Thank you, Madam Chair. We’d like to continue with Tabled Document 324-17(5) and then the bills as listed in the order on the Order Paper: 56, 59, 62, 63, 64, 69, 45, 49, 60, 61, 65, 68.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Agreed. We’ll commence with that after a brief break. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. When we adjourned yesterday, we were dealing with Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2015-2016. At this time, before we resume with page 6, I would like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Yes, I would, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses to the table.

I would like to welcome back Deputy Minister Mike Aumond and Deputy Secretary to Cabinet Sandy Kalgutkar with the Minister here today. As I said, we left off on page 6. I will read it out. Finance, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Yesterday I still had on my list Mr. Bouchard and I had Mr. Bromley. On the matter of the $22 million, if Mr. Bouchard is ready. No? I will go to Mr. Bromley, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up a little bit on Ms. Bisaro’s comments. This is primarily motivated by low water which is causing the need for diesel power generation in lieu of not having any other green energy generation capability at this moment in time. I guess I’ll start by saying this is shameful to me, given that the same thing happened last year.

I spoke very clearly on this, both in the media and in the House and to the Minister, and yet, exactly the same thing happened again this year.

I am happy that committee is now committed to beginning work on this, albeit belatedly and modestly. But, again, just to follow up with Ms. Bisaro’s comments about the need to bring this into our fiscal planning and so on. Just with a couple of minutes of thinking, looking at the costs of climate change, and these are impacts that are consistent with climate change, extreme events that we have not seen before. Last year we had $60 million for fire suppression costs, through the roof. We had the Inuvik Airport, Hay River Airport, we had Highway No. 3, the Dempster. We had power generating costs of $20 million, or $15 million actually. Five million dollars went into this fiscal year and now we’re proposing another $22 million for this fiscal year, so that would $27 million.

Really, we’re talking now about hundreds of millions of dollars, and I know it’s affecting our fiscal planning. We can’t have those sorts of unplanned for costs without that. It’s exacerbated, of course, because of our low net fiscal benefit compared to our predictions during the devolution negotiations.

I’m wondering: has the Minister sat down to try and summarize and collect and do a financial accounting of impacts that are pretty directly related to climate change in the last few years.

We had those discussions with Finance. The costs are all there, separating out what we want to attribute directly to weather and climate change versus the more normal occurrence. We’re looking at that. But clearly, as I said yesterday, there is a need for us to capture that more accurately so that it doesn’t overpower or blur into other areas of normal government operations, and it is, as the Member has pointed out, getting to be a fairly high number.

I’m disappointed that we, as a government, are not on top of that equation, and we should have been for the last several years. We heard just a month or so ago about the storm surges and whatnot in Tuktoyaktuk that left some government buildings hanging over the water, oil tanks suspended or lost into the sea and so on. We’re