I know there was a lot of miscommunication within a certain area within the Beaufort-Delta region there, and moving forward, as we go through the shared services and innovation planned strategies, that when we have the Department of Health and Social Services and possibly the Department of Human Resources that are giving this information out, that it’s on the same level of input and the same level of message being sent, because it has caused some stress and caused some insecurities within our employees of the GNWT. Thank you, Madam Chair.

With changes there are often glitches, if you will, and we are aware of the concerns the Member is bringing up. We remain committed to our original commitment, which is no loss of the number of jobs in the regions and communities. There would obviously be some changes in reporting relationships and maybe some

functions within individual jobs. Recognizing this, the CEOs are meeting next week to talk about their change management process on this to bring back some clarity to something that should have been fairly simple.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As we all are aware, the directorate is really the strategic think-tank and the overall coordinator of pretty much the Department of Health, and so with that I expect a certain level of, I guess, leadership. We know that the management of drinking water is a shared responsibility with a number of other departments here in the Northwest Territories. However, because we share this responsibility, no lead department takes that active role as being the leader, and that’s the concern that I think a lot of Members have and have expressed many, many times. Unfortunately, with all the emphasis, especially as of late with the Obed spill and potential tainted water in our waterways as we know today, you would think that the testing of water would be a high priority because this is what we’ve been hearing time and time again.

Now, if one goes on the MACA website, which really is the only website that we have at our disposal publicly to show what our water quality is like – are we doing the proper chemical testing and the bacteriological testing – if one goes on this website you would think that there would be testing which is, under our guidelines – there are national guides on testing – once a month in all our communities across the Northwest Territories on both chemical and bacteriological testing. This is not happening. This is not, indeed, the case. In fact, in lots of communities, based on the data that we have on the database on-line, which is our only public document of the availability of this information, some of this information is from 2011, some of it is from 2012, and we have some from 2013. In some cases we have one test in that year, and clearly we have to do monthly testing. That is our obligation.

Can the Minister tell the House, tell the people of the Northwest Territories if water testing is so important why are we not putting it publicly on record?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Water quality tests are required under the Water Supply System Regulations and the chief public health officer requires that the following water quality testing for treated water, so we do test drinking water on a regular basis. As far as public waters, we work with I believe it’s MACA who has the lead on sampling rivers and lakes. ENR. Sorry, ENR has the lead on that.

Again, this department shares a responsibility with other departments in this government to make sure that that information is readily available. On top of that, if you look in that same database, again, Department of Health has a shared responsibility. The last annual report on drinking water was tabled in 2011. In 2011. That’s quite a long time ago. Again, what is this department going to do to make sure that that information is readily public? ‘

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Ms. DeLancey.

I appreciate the deputy minister’s response to that. I’m looking forward to that report. Under the same title, strategic leadership, and basically as a coordinator, I will take the liberty, an opportunity to talk a little bit more about the Anti-Poverty Initiative, which really falls under, because this is a social envelope committee lead here, can the Minister indicate what new monies, total new monies, are being involved with this new initiative? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’re just pulling out the exact details. We have it. It’s on one of my sheets here, I know that. But to start off, we have the $650,000 that was identified on the previous page, 8-14, that I already answered Mr. Bromley on. We’ve got some money in for a senior advisor position, which is $163,000. We’ve got money in for the anti-poverty roundtable meetings, research and communications. This is the development and working towards the development of the territorial action plan, $60,000. I actually have a sheet that has all this on it, I just don’t know where it is. Can we just get a second, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Minister. We’ll just take moment to find that information. While we’re waiting I wanted to congratulate the men’s Olympic hockey team on their win.

---Applause

We got a chance to watch it together in the Member’s lounge and there was a lot of adrenaline there and that wasn’t so long ago and, of course, we were all looking for a break anyway. So let’s carry that forward into our meeting today. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn’t have that memorized off the top of my head, but I conveniently had that information available, but I’ve got eight binders here so it was a little hard to find it.

