Good afternoon, colleagues. Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure you that I have been listening carefully to Members during the recent debate around Junior Kindergarten. I also want to assure you that the Government of the Northwest Territories remains committed to the principle that focused, targeted support during their first years of life will help our children reach their full potential and become healthy, educated, successful adults. Our government has introduced Junior Kindergarten, a program designed to achieve just this result, Mr. Speaker, and has already rolled it out successfully to 23 communities.

I believe that the people of the Northwest Territories agree with this government that our children deserve the best support possible to give them the right start in life. At the same time, I recognize that people have reservations about the way the program is being implemented. The Government of the Northwest Territories respects those concerns, and I want to reassure Members and the public today that we are listening carefully to what they are saying.

We planned for a phased rollout of Junior Kindergarten, Mr. Speaker, to ensure we would have the opportunity to review and adjust the program implementation, and that is what we will do. I want to be clear with Members that before our government goes ahead with years two and three of the Junior Kindergarten rollout, we will do a thorough review of our implementation plans.

That review will allow us to assess the success of the program in the 23 communities already delivering it and to address any issues identified

during the first months of program delivery. It will also allow us to hear again from parents, educators, communities and other stakeholders on their views and concerns. I commit to returning to the Assembly with the results of that review and any required changes to the implementation plans during the coming winter session.

Clearly, we need to do more for our children, Mr. Speaker, and Junior Kindergarten is the way to do it. But it is also clear from the current public debate that our government needs to do more in planning for the continued rollout of this program, particularly in the area of engaging parents, educators and the public.

We remain committed to Junior Kindergarten, Mr. Speaker. We still believe it is the right program for all those parents across the NWT who chose JK for their four-year-olds. We will look to move forward in a way that is sensitive to the concerns of parents, educators, daycare operators, Aboriginal Head Start programs and other stakeholders.

Implementing this program will require changes, we need to be clear about that, but the children of the NWT deserve the support and the advantages that Junior Kindergarten will give them. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the 2013-2014 fiscal year, there was a tremendous increase in the number of visitors and visitor spending in the Northwest Territories, and today I would like to share details of this exciting growth with Members.

Last year we welcomed over 90,000 visitors. This is our highest number of visitors in the last decade and an increase of 20 percent from the previous year.

Visitor spending also rose by 24 percent to $132.5 million.

Tourism is this territory’s largest renewable resource-based sector and these numbers demonstrate that this government and our partners

are on the right track to promoting the NWT as a spectacular destination.

Last year the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment increased funding to NWT Tourism, the GNWT’s destination marketing organization, by $1.2 million. The visitor numbers I just shared with you demonstrate that increased investment in marketing achieves results.

The two largest factors for this increase are aurora viewing and business travel. The number of aurora viewing visitors has been on the rise over the last five years, with a substantial 38 percent increase last year.

The NWT is known as the Aurora Capital of the World and clearly this message is reaching far beyond our borders. Our marketing efforts overseas, particularly in China, Japan and Korea, are paying off, and we expect the demand for aurora tourism to continue to increase.

The number of business travellers also grew by an unprecedented 47 percent and the GNWT is well-positioned to strike while the iron is hot. As I shared with you last week, the NWT Economic Opportunities Strategy recommended we establish a conference bureau to support business travel. We took action on this recommendation and signed a contribution agreement with NWT Tourism to establish this bureau last June.

NWT Tourism now provides support to conference planners looking to host events in this territory. Not only will this strengthen our business travel sector but it will provide spin-off benefits for all sectors, including transportation suppliers, hotels, restaurants, artisans and tour operators in all regions. NWT Tourism has already assisted conference planners who are interested in holding conferences here and is working to attract new ones.

We are also working with our partners and lodge operators to strengthen those areas of tourism that have experienced a decline, such as the number of fishing visitors from the United States. Through better research and the launch of a marketing campaign, we are working to improve these numbers.

Mr. Speaker, last year’s numbers bode well for the future of tourism in the NWT, and ITI is dedicated to seeing all sectors and all communities thrive. With a dedicated industry and focused strategies in place, tourism will continue to provide great economic benefits for the NWT and contribute to a diversified and sustainable economy for our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, the 2014 forest fire season is officially over.

This year a total of 3.4 million hectares of forested land were affected by 385 wildland fires. This was composed of six reported fires in the Inuvik region, 32 in the Sahtu region, 52 in the Deh Cho region, 143 in the North Slave region and 152 in the South Slave region. An estimated $60 million was spent fighting fires in the 2014 forest fire season.

In keeping with established policies, action was taken on 126, or 33 percent, of reported fires to protect values at risk. Wildland fire responses were required on eight large complex fires that had the potential to affect communities and other major infrastructure.

The 25-year average annual fire load is 262 fires affecting 528,000 hectares of northern forest lands.

Core support to the fire program this year included six helicopters and four air tanker groups from both territorial and other Canadian aircraft contracting companies. Several short-term casual helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft were hired through the fire season to supplement the core program. Additional tanker groups were imported from other provinces through the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement, or MARS Agreement, to assist with the heavy fire load.

Twenty-eight type 1 government and contract wildland fire crews were located across the NWT to provide initial attack capacity. Another 175 seasonal and permanent personnel provided direct support to the fire program.

Several additional national resources were brought on over the fire season to help with ongoing fires and initial attack during severe burning conditions.

Four hundred eighty-five EFFs, or extra firefighters, were hired in 2014 for training purposes or in support of fire operations. This included the initial EFFs hired at the start of the season and the additional training camps held in various communities to bring more EFFs on board to cope with the length and severity of the season.

Four hundred sixty-eight type 1 wildland firefighting personnel were imported from outside the NWT under the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement. These imports consisted of crews, aircraft and overhead resources. These crews were composed of eight Canadian provinces and the State of Alaska.

In addition, nine incident management teams consisting of five to 15 people were necessary to coordinate the fire response. There were five from Ontario, two from Alberta, one from British Columbia and one from Nova Scotia/New Brunswick.

Several single resources were also imported to assist with the heavy workload. These included planning specialists, fire behavior specialists, warehouse personnel, two community protection specialist teams and five air attack officers.

Training for the 2014 fire season included seasonal refresher training of type 1 crews, S-100 basic firefighter training, fire line leadership, fuel system training, and fire reporting training for fire clerks, warehouse staff and duty officers as required.

As Members are aware, this was a particularly challenging season for fire crews. The NWT experienced long-term above average seasonal conditions including above average seasonal temperatures and below average precipitation. This resulted in extreme drought conditions that lasted much of the 2014 wildland fire season.

