The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Good afternoon, colleagues. I would like to take this opportunity, as I do during each sitting, to acknowledge those of our friends and families who have passed away since we last met. There have been some tragic losses in our communities and I extend the condolences of this House to all who are grieving the loss of loved ones. We grieve with you. My thoughts and prayers for the communities of Sachs Harbour: Tyson Lennie, mother Sarah Lennie, Freddy Lennie, our thoughts and prayers are with you; Tuktoyaktuk: Troy Taylor, parents Laura Raymond and Ronnie Taylor; my aunt Bessie Raddi, her husband, Jim, and children Greta, Roxanne, Tyrone and Tiffany, and all the grandchildren, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Today I am unable to attend the funeral service of one respected elder in my home community and I wish I was there to be with you all, but my thoughts and prayers are with you for Christina Felix, a well-respected elder. Her children Eileen, Jim, Willie, Emmanuel Jr., Clarence and Dolly, Wayne, Thomas and Deanna, my thoughts and prayers are with you for this day.

Ulukhaktok: Renie Oliktoak passed, her children Katie, Mary, Annie, Elik, Agnes, Sadie, Lucy, Joanne, Joshua, Molly, Jason and Merven, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.

Glen Abernethy Minister of Health and Social Services

Mr. Speaker, on March 4, 2014, this Assembly received a report on child and family services from the Auditor General of Canada. The report confirmed what we already knew: that we need to do a better job of supporting children and families. It highlighted areas where

our system has seriously failed. It told how some children are falling through the cracks and how some health and social services authorities have not routinely followed up on the well-being of children placed into care. These situations are unacceptable.

I recognize the need for change, and I am committed to taking aggressive action to make it happen.

Mr. Speaker, later today I will table the report of the director of child and family services, covering the years 2002 through 2012. Although we still have a long way to go, the report shows that we are making progress in some areas. For example, over 11 years the proportion of children receiving services in their family home has increased. The rate of voluntary service agreements and plan of care agreements has gone up. There has been a corresponding decrease in the rate of custody orders and southern placements. This tells us that parents are seeking help and making efforts to improve the situations which are putting their children at risk.

It is also a positive sign that more youth between the ages of 16 and 18 are receiving services. This addresses a gap that was identified as critical by the Standing Committee on Social Programs of the 16th Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. The proportion of Aboriginal children in the system is far too high. The Auditor General of Canada has confirmed that there are serious deficiencies in accountability, monitoring, reporting and compliance. Addressing these gaps is a top priority and work is underway.

Moving forward, we need a fundamental shift in philosophy. We need to move to a system that puts greater emphasis on building strong families. We need to support families at risk so that children don’t need to come under our care. When that fails, we need to have supports in place in the community that will allow children to stay in their homes and will help their parents get back on track.

Mr. Speaker, we know what needs to be done and we will do it. We have already put the key building blocks in place to support families at risk with our strategic action plans for Early Childhood Development, Addictions and Mental Health,

Economic Opportunities and Anti-Poverty. Later this summer I will share with Members of this House an action plan on building stronger families. It will provide a roadmap for changing the child and family services system to achieve these goals. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Jackson Lafferty Monfwi

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share some exciting news about the rollout of junior kindergarten that will begin in the fall of 2014. There has been much discussion on how we are implementing junior kindergarten, and we carefully considered comments and concerns raised by education boards on the rollout of junior kindergarten.

Mr. Speaker, we put the decision to education boards and gave them a choice of whether they wanted to implement junior kindergarten in the fall of this year, or defer it to next year.

I am pleased to announce that of the 29 small communities who were offered the chance to implement JK this September, 22 have chosen to say yes to junior kindergarten implementation. Of the seven communities that chose to defer for a year, four of these are the communities in the Tlicho region. While the Tlicho Government fully supports junior kindergarten, it has chosen to defer implementation to 2015 because it is considering its own early childhood legislation and wants to consider a good fit between its early childhood programs and junior kindergarten. Aside from the Tlicho region, only three communities decided to wait another year: Aklavik, Paulatuk and Jean Marie River. In each of these communities, the boards and schools felt they were just not ready to deliver junior kindergarten this fall, and we respect that choice.

Mr. Speaker, it is great news for the Northwest Territories that free, optional, play-based junior kindergarten will be introduced in 22 communities this fall. Then in 2015-16, junior kindergarten will be introduced in the remaining small communities as well as Hay River, Inuvik and Fort Smith. In 2016-17 Yellowknife comes on stream, and junior kindergarten will be available in every community in the territory.