The Health and Social Services department has $1.073 million dedicated to anti-poverty funding. In total the government has $2.6 million going towards anti-poverty. Within the Department of Health and Social Services, we have $200,000 under the Healthy Food for children and youth. We’re providing food vouchers for families in need through the Healthy Family and Collective Kitchens Program. So that’s $200,000. The remaining $800,000 in this area is coming through Education, Culture and Employment. We’ve got $500,000 as I’ve previously indicated for NGO and Aboriginal government initiatives that is falling under the Department of Health and Social Services. We have the $60,000 that I’ve already mentioned for the annual multi-stakeholder meetings and the work towards the development of a territorial action plan. We have $163,000 that’s in the Department of Health and Social Services for the anti-poverty coordinator, who is supporting the group and doing research in administration. We’ve got $75,000 going to the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority to fund for the day programs, and in this case for 2013-14 they’re using it for a wet shelter, and we’ve got $75,000 for the Day Shelter in Yellowknife. So in the Department of Health and Social Services, $1.073 million.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just doing some quick math here. So in essence I think the Minister said overall new money initiative, if my math is correct, is two million six-some thousand dollars. With this new money, is this something that we’ll look forward to seeing on an annual basis as we build future budgets? I mean, are we seeing this grow, is there a force of growth factor in that number or is that just a starting figure for the 2014-2015 budget? Thank you.

Thank you. The $1.073 million in Health and Social Services and the $1.53 million in the other departments totaling $2.603 million are additions to the base.

Thank you. I appreciate the Minister giving me that number. With the overall and daunting task of the Anti-Poverty Action Plan, what percent of this new money of the overall $2.6 million – let’s round it off – are we really putting towards the overall plan and what percentage of funding is left that is still left to be paid within the plan? Thank you.

Thank you. We have put these dollars in based on the actions in the plan. There aren’t any additional dollars at this point

for ’14-15 and any dollars that come in the future will certainly be discussed and debated through the business planning process and future budgets.

Maybe I’ll rephrase my question a bit better here. We are definitely putting a dent into poverty with this current budget, I’m not going to deny that. I applaud the government for at least putting that small amount in, I’ll use small, but I think poverty is going to be a lot more than just $2.6 million.

Again, we’re talking about strategy, we’re talking about overall coordination and forward thinking here. What is missing in terms of hitting those highest points possible within the strategy? Are we just tackling 15 percent of the overall plan in this budget? How much more is entitled to the overall success of the plan? Thank you.

Thank you. Currently everything in the GNWT’s response to the framework is funded and identified to be funded within the plan. We hope to, with partners, leverage for more dollars to combat poverty here in the Northwest Territories, but I must remind everybody that this $2.6 million we’re talking about is new investment into the combat against poverty. There are a number of actions within the action plan that already have dollars associated with them and a bunch of the work being done by departments like the Housing Corp are part of the strategy to combat poverty in the Northwest Territories but don’t necessarily have any dollars allocated towards them.

As we move forward and we hear from the stakeholders group on the development of the territorial action plan it will help us to continue to evolve and mold our response, our GNWT response, which may indeed include future activities, but we have to do that all recognizing our fiscal limitations as a territorial government.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Next I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions here, but I’ll first ask a question following up on Mr. Dolynny’s question about the Anti-Poverty Strategy funding. The action plan for the Anti-Poverty Strategy hasn’t yet been finalized. That’s going to happen sometime in the next number of months and I certainly look forward to that, but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that I had been advised that once the action plan was done, in addition to the money that’s in this current budget, that there might be a supp coming forward to fund the actions in the action plan. So I’d like to ask the Minister, once the action plan is done and there are actions determined that we need to act on, is it potentially possible for the government to come forward with a supplementary appropriation to fund some of those actions in the Anti-Poverty Action Plan? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.