Given the extreme conditions, limited resources and large complex fires, Mr. Speaker, I would consider this a successful fire season in that there was no loss of life, no significant injuries and no significant damage done to any community.

As well as 3.4 million hectares of our northern forests affected, there were, unfortunately, some structural losses, Mr. Speaker. In early July a home on the Hoarfrost River was lost due to fire. High winds and extreme fire conditions caused the fire to switch directions and destroy a home and some outbuildings on the Hoarfrost River.

Again, during the weekend of August 16th , strong

southwest winds and explosive fire behavior conditions caused a fire to jump Moraine Bay and resulted in the loss of the Moraine Point Lodge on the west side of Great Slave Lake. While the Moraine Point Lodge and outbuildings were lost, the fire did not reach the commercial fish processing plant on Moraine Bay.

While the above losses were significant, we must not overlook the effects and losses traditional harvesters are bearing from this past season: approximately 15 cabins including a community complex at Lake 690 north of Fort Providence, and trapping areas removed from use for five to seven years while the land recovers. Our government expects to assist a number of harvesters under our Harvesters’ Fire Damage Assistance Program.

Fires of note in 2014 include the Kakisa complex, which began in late May. This fire was very difficult to contain and spread to 100,000 hectares. The fire caused the voluntary evacuation of the community in July and help from several crews from Alberta, NWT, Saskatchewan, Yukon and Ontario managing this complex over a two-month period.

Due to the community’s significant work FireSmarting around Kakisa and the commendable efforts of the firefighters and air tankers, there were no structural losses and residents were able to return to their community with little to no damage.

The Birch Lake complex, composed of over six fires between Behchoko and Fort Providence, resulted in periodic closure of Highway No. 3 mainly due to extreme smoke conditions. Most of the work on this fire consisted of the construction of dozer guards on the south side of the fire to restrict growth towards Fort Providence and the Forest Management Agreement areas. Four different incident management teams from the NWT and Ontario managed this complex over a two-month period. The Birch Lake complex is estimated to be 650,000 hectares in size.

The Reid Lake complex started from a fire in the Consolation Lake area. The fire was first actioned by fire crews to protect values in the area. It eventually threatened values in the Highway No. 4 Ingraham Trail area and caused the closure of the Reid Lake Territorial Park for a few weeks while crews were stationed at the campground. Incident management teams from Ontario, Nova Scotia and the NWT managed the complex over a six-week period from mid-June through to the end of July. The fire is 365,000 hectares in size.

ZF-085, the fire that was approximately 30 kilometres from Yellowknife and seven kilometres from Highway No. 3, caused the voluntary evacuation of residents along the Yellowknife Highway and a number of public safety updates. The fire burned approximately 15,000 hectares.

Mr. Speaker, over the coming months, ENR will be engaging stakeholders to determine stakeholder values and priorities. FireSmart and value protection is part of our annual comprehensive review. The department will also administer applications for compensation to renewable resource harvesters with re-establishing their livelihood under the Harvesters’ Fire Damage Assistance Program for possible replacement of lost cabins or for clearing trails affected by wildfires.

The department conducts maintenance activities for air tanker and fire bases, fixed detection sites, fuel systems, the lightning detection network, the automatic fire weather station network and radio communications.

Environment and Natural Resources also completed construction of the Enterprise fixed detection tower which will be operational in the summer of 2015.

Under normal seasonal fall weather, cooler and wetter conditions would wet the deeper forest layers and reset drought values. Without sufficient fall rain as well as significant over-winter precipitations, drought conditions may persist into the 2015 fire season.

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt thank you to the men and women from the Northwest Territories, across Canada and Alaska who fought fires on the ground and in the air this

summer. They worked tirelessly to protect us, our homes, our communities and our values during the toughest fire season on record. They faced intense, often grueling conditions, and I am very proud of the professionalism and courage they displayed in our time of need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My colleagues here today have worked hard in organizing a theme day, but it’s important for me to respond to issues raised in this House about securities to the Minister of Lands in respect to Canadian Zinc’s Prairie Creek Mine.

It is important that our government ensure that adequate security for reclamation is in place before the proposed mine starts its activities. These securities are important to protect the health and safety of our public and the environment. Securities are important tools for government to address potential for environmental damage. At the same time, sustainable land use can support strong and responsible economic development in the territory. It can bring new employment and resources that will have real benefits for all residents of the Northwest Territories.

The proposed Prairie Creek Mine has been subject to the rigorous regulatory environmental assessment process under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. Aboriginal governments, regulatory authorities, government departments and the general public participated in the review of the proposed mine. Those views and concerns were considered by the independent board before approving the project.

Canadian Zinc requested the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board adjust the timing schedule for the posting of security under its operating permit to reflect the actual timing of construction activities and planned mining operations. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, Canadian Zinc has committed that they won’t start development authorized by operating permits until this security is in place. It’s important to point out that Canadian Zinc Mines is not requesting any change to the total amount of security and it’s not disputing the security amount.

The Prairie Creek Mine will be an important source of new jobs and wealth for people in my riding and bring new economic activity that will benefit the residents of Nahendeh through infrastructure initiatives and spin-off activities. These activities will

not just be limited to Nahendeh but will also benefit the whole of the Northwest Territories as new resource royalties will support strong economic development for our territory, help diversify our population and strengthen our economic future. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Money ain’t for nothing, cheques for free. That’s according to Dire Straits. Whether it be those lyrics or the band’s name, Mr. Speaker, we’re all, indeed, in dire straits across the Northwest Territories when it comes to the cost of living.

All the great minds in the world should be able to come to the conclusion of why is the cost of living in the Northwest Territories so high. Some of the question my constituents are asking: When will we catch a break? When will the middleclass or the elders catch a break?

Well, Mr. Speaker, when one of the Members is planning to visit the Sahtu, here’s some of the food prices we pay. In Fort Good Hope two litres of milk costs $5.49, and it’s a little more in Tulita at $5.99, and in Norman Wells it’s $6.59. If you’re going to shop in Deline, a dozen eggs will cost you a little more than the Independent store at $3.99 a dozen in Yellowknife. If you’re going to go in the bush, you want some bannock. If you get a can of Klik, that will cost you $5.49. Right there you can see putting meat on the table in the Sahtu costs you a few more dollars than in the capital of Yellowknife.