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before in this House, junior kindergarten is the right thing to do. Right now 10 of our smallest communities have no access to early child care programs. These communities in particular will get a real benefit from having junior kindergarten delivered in established and safe places: our schools. It will be taught by

trained teachers with specialized junior kindergarten in-service training and will use a play-based exploratory curriculum. Our junior kindergarten teachers will continue to undergo training to ensure they meet the needs of our early learners. As I have said before, junior kindergarten is not about children in desks, this is about giving children the tools and ability to discover, imagine and learn.

Mr. Speaker, as we roll out junior kindergarten, there may be some growing pains. But we have learned from our junior kindergarten pilot sites. At one of these sites, some children weren’t initially ready for junior kindergarten and others had to be introduced slowly. But they learned and adapted, and within a few months, all of the four-year-old children in the communities were attending. We have learned from this experience. In fact, we are already hearing that those schools that have offered junior kindergarten have made incredible strides: they are seeing more confident, socialized children that are engaged and learning and, most importantly, having fun.

Mr. Speaker, I have also met with the chairs of YCS and YK1 on Tuesday. The meeting was very productive and we agreed to get our respective staff to meet and go over the junior kindergarten implications for both school boards. The meetings between staff have taken place and I am advised that they are now in the process of finalizing their analysis. I will report back with the facts on the implementation of junior kindergarten for the two Yellowknife education authorities.

We know that we have moved very quickly on this, but we heard, loud and clear, that we weren’t doing enough for our children. Feedback from surveys, meetings and roundtables in the last 18 months specifically directed us to investigate early learning programs for our children.

Mr. Speaker, delivering a quality early childhood program in these 22 communities this fall will not just benefit those communities, it will benefit the territory as a whole. As territorial leaders, we should recognize that everyone benefits from investments in our children, whether that’s in Yellowknife, regional centres, or our small communities. We need to give our children, no matter where they live, the best programming we can offer “right from the start.” Mahsi.

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

David Ramsay Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment

Mr. Speaker, tourism is the Northwest Territories’ largest renewable

resource-based sector. Last year approximately 76,000 tourists visited the territory, one of the highest visitor numbers we have seen in the last decade.

Today I would like to tell you about ways we have and will be improving our territorial parks and the positive outlook for our tourism industry.

To ensure an enjoyable experience in our territorial parks, we invest heavily in parks facilities and infrastructure. There is a new kitchen shelter situated closer to the waterfront at Fred Henne beach that is available to rent. At the Prelude Lake Territorial Park marina, more parking spaces are available. At Nitainlaii and Gwich’in Territorial Parks in the Beaufort-Delta region, new hiking trails have been developed. There is also a new shower building at Queen Elizabeth Territorial Park near Fort Smith.

Our efforts to promote our territorial parks and campgrounds and the investments we are making to improve these facilities are not going unnoticed. In early May, Fred Henne and Blackstone Territorial parks were both included in the list of “Best Family Campgrounds in Canada” by Today’s Parent magazine.

Mr. Speaker, this year we launched a new online campground reservation system at NWTparks.ca. The new booking system makes reserving campsites quick and easy, and multiple sites can be booked for different dates in one simple transaction. Campers can book double sites to guarantee they can camp together with their friends and families. The public response to the new website was overwhelming, and over 1,000 online reservations were made the first day the site was open. We also conducted a direct mail campaign in early March to select households in Edmonton and Calgary with the result that visits to the NWT parks website escalated.

Families are major users of our territorial parks, and this year we embarked on an education and public awareness campaign to ensure the parks are fun and safe for families. We have launched a water safety campaign that will run throughout the summer in northern newspapers, on Moose FM 100 radio, on social media and on-screen at the Yellowknife Capitol Theatre. These ads promote the importance of being within arm’s reach of children who are swimming, wearing a lifejacket, and watching children near water.

These public awareness materials will be supplied to schools and daycares in Yellowknife and Hay River in the last two weeks of classes, and available at Fred Henne and Hay River Territorial Park beaches.

Emergency phone boxes will be available at Fred Henne and Hay River beaches. There is also new, easy-to-understand signage alerting beachgoers to

safety hazards. With the assistance of local contractor Mr. Trevor Kasteel and other local businesses, we have installed a lifejacket loaner station at Fred Henne. Finally, we will be training our parks staff in basic emergency procedures.

These steps will ensure our territorial park beaches are among the safest in the country.

