regulations would be so far-reaching and so widespread, but I’ll take him at his word and wait to see what comes of any discussions that go forward.

Another possibility that I didn’t mention but that could conceivably be out there – and it’s something that was previously done and then was dropped, but it has happened in the past – is that the NWT Housing Corporation has bequeathed property to education authorities and has maybe even set up mortgages with those authorities.

I’d like to ask the Minister whether or not he would consider discussing with the Minister for Housing to allow education authorities and education councils to receive NWT Housing Corp property and enter into a mortgage at a zero or a preferred mortgage rate, if possible.

There is a partnership approach and I’m working closely with the Housing Minister. They do have a strategy in place to deal with the shortage, whether it be housing for staff in the communities, especially the most isolated, non-market housing. They are in the process of developing multi-family rental properties in non-market housing in the communities, so focusing on where there’s a high demand. So there is already work in play. I’m really working closely with the Housing Corporation and also the Minister responsible for Human Resources because we need to capture all the proficiencies in the Northwest Territories.

My interest will be, of course, the teachers. We need to house those teachers every fall time. To date we’ve been lucky, but we know there’s high demand. So we’re going to be focusing on those areas.

I appreciate that the Minister is working with different partners. He’s mentioned that a number of times and that certainly was something that came through in the NWT Teachers’ Association report, was that this is not an issue that can be dealt with by just one entity. It is a difficult

problem and I don’t think it’s going to be something that’s going to be solved easily.

I’d like to know from the Minister if he can advise, considering all the number of different pieces and all the number of balls that are in the air, how he is going to be able to coordinate the work that needs to be done. How is he going to involve the partners that are out there and set up what is necessary? Thank you.

The Member already alluded to some areas where management of property arrangements have been made with DECs and DEAs, and either with the local bands, local development corporation, private companies or even the other unique partnerships. With this, there is also – I’ve just been informed by the Housing Minister – some home units in the communities, homeownership program, that could be potentially converted to be made available to these professions in the communities. Those are some of the key areas that we are currently discussing, and we want to make as many units available, especially in the most isolated communities. Those are our targeted approach.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just would like to say to the Minister, he mentioned we’ve been lucky so far. We’ve been lucky to put teachers into housing, but it hasn’t been acceptable housing. It certainly hasn’t been housing that has been to the standard that we would expect if we were living in it.

The other possibility with the Housing Corporation is that, yes, they may provide an actual building, but it does not necessarily mean that the rents are going to be acceptable.

I’d like to ask the Minister, he’s talking about working with different partners and working closely with the Housing Corporation, working with the NWT Teachers’ Association. I realize that there needs work to be done, but I’d Iike to ask the Minister when are we going to see a report with the recommendations that the various partners are suggesting to get us out of this housing issue for teachers.

As we indicated, there are various partners involved, the Housing Corporation, again, Human Resources, and our department, ECE, working hand in hand with the DEA and DECs. We need to get their feedback. That’s what we’re engaged on. Even through various venues such as educational renewal, ASA, we’ve heard over and over about the housing shortage, providing us with the solutions. This is an area that we want to deliver in house. Once it’s available, we’re going to deliver it to standing committee, potentially from the three or two of us as

the Ministers responsible for those areas. When that opportunity arises, we will definitely be before standing committee if we need to make any changes.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are of the Minister of Public Works in regard to a project and some questions I had raised in regard to this government awarding contracts to southern contractors and coming back with change orders that increase the cost of the initial project.

The project in question is the demolition of the Samuel Hearne Secondary School. I’d like to ask the Minister: What was the original cost of the contract, and to date, what is the total cost of the contract on top of what was originally awarded in the tender bid and the amount of change orders applied to the project?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Public Works, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The original cost, or the value of that contract, was $1.25 million. Since that contract was awarded, there have been three change orders, one for $741,000, one for $373,000, and one for $86,000, which brings the current contract value up to $2.451 million. The costs are related to the removal of asbestos and asbestos-contaminated material discovered during the demolition, which was not included in the original Hazmat assessment completed by a northern consulting firm prior to tender. In this case, anybody who bid on that contract would have been bidding based on that original study, and all firms, regardless whether they are southern or northern, would have had to have change orders.

There are a couple concerns here. Obviously, one from our local contractors not getting the awarded bid under some discrepancies with the Business Incentive Policy, but then also coming back, in their eyes or their perception, the southern contractors getting a change order without…(inaudible)…details. I’m glad that the Minister made reference to the Hazmat assessment, because right now we’re going to be going through some more demolitions with the Sir Alexander Mackenzie School, not to mention the Aurora College family housing units.

Will the Minister agree to fixing up the Hazmat assessment protocol so that when we get those bids coming through, the bids reflect what the

Hazmat assessments do and we don’t have to keep on creating these change orders?

Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. We have already taken those steps, lessons learned from the demolition of the Samuel Hearne. We have the original contractor who did the Hazmat assessment of SAMS was the same one who did Samuel Hearne. Since we got back the information on Samuel Hearne, we have actually gone and got a secondary Hazmat assessment done. But in the contracting of this next school and any future projects, we will provide a complete up-to-date Hazmat. We are also going to require contractors who wish to submit to go through the school or go through the area that we are going to do a demolition on and do their own assessment so they can put in a fair and accurate price. We will be looking more on a fixed price, based on an accurate Hazmat assessment. This should eliminate the need for significant change orders like we have seen in this particular contract.

Just as a note, although there have been some change orders, this project is still within the established budget. We haven’t gone over. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in regard to this project, the timeline, I wanted to ask the Minister in the initial contract that was awarded, is this company on time to get the demolition work done or are they progressing beyond the timeline that was allocated that they had mentioned when they put in the tender bid? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, originally this project was slated for completion for March 31, 2013, but as the Member knows, because he lives in Inuvik and he has seen the school which is still standing, we didn’t finish on March 31, 2013. The new date is June 20, 2013. That is when we expect the school to be done, the site to be open.

The reason it was delayed is because ceiling tiles and fume hoods not identified in the original Hazmat were identified during Hazmat deconstruction. There is asbestos in the drywall that wasn’t identified in the original Hazmat assessment and mudded pipe joints which contain asbestos were also not in the pipes. We had to get those things out of the school before we could move forward with the actual teardown. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.