What if you decide to live off the land and be a trapper? Well, it’s not an easy life, Mr. Speaker, but it’s a good life, especially when you have to go on the land and pay for gas, like in Colville Lake at $2.99 a litre. Perhaps we’ll see more people going back to the dog teams.

But there’s a catch. The barge didn’t make it up the Mackenzie, so food and other goods will have to be flown into the region, and further down the valley, extra costs will fall on consumers when they fly it in.

My colleague from Hay River, Mr. Bouchard, raised a good point about dredging the Hay River. Why aren’t we seeing NTCL barges bringing goods and supplies down the Mackenzie River in the spring when the river is running high, instead of waiting until the fall when the levels are so low?

High gas prices, low oil prices and inflated costs and climate change are putting extra pressure on our household budgets. Half the household earnings are spent on keeping the house warm.

When will we in the North, especially in the small communities, get a break?

I’ll have questions for the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Residents of the North are clearly burdened with astronomical costs: power, heat, food, and gas for cars, ATVs and snowmobiles, transportation to other communities. Nearly everything costs significantly more here than elsewhere in Canada and the world. For many this burden is manageable. They make a good wage, often two in the same family. However, this is not the case for everyone, and a significant number of Northerners struggle to make ends meet, often losing the battle. Our social service and income support statistics bear this out.

Government has gotten into the habit of responding with millions of dollars in subsidies, particularly in the area of power generation. While attractive politically in the short term, subsidies have not addressed the underlying systemic problems yielding ever-rising costs and causing the true costs associated with diesel power generation to be hidden.

For us, this has meant ever-larger debts and requests to big daddy to increase our borrowing limits. Key funds desperately needed for services are vaporized with ever-more-expensive fossil fuels for electricity generation or heating or food.

Environmental and social costs mount both directly and indirectly. We must stop this policy of failure and begin moving towards an economically and environmentally sustainable model.

From now on, if any new energy subsidies are contemplated, they must be matched by an equal and rigorously justified investment in renewable energy infrastructure for heat and power. In addition, we need to begin a schedule and steady replacement of current subsidies with the provision of energy infrastructure that stabilizes and reduces costs and that through its implementation provides local and lasting jobs in every community.

A concerted and focused policy is essential to address our costly, damaging and undermining reliance on diesel. This shift will pay dividends in cleaner energy, reduced costs across our economic sectors, a reduced cost of living and many new long-term jobs, jobs that will have positive effects on every community at every level.

But what’s required, Mr. Speaker? A key feature of this approach, however, must be community

participation that accrues benefits to communities. To achieve this, we must invest in community-owned distributed energy systems or energy systems…

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you. A key feature of this approach must be community participation that accrues benefits to communities. To achieve this, we must invest in community-owned energy systems if we want to build local economies, address cost of living and restore the environment. The time for a serious renewable commitment has come. If not now, when? If not us, who? Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all know there’s a high cost of living here in the Northwest Territories, and the further north you get and the more isolated you get in the communities, those prices go up. The high cost of living in Inuvik is causing many hardships that I have never seen before or that residents of Inuvik have never seen before.

Last week we heard in the House that even though the price of oil has dropped throughout the world, we don’t see that reflected here in the Northwest Territories, specifically for home heating fuel. Why isn’t this regulated? Why don’t we get people bringing the fuel up to the Northwest Territories, buying it at a cheaper cost? We know that they have to pay to get the fuel up here, but yet we don’t regulate at what cost they’re buying it at.

This government also subsidizes the heating fuel for public housing, and from 2010-11, when this government subsidized heating fuel in public housing at the cost of about $6.5 million, and then just recently in this fiscal year, just over $9 million. More recently, we just heard an announcement from this government that we’re subsidizing the Northwest Territories Power Corporation to the tune of $20 million. I ask this government, what about the homeowner? What about the small business operator? What about those people trying to make a living who are contributing to the economy?

From 2011 when the cost of fuel was $1.24 to $1.70 just recently in Inuvik that the homeowner has to pay, this is causing hardships on our people, on our residents and people who have made Inuvik home their whole lives. With the high cost of heating oil, then you add in the high cost of power, you add in there the most recent increase to property tax to residents of Inuvik, and it’s causing

many hardships, as I’ve said, in the community of Inuvik. It’s causing some people to go on income assistance. Not only that, we’re seeing a lot of foreclosures on homes in Inuvik. We’re also seeing a lot of homes that are going up for sale. This high cost of fuel and high cost of living in Inuvik is putting even double-income families at risk.

I will have questions today. We’re subsidizing the Power Corp, we’re subsidizing public housing units, why not the homeowner? Why not the people that do contribute to the community and the people that have called Inuvik home their whole lives?

I’ll have questions for the Minister of Finance later today. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re talking a lot about the cost of living today. So what makes up Northerners’ cost of living? Well, food, water, vehicles and the gas to put in it, lodging, taxes, power, heat, phone, insurance, clothing, entertainment, TV, Internet; it’s a long list. But what can we do about our costs? Some are easily controlled; others, not so much.

I have some suggestions about what we can do. We can increase the Seniors Home Heating Fuel Subsidy. It hasn’t seen an increase in four years, yet we all know the cost of fuel has gone up every year. We can apply concerted pressure to the federal government to increase the basic northern residents tax deduction, which would increase our residents’ tax refunds. We must increase the number of low-cost or public housing units for low-income wage earners. We can apply concerted pressure again to the federal government to change the Nutrition North Program so it’s more effective for NWT residents and really actually does reduce food costs. We can make changes to our taxation regime for agriculture land, lower the mill rate to encourage farming and increase our local food supply, in effect eliminating or reducing our reliance on imported foods. We can put more money and support into community garden programs for the same reasons. We can provide training to residents to develop sustainable local food programs, another way to lower food costs. We can bring back the Community Freezer Program for storage of country foods to feed the community; more lower food costs. We can put a greater focus, or we can start a campaign for healthy foods, provide incentives for residents to buy healthy, natural foods instead of processed food stuffs. We can increase meal programs in schools. Children will be healthier and food costs for families will be reduced.

Then there is power, Mr. Speaker. That is a big cost and a big problem. This government has spent millions exploring power generation and transmission, both concepts now to be abandoned. Instead of spending those millions, we should have been investing far more heavily in alternative energies, for example, and the technology exists, so why do we not have any community biomass power or heating systems in place yet? Where is the NTPC conservation campaign that we heard so much about, the one that will help us reduce our power bills?

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Many of the things I have mentioned are small things, but either on their own or added together they can contribute to a lower cost of living.