Mr. Speaker, territorial parks are just one part of a tourism sector that continues to grow stronger. I have received reports from our tour operators that the Aurora visitor statistics were very high again this past season. NWT Tourism, the destination marketing organization that the GNWT funds and works closely with, is doing solid work. Their new “Aurora Capital of the World” brand has gained us recognition around the world as the premiere Aurora viewing destination.

This year we saw the number of Chinese visitors to the territory increase substantially again. The Northern Frontier Visitors Centre alone welcomed over 1,000 Chinese visitors in the first quarter of 2014.

Our outdoor adventure operators are also reporting increased bookings for the summer. These visitors are predominantly exploring the Sahtu and Deh Cho regions.

Mr. Speaker, the tourism industry plays a vital role in our economy and the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment is dedicated to seeing it thrive. Supporting the growth of tourism through investments into NWT parks and tourism infrastructure helps create a vibrant and diversified territorial economy, one of the goals of the 17th Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Jane Groenewegen Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon. I just want to give a little update on some issues related to health and social services in Hay River.

Mr. Speaker, the new hospital or the new health centre in Hay River is well underway, creating a lot of activity and it looks like things are right on schedule. I had the occasion to have some first-hand personal experience with our health services in Hay River in the last six weeks, and I want to report that it is a good system, that it does work. Right from the minute that I walked in the door, off to X-ray to see the physician, the follow-up X-rays, trips to the medical clinic, I have nothing but the

highest regard for all of the people who are delivering services in Hay River and for the way that the system works.

As an indication of this, I wanted to share that, maybe since the last time we were here in this House, a health care professional at the Hay River clinic was awarded a very prestigious award by the Hay River Chamber of Commerce for the outstanding service person. So, for a business community that should be all about customer service, to award a person in the public sector the outstanding service person in a community the size of Hay River is quite something to say for the staff at our Hay River medical clinic, and that recipient was Mrs. Iris Blake. She is definitely an integral part of that clinic.

We have stood in this House so many times and talked about the lack of physicians in Hay River. As many will know, awhile back we signed a resident permanent physician by the name of Dr. Coralie Boudreau, and today I’m pleased to share that a Dr. John Desmond and his family will be moving to Hay River and will also be joining the Hay River Health Authority as a second resident physician for Hay River.

In this good news, we have to be willing to stand up and share that as well. In the meantime, we continue to be well served by our locums that are often on a rotation, where we see the same ones coming back to the community on a continuous basis.

Shortly, the Minister of Health and Social Services will be announcing the name of our new health centre. We look forward to that and of big things to come from this department. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today, too, to talk about the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. We’re proud to announce that they’ve hired two midwives to come on stream in September and October of the fall.

The authority has been working to get the spaces available for the midwives, to make the medical clinic available and set up for them, as well as a delivery area for the potential birthing. They’ve purchased equipment from last year’s funding.

They set up a Midwives Committee to basically work to see how it’s going to be implemented, how it affects all the different parts of the authority, such as labs, acute care, practitioners, medical clinic, et cetera, and to help develop processes and policies for the midwives.

Hay River Health and Social Services continues to work with the midwives consultants from the Department of Health and Social Services. They are also linking and working with the Fort Smith Midwifery Program, to make sure that there’s a consistency and similar policies that are being implemented.

I’d like to take this time to thank those people who have made this happen. We have some tremendous staff at the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority that basically did all the hiring, that went out and found these people. They’re going to be a vital part of our community.

I’d like to thank the former Minister and current Minister for their help in making this happen as well as the many advocates that helped us – my colleague, Mrs. Groenewegen; Social Programs committee – to move this up and make this happen sooner than later. There are also many advocates out there in the public who sent letters of support saying that this should happen sooner than later, and we’re pleased that it is. But we are also pleased that Hay River will now be on birth certificates, finally, in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My communities and constituents are talking about how dry the forests are this spring. We see and have heard that this year’s fire season is predicted to be a very, very bad year.

Firstly, I want to commend our brave men and women who have been hired this year, and with all the fire crews throughout the North they will keep our people and property safe. If I may, Mr. Speaker, on our behalf, I salute them in advance for their efforts for this coming fire season.

A constituent has been wondering if the fires had been more aggressively fought last year at the beginning of the season, would residents have been enveloped in smoke for weeks at a time? Sensitive residents, elders and young children can suffer from smoke inhalation, as we have seen last year.

I will be asking the Minister of ENR later today, will the department modify their planned approach to be more proactive when they’re fighting fires, to avoid weeks and months of smoke inhalation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.