This government has danced around the issue of lowering our cost of living without any in-depth engagement on it. We have thrown subsidies at it, instead of taking action to make inroads in how we live our lives. It’s time we changed our thinking or our plans or we will subsidize ourselves into debt. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise with the opportunity to talk about the cost of living as well. What’s important to say is I remember the days when people talked about families with one paycheque. I can’t remember how long ago that was. Any family with one paycheque must be an amazing money manager to this day. Because I will tell you, nowadays two paycheque families are having a tough go at it just getting through their day to day.

As always, I want to give thanks to my favorite champions out there in the government, that’s called the Bureau of Stats, because they have provided me these facts that I will remind the government of. So I can say that in 2014, August that has just passed, 22,200 were employed. Out of almost 32,000 residents that would be normally working, that is still a terrible number. But what is ironic about this is about a 1,500 dip from 2013. My colleague Ms. Bisaro just pointed on the area that I really wanted to narrow in on, the northern residents tax deduction.

You can have all the tax breaks in the world, they can give you anything they want, but the fact is they are useless if you don’t make any money. All tax breaks do is just make people feel good, but if you

don’t have a paycheque, you have nothing to deduct it against.

It has been years since the federal government even acknowledged our northern tax deduction under a residency issue and they bumped it up ever so slightly. As it stands today, it is approximately $16.50 per person per day. That goes down a complicated taxation line which I will stay out of, but the fact is the person can claim up to $6,222 a year. Again, that’s only useful as a deduction if you have a paycheque. Again, families with a single paycheque, how they do it, I don’t know. Two family paycheques are struggling through.

What is time, and certainly necessary in this particular occasion, is that our Premier should be furious about how low it is. It has not kept pace with the cost of living, it has not been indexed in any way, and at this point it is more of an annoyance to fill out on your tax form than it certainly is seen as a benefit.

I encourage our Premier to start getting a little fury and fight back on this stuff. Now he should probably be joining arms with our sister territories and fighting Ottawa about this broken system. An everyday family needs a break, not to be broken the way it is being treated through this cost of living process.

I look forward to the Premier finally doing something on this very important issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today our communities are struggling and challenged with the cost of living. Cost of living regarding the basic needs of food, shelter and, for the most part, is demoralizing in terms of the price. It saps people’s pride and longing for independence. The price of basics such as meat, fish, chicken, vegetables and fruits are way high. The goods are packaged and processed down south and either trucked or flown to communities. If you are fortunate and are one of 50 percent of the people that work in communities, you can buy groceries locally. If you live in public housing, you are charged your rent to the amount of $70 per month or, if you work, 30 percent of your wages. It is not surprising that in smaller communities people are more inclined to supplement their livelihood by hunting, fishing or trapping, but, of course, if you have a skidoo, boat and the necessary equipment to go out on the land.

As the sun sets in the communities, elders, youth and the unemployed are grateful to have lived through another day in the community, and they put

their faith and hope that this government will finally do something about the cost of living.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Next week we will be having the Energy Charrette. The charrette is meant to look at the cost of power and costs of energy in the Northwest Territories, probably one of the biggest costs that most of our constituents currently have. The government is touting this as the opportunity for us to look at all the solutions for the cost of living, but I’m very concerned.

We had an Energy Charrette a couple of years ago, with limited successes. We talked about a power supply system that would link all our grids together, which we know is now ineffective cost-wise, as well as the lack of our borrowing limit. The other issue such as gas prices is always on the constituents’ minds, and one of those factors is our gas taxes. Last week I was asking questions about the reduction of that tax. We should be looking at that type of stuff.

The other area a couple of the Members have talked about in studying taxation is northern residency limiting from the federal government. We know that this has not changed very much. We see in the south where they allow cross-border shopping to increase the volume so that the people down there can live cheaper. What have Northerners had for a tax increase from the federal government? Very little.

Obviously, in this Energy Charrette I hope we’re talking about conservation as well. We need to learn to do more with less. We need to figure out the way that our costs of living are high. A lot of the discussions lately have been about these small houses. What are we doing with them? What’s the potential for that? I have several constituents that are talking about trying to be off the grid as much as they can. We obviously know in the Hay River area there are a lot of people involved in agriculture, trying to replace foods that they’re purchasing currently at the grocery store and reducing those costs.

We need to work at this problem at several different angles.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the most part, when people think about the cost of living, they gravitate to the high price of energy they pay. This would be a normal reaction given that we in the NWT face some of the highest energy costs in the modern world. Admittedly, when asked how to fix this, I’m sure many would point to such alternatives as wind and solar as a way to wean ourselves off fossil fuel.

These alternatives do have merit on displacing carbon emission by lowering diesel consumption, yet from an economic or commercial viability perspective, you would be lucky to recover your capital costs within 15 to 20 years, and by then you’re almost at the point of replacement, so the vicious cycle repeats itself.

To be clear, I’m not saying we shouldn’t make some strategic investments in alternative energies as part of our Energy Strategy, and I am supportive of decreasing our diesel use and carbon emission, but we need to realize that with such a costly capital investment, we are no further ahead of lowering our cost of energy to the consumer, and this needs to be our target.

What is the answer? Well, if you want to wait, as Cabinet suggests, for next month’s costly Energy Charrette and for their report and then a committee report to that and then a Cabinet strategy and then, finally, an action plan, you’ll soon realize that the life of the 17th Assembly will have expired, which is

very convenient. Or we can immediately or economically unlock the power within. But before I give you one solution, which is staring us in the face, let’s ask some questions.

How do we better harness our own production and storage of energy? How well do we manage and produce our own diesel power? Finally, how much unused energy goes up the stovepipe at our diesel power plants? Mr. Speaker, if I have you curious, this continues down the rabbit hole.

After doing a forensic look at more than the $300 million worth of NTPC infrastructure, its production, its capacity and its geolocation, there was one conclusion that emerged that will lower our energy production at the source: recapture unused energy and economically lower our cost of energy in non-hydro communities, and ultimately have a trickle effect for all Northerners.

The solution: The earth is a battery of heat storage potential.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

What this means is we have the capacity to recapture NTPC diesel-produced stovepipe heat, dissipate this heat into the ground, store it in earth tubes and reverse the energy in the winter months via utilidor exchange to heat homes and buildings. This process has many names, such as ground-coupled heat exchange or air-to-soil exchange, yet the principles of these processes all produce the same effect, which is to offer viable and economic alternatives in conjunction with lower diesel consumption.

With the government clearly out of ideas as we embark on yet another Energy Charrette, many Northerners hope this is just not another attempt to shelve at nothingness. We need economic and viable options for energy cost today, and we need real solutions we can all afford. Let’s hope the Cabinet is listening. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No one who lives in the Northwest Territories would deny that the cost of living in the Northwest Territories is something that we need to concern ourselves with and where the government should be investing wisely and prudently to help the overall mitigation of that cost of living.

I think, as a government, we’ve talked about all the many subsidies that we contribute to try to help people with the cost of living, but I think we need to look for ways to empower people to make choices to control, as much as they can, their cost of living as well.

I know maybe this is a broken record, but I had proposed in this House a number of years ago that our government could be doing more to empower people with choices. People feel trapped. That’s the problem, is that people feel trapped in the utilities and the heating and the cost of all the day-to-day things that Ms. Bisaro listed off. Many of those do come with personal choices, as well, and sometimes I think, if I may say, we also need to manage our expectations a little bit as well. Sometimes people do not attempt to live within their means.

Mr. Speaker, my clock is running out. I can’t believe that was two and a half minutes, was it? It must have been set wrong. Was it? Okay, I’ll seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement, but I feel like I just started talking. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent granted

I’m going to go back and check Hansard and see how many words I actually got in in that two and a half minutes.

People need to manage their expectations. We need to empower people to give them choices and options of how they can control their cost of living. People also need to take personal responsibility.

You know, I’m probably not going to be the most popular MLA in the Northwest Territories for saying this right now, but when we talk about the cost of living in all these communities, wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise to see in every community of the Northwest Territories how much people have to spend on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and gambling. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I represent one of the second-most-expensive ridings in the Northwest Territories, next to yourself that is.

My constituents pay the most in this territory for home heating fuel, diesel and gasoline. Diesel in Tsiigehtchic, for example, is $2.05 per litre, which is subsidized, by the way. Gasoline is $1.92 per litre.

We’re actually lucky because the price went down by 12 cents. So you can imagine how much our people are paying up in the Beaufort-Delta and Mackenzie Delta.

Groceries are another thing that’s the most expensive. For one litre of milk in Tsiigehtchic, we pay $7.99. For 10 kilograms of flour, $39.99, and that’s the three communities I represent. Eggs, $6.99 for a dozen. Bacon is anywhere from $8.99 to $26 depending on what type we get. With an employment rate of 35 percent, you can tell how our people are struggling in the northern communities.

One of our priorities is to lower the cost of living. This is something that we really need to focus on within our last year here as the 17th Legislative

Assembly.

I look forward to what the government has in store and I’ll have questions later for the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t often get a chance to recognize my one hardworking staff, my constituency assistant, Ms. Amanda Mallon, and it’s a really special day for her. Not quite as special as Mrs. Groenewegen assistant’s day, but happy birthday, Amanda.

---Applause

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to introduce to you and through you a resident of Range Lake sitting with us today here, Mr. David Wasylciw. Mr. Wasylciw just launched a brand new resource website today called opennwt.ca. Congratulations, David.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize a couple of hardworking constituency assistants, both of whom are residents of Weledeh. Of course my CA, Bob Wilson, a long-time businessman and involved in many aspects of the community with the city and so on. Also, Amanda Mallon, another Weledeh resident involved in many aspects of our community in the NWT. A big welcome to David Wasylciw as well. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Thank you for taking in our proceedings here today. Welcome to the House.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Premier, the honourable Mr. McLeod, some questions on the cost of living.

What is this government’s plan as we move forward to lower the cost of living in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government is doing a tremendous amount to reduce the cost of living. We subsidize the cost of living to the tune of about $200 million a year. We are organizing an Energy Charrette to give more personal responsibility to the people so that they can become more independent through energy generation, and we are also investing in infrastructure as we find that’s the best way to reduce the cost of living. Thank you.

As I mentioned in my statement, we pay the highest costs for fuel, diesel and gasoline in our region.

I’d like to ask the Premier, is that because we’re trucking this into our territory? Would it be cheaper

if we were to barge this into our territory? Thank you.

Of course, it would be cheapest to barge or buy it on the offshore and bring it in by tanker and deliver it by barge to the communities. Obviously, if you truck, the more times you handle the molecules, the more expensive it is. We also, in a large part of the communities, can only bring it in once a year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I think last week, or the week before, I was raising questions with the Premier, but I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation about the cost of delivering fuel.

There is a global oil glut in the world and it’s reducing gas prices across Canada. Why aren’t those gas prices being reduced in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay. Oh sorry, Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, under the Department of Public Works and Services we have a petroleum products division. That division is created with a Petroleum Products Revolving Fund. We have a certain amount of money that we use to buy fuel in communities where it is not feasible for anybody else to go into the community to sell fuel. We take communities in this Member’s riding, like Jean Marie, Nahanni, Wrigley and Trout, and in those communities no other supplier wishes to go in there and supply fuel because it’s not feasible. We are bringing it in at cost and the cost to distribute and that is it. We can charge anywhere from 95 percent of what it costs us to 105 percent, but we try to be at 100 percent as much as possible. Thank you.

When it comes to the cost of living, the purchase of fuel is very important for the small communities. The fuel is delivered once a year. They use it for hunting and trapping, they have to use it to heat their homes, especially in the wintertime, and these are fixed costs.

I’m asking the Minister: Will this government consider some kind of special subsidy, because the local prices are falling, they are almost down to $1.04 in Alberta and I know that eventually it will hit Yellowknife and our smaller communities that they will be reducing the costs. I would like to know, people in the small communities are trapped and once the gas prices and fuel prices start declining,

can this government do something to help our people? Thank you.

The revolving fund that I spoke of is a fund that is put out by the government. It is, again, intended to provide fuel to communities that otherwise would not be able to have any fuel delivered into the community. Within that revolving fund there is no ability for this department or the petroleum division to subsidize any of the communities that they deliver the fuel to. Thank you.

The next logical question is, actually, why not? Why can’t we subsidize these people? The people in small communities deserve to be considered for the fuel prices being fixed and there must be a way to change it. Thank you.

The reason is because we have the revolving fund and that if we were to subsidize one community, we would have to actually take if from another community. For the most part, as I indicated, each of the communities we try to come in at 100 percent of the actual costs for us to deliver that product to a home. In some communities, the smaller communities we have tried to go below 100 percent cost, and in fact, where the subsidy is not picked up by anyone else, like some of the larger communities, at 100 percent will allow us to bring some of the higher cost fuel prices down, but not lower than 95 percent of the cost. Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Robbing Peter to pay Paul I think is what the Minister said, but I don’t think that that’s the kind of solution that the government should provide to the people in the smaller communities.

I’d like to ask the Minister one more time: We just saw government write off $20 million for electrical power rate. Why can he not write off some of that money for the smaller communities that have fixed and locked-in prices?

If we were to change the Petroleum Products Revolving Fund, we would have to come back to the House. This is a fund that’s approved in the House to be able to subsidize or actually deliver fuel to communities where no other individual or private enterprise wishes to venture into. We, as a government, look forward to any community or any organization or industry that wishes to take over delivering fuel. We do it because communities need to have fuel; communities need to have gas. We do it, and we do it at cost.

Like I said, there’s a little bit of flexibility there, but beyond that there is no flexibility in this fund. If we were to build subsidies into the particular fund, then

we would have to return to the House to request that that be something that we put into the fund.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s not all doom and gloom in the Sahtu, but some people are struggling. Whether a young family in Deline, an elder in Colville Lake or a single mother in Fort Good Hope, people are having to pay more to put food on the table and more to warm their houses this winter.

Will the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment tell us about the increase of people relying on income assistance since the drop of oil prices has slowed the economy in the Sahtu?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We are fully aware of the high cost of living in the communities and the income support does reflect on that as well. ECE is working to enhance benefits for clothing, food and other incidental expenses to ensure that clients receive adequate benefits to meet their needs and that we are current with the high cost of living in the communities. We are currently spending upwards of $16 million in income support alone, and there is also a seniors heating subsidy of $1.8 million, and the list goes on. Those are the subsidies that we provide to the communities, and we also keep in mind the high cost of living as well.

I know the honourable Minister doesn’t set the oil prices, but it’s having a huge impact. Let’s shift our attention to the working poor or the single-income families.

Why would income support only grant one purchase order to a mother of twins when clearly she is trying to feed two children? Can the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment explain to this House how a front-line worker could deny the basic support for infants in these remote communities?

With

our

programming there are upwards of 1,600 caseloads within the Northwest Territories and on average 3,300 people access income assistance. We’re mindful of those individuals with dependents, especially if there are twins, even young twins. Those are some of the areas we closely monitor with client service officers. We need to have those individuals access our income support programming because it’s there for them. We do continue to explore those areas and having a

program identified as part of education awareness on to the communities as well.

Can the Minister of Education tell us what emergency measures are available for those who might be in between jobs or students without work? What can they do to ensure they have a roof over their heads this winter and dealing with the high cost of living?

It all depends on the individual. If they are younger than 19, then we have to work with the Department of Health and Social Services. But there are various programs within our income support area, whether it be early childhood or other departmental programs such as emergency measures when it comes to MACA or the Department of Health and Social Services or my Department of Education, Culture and Employment. It is an interagency responsibility and also working very closely with the community organizations that deal with those matters at the community level as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment commit to this House that when he meets with his federal/provincial counterparts that the high cost of living in the Northwest Territories will be a priority item that he can discuss with the other provincial leaders as something that needs to have the full attention of Canada, to raise this issue to know that this issue here is important to people and Members of this House?

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what’s happening. I’m just one part of government that addresses this with my federal counterparts. My colleagues around the table here also stress the importance of the high cost of living. When it comes to remoteness in our jurisdiction, we’re very remote with a high cost of living in our communities. At times federal Ministers and federal representatives are not fully aware of our situation. So it’s always a learning curve when there are changes in the federal government, but it’s a challenge that we always put at the table and we will continue to do so. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for Premier McLeod, following up on my statement from earlier today on related issues.

Recently, Cabinet announced that rather than pass on the true cost of power generated by diesel due to the hydro shortfall we are experiencing because

of climate-change- induced drought in our hydro-generating system, the government would provide a direct subsidy yet again, this time to the tune of $20 million.

Public Works, of course, is replete with hundreds of examples of reducing energy costs through infrastructure with short payback periods.

Is there an equal commitment of $20 million this government is making to provide energy infrastructure identified through rigorous evaluations to provide cheaper power? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we explained the rationale behind the $20 million it was so our clients and every community in the Northwest Territories wouldn’t have to pay an extra 13.7 percent increase in power for two years.

At the same time, we announced that we are holding an Energy Charrette on November 3rd and

4th . We’re committed to investing millions of dollars

so that we can look at alternative and renewable forms of energy and any ways that we can empower the clientele that use energy in the North so that they can find cheaper ways to generate power. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Premier’s explanation of their thinking as far as they got.

Regular Members of this House, of course, were caught by surprise by the announcement of this Cabinet largesse, learning about it the way most citizens of the NWT did: through the media.

Were any members of responsible committees meaningfully consulted or consulted at all on this latest $20 million subsidy Cabinet has come up with?

We have a protocol that we developed amongst all of us in this Legislative Assembly and we conformed to the protocol measures. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Indeed we have, Mr. Speaker. We in this House all swore an oath to uphold the 10 principles of consensus government. Principle number five states, “Except under extraordinary circumstances, Members of the Legislative Assembly should be made aware of and have an opportunity to discuss significant announcements, changes, consultations or initiatives before they are released to the public or introduced in the Legislative Assembly. Use of the element of surprise is inconsistent with consensus government.”

Is Cabinet aware of this guiding principle? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re well aware of it and we gave the Members notice. We told them that we would be coming

forward with some initiative in this area, and I believe we told them at least a week ahead of time. Thank you.

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

I would ask the Premier to reread that principle for himself in some nice quiet time when he can fully comprehend it. Being constantly aware of the principles that we all swore an oath to and honouring the spirit of those principles – just to be sure the Premier heard the spirit of those principles – require the commitment of all Members of this House, the commitment of all Members of this House.

Is the government committed to conducting the business of this House in the spirit of the 10 guiding principles of consensus government? Mahsi.

The Member seems to be opposed to the fact that we assisted all of the clientele that use energy to the tune of $20 million and we’re hearing people are leaving the North because of that, and I’m very prepared to adhere to the principles and I gather that the Member is as well. So, thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve heard some really good questions from Members on this side of the House today in terms of how we’re trying to address the cost of living in the small communities and all communities across the NWT. We’ve also heard subsidies. Just in terms of heating fuel, this government over the last five years, including this fiscal year, has subsidized public housing units and affordable housing units to the tune of $39 million in heating fuel alone. We have residents out there who pay market rent or who also own their own homes.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance, seeing as he does write off on these subsidies, if he’s willing to look at subsidizing specifically homeowners on the high cost of fuel, heating fuel, as well as small business operators. Is he looking at creating some type of subsidy for these individuals who, as one other Minister stated last week, are the backbone of our economy? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last three years with Inuvik’s troubles with their gas wells taking on water and the issue of using propane, between the Power Corp and the government, we’ve put in about $8 million

to make sure we’ve tried to cushion the blow of the loss of the gas. We’ve switched the Power Corp initially to diesel; we switched our buildings back to diesel to make sure we freed up much cheaper gas to the people of Inuvik. On top of that we have a lot of programs for conservation, energy efficiencies, appliances, insulation, windows, which reduce your energy requirements. But as the Premier indicated, we’re talking about it through the Energy Charrette and the focus on generation looking at spending tens upon tens of millions of dollars to assist communities to deal with generation issues. For example, in Inuvik we’ve been monitoring the wind at Storm Hills between Inuvik and Tuk, and we know that there’s a capacity there that we could put in eight or nine megawatt wind generators that would cut reliance on diesel in Inuvik and probably Tuk by half. That’s about a 30 to 40 million dollar price tag. Those are the kind of investments, rather than subsidies, that we think would be of much bigger benefit, would minimize our reliance on diesel, cut all those greenhouse gases and lower the cost to communities.

One of the challenges on the power side is that the residential rates are pegged to the Yellowknife rate. Unfortunately, the business rates are not. They pay the fully burdened cost. So that, as well, is an issue we have to look at as we look at rate structures across the Northwest Territories, especially when it comes to essential services like food. Thank you.

Thank you. We’ve had this discussion throughout the elected Assembly with the issue going on in Inuvik with the LNG fuel shortage, all those concerns brought up before. My question was specific to the homeowner and small business operator and that they can actually get subsidized, so at the end of the day they have a few dollars in their pocket so they can get the essential services, such as food, that the Minister mentioned in his response.

Once again I’d like to ask the Minister, is he looking at some type of subsidy for the homeowner so that at the end of the day they’re not paying the full costs, as well as the small business operator who is paying the full cost? Is there a subsidy to them so that at the end of the day they have a few dollars in their pocket so they can get the essential services? The homeowner and the small business operator. Thank you.

As I indicated, we are looking at trying to minimize the reliance on diesel. We’re looking at a whole host of ways to do that. So no, there is no subsidy for heating fuel being considered. If we did it we’d have to do it for every thermal community, we’d have to do it across the Northwest Territories. It would be tremendously expensive and at the end of the day I don’t think it would do much over the long term to minimize

reliance and encourage people to look at other alternatives other than diesel. Thank you.

I understand that if you do it for all thermal communities that it would get to a high cost burden on government. However, this year alone, ’14-15, we’re subsidizing heating fuel for public housing, affordable housing units in the Northwest Territories to the tune of $9 million. You add to that electrical power, water and sanitation, this year we’re subsidizing all communities to the amount of $25 million, almost $26 million, and that’s not even including any supplementary appropriations that we might see come before committee at some point. So, we’re doing it right now for public housing units.

Why can’t we do it for some communities to our homeowners who are paying high costs and having a hard time making it by? Why can’t we do that? Thank you.

Thank you. That’s part of the $200 million that the Premier referenced that we’re paying in subsidies, and if we’re going to do that for every homeowner and every business in the Northwest Territories, then I would suggest that even the hydro community folks would be there demanding that they have to pay heating fuel as well. I think it would truly beggar this government and would be very counterproductive if we just subsidized the cost of fuel. There would be no incentive for business to drop the prices.

As the world price goes down, they know that whatever they charge we will pay. We’re far better off, the people are far better off if you get off diesel, you put in pellets, you cut your energy costs, you do the things you need to do to get off this substance that’s driving you bankrupt. So that’s the issue that we’re looking at as a government. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is correct in looking at alternative energy sources. A lot of those in past budgets, committee on this side had to do a lot of fighting to get some of those into the operating budgets.

We’ve got about 80 homes for sale in Inuvik. That means people are leaving and wanting to leave. They can’t pay their heating bills or their power bills because it’s too high. That’s 80 homes. That’s a lot of people leaving the community.

I’m not asking for a subsidy throughout the whole Northwest Territories. My Member’s statement and my questions today are specific to Inuvik because of the high cost of living.

Would he look at the community of Inuvik and look at the homeowner and look at the small business operator, which is getting fewer and fewer every year, every month? Would he look just specifically

at the community of Inuvik and see what he could do to help the homeowner and to help the small business operator? Thank you.

We, as a government, have mapped out our next steps, now that we know the transmission project is prohibitively expensive to look at generation in all the communities. That is the plan where we believe there is the ability to seriously affect the cost of living.

The Member would know, as a Member of this Legislative Assembly, while from Inuvik, to look at all the needs of people in the Northwest Territories, that it would not be possible just to look at Inuvik as a stand-alone community for some special subsidy when you listen to the cost of living in McPherson and Tsiigehtchic and Sachs and Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok and Aklavik that we could not in good conscience just look at Inuvik. We are back to the issue of what is the long-term benefit. Are we just enabling and are we better off to do the planning to get people off diesel rather than just keep subsidizing and putting more money in the pockets of the oil companies and the big energy companies? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to take a break from asking questions about the cost of living. My questions today are just for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I want to follow up to a motion passed in this House in March which referenced the need for AEDs and defibrillators in our public buildings.

I would like to thank the Minister for the response to the motion that was passed in March. The response by the Minister was tabled by the Minister on the 16th of October. In the response it references some

of the work that has been done to date. I appreciate that we have done some work to date. There is a plan that is suggested in that response and one of the things that it mentions is it talks about a lot of partnerships, but one partnership is to partner with the federal government who has free money for us for AEDs.

I would like to first ask the Minister, what progress has been made by MACA to apply to Canada for funding available for AEDs for NWT public buildings? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not quite sure of the status of the application right now. I can tell the Member that we

have met with the NWT Fire Chiefs Association, the NWTAC and the Heart and Stroke Foundation to partner up to access this national application-based funding. So, we’ve started the work with them. We also started the project plan. We have initiated project plans, and stakeholders will be surveying all the communities to determine their needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister. As in the response that was tabled a couple of weeks ago, I hear a lot of the tense of the verbs is in the future. I would hope that we are going to be soon present tense and doing work as opposed to we will be doing work.

The federal program is a four-year program that started in 2013, so we are already one year in.

I would like to ask the Minister, in terms of the applications for money to get AEDs for free, are we going to make the deadline of the four-year program? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not quite sure of the status of the application. I will follow up with the department and provide a response to the Member. I did say we did meet with our partner organizations to start the application process. I’m not quite sure where that’s at right now. I will find out and I will respond to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister. I do appreciate that there is work going on, I’m just a little nervous that in three years’ time we are going to get to the end of the road of the federal money and we won’t have anything in hand.

The Minister has mentioned twice now that he’s working with partners and developing partnerships and so on. One of them is the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

I would like to ask the Minister if he’s aware of an offer from the St. John Ambulance organization, who is offering to assist GNWT with the program, and if yes, has he contacted the St. John Ambulance? Thank you.

We are partnering with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in trying to develop some of our curriculum through the School of Community Government as to training on the AEDs and the maintenance of them. As far as the St. John Ambulance, I’m not quite sure of that one in particular. Again, I will follow up.

Any partnership that we can form to help us train first responders or people in the communities on using these particular types of equipment would be more than welcome. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I am happy to provide him with a copy of the letter. I will do that immediately after session.

I would like to ask the Minister, he is talking about doing a survey of communities for needs. I presume that means the number of public buildings and the number of AEDs that they would need.

Can he give me any idea of when we can expect the survey results so that we will know our needs and can get going on further applying for money? Thanks.

[Microphone turned off] …question number four is when. I will find out for the Member. We would like to start the work as soon as possible. There are other ways the community can access some money to pay for these through the money that we provide for them. There is also some money through the ground ambulance funding that we provide to get a particular type and model that’s available to use in vehicles of first responders.

We started the work. The work is underway, and once we get the results of all the work and the survey, we will be sure to share that information with Members of the Legislative Assembly and members of the committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be directed towards the Premier. In my Member’s statement I talked about the northern residents tax deduction.

My question would be to the Premier as such, which is: When is the last time this government or any recent previous government has requested an increase to the northern tax deduction, and if there has been one in recent years, would he have anything to substantiate that so we could see what type of letter or correspondence on the particular issue has been done and certainly what work has been made on this particular issue that can help the working poor and certainly make a big difference in the everyday family’s bottom line? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On January 1, 2008, the northern residents deduction was increased 10 percent, from $5,475 to $6,022.50, the first increase since 1991. Our government has been working with the governments of Nunavut and Yukon to look at requesting an increase in the northern resident deduction. Three territorial Finance Ministers

reviewed this, and on October 31, 2012, the Finance Ministers reported to the Northern Premiers’ Forum and also outlined a possible work plan.

Their report noted that increasing the northern resident deduction would decrease personal income tax revenues for federal, territorial and some provincial governments. It would not benefit low-income families and would only benefit high-income northern taxpayers. In addition, we would require the support of six provinces whose northern residents also receive the northern resident deduction would need to be reconfirmed. At the time, we decided it was not in the best interest of our low-income families to pursue this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, what analysis really is broken out of this low-income factor? The Premier is right; it’s more than one jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, there is the A-base and there is the B-base, and the A-base, for sake of illustration, is the three territories. The B-base, which is a lesser tax deduction, affects places like northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan and works its way across Canada. But with that illustration, we should be really asking ourselves, how do we encourage people to live here in the Northwest Territories, and by waving off those folks for whom this could make a difference is certainly staring down the situation in the wrong way.

What analysis do we really know? What type of impact? Would our government be prepared to do that type of analysis to find out would it still benefit all Northerners at large? If you don’t have a paycheque, it doesn’t matter what the tax deduction is. It’s the working poor and those people trying to continue to find the North still attractive. That analysis is critical. I look forward to the Premier’s answer on that particular effort. Thank you.

The tax collection agreement between the Northwest Territories and Canada requires that both jurisdictions use the same definition of taxable income. A northern resident deduction increase would reduce federal and territorial personal income tax revenue. In our forensic review, the 2008 increase in the northern resident deduction raised the maximum deduction to $6,022.50. At the highest combined federal and territorial tax rate of 43.5 percent, the $547.50 increase would provide annual savings of $235 for tax filers claiming the maximum $6,022.50. The Government of the Northwest Territories’ annual costs for this federal tax measure is about $800,000 per year.

Undoubtedly, a northern resident deduction increase would provide an incentive for people to stay in the North, but we’ve looked at the numbers. Say we wanted to get the federal government to increase the northern resident deduction by $700 a

year. Let’s say we go from $6,022.50 to $6,728. The estimated cost to our government is $720,000. Let’s say we want to increase it even further from $6,022.50 to $8,500. It’s going to cost our government an extra $2.46 million a year.

I’m a little confused on the particular part about it actually particularly causing our government grief, if not financial, on the money on the bottom line. Maybe the Premier can illustrate why it actually costs us money when it’s a federal tax credit. That’s the area we should be arguing for. At the same time, this could be what starts to underpin successful growth in our territorial population, because right now we have very little.

The Premier, I think, said earlier today that we subsidize to the tune of $190 million. In that range. I mean, the exact number is not so important at this second, but the point is that we’re trying to find ways to grow our population. This is certainly one that would help those who can certainly make some money. Has the Premier considered that? We don’t need the permission of the other six provinces. We need Ottawa’s permission on this type of initiative.

The reason it costs us money is it reduces the amount of personal income tax that we collect. For example, the 2008 increase, since the claimed amount must be the lesser of the maximum allowable of $6,022.50 and 20 percent of net income, taxpayers with net income of less than $30,115 will not benefit from a northern resident deduction increase.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the answer from the Premier. I mean, it certainly goes a long way of appreciating the complexity of this issue. The bottom line is, how are we putting more money in Northerners’ pockets? It had been frozen at approximately $5,400 for decades and finally migrated by 10 percent to just above $6,000 in 2008. The bottom line is, how do we get money in Northerners’ pockets, because we know more money in a family’s pocket is really going out into the community to buy that Klik, my colleague from the Sahtu had said, whether it’s buying gasoline for their skidoos, or buying their children presents and helping to pay that costly rent and stuff. It’s initiatives like this the Government of the Northwest Territories can shelter the cost of it a little better by letting working people keep some of their working money.

Would the Premier re-examine it from that analysis, that if we can get more money in Northerners’ pockets, no doubt they’ll be spending it in our economy where it’s exactly where we would be doing it anyway?

That is our objective and we want to get more money in Northerners’ pockets.

We’re always being very vigilant in this area as well as looking in other areas such as reducing energy costs, so the Energy Charrette, we expect, will go a long ways to that end as well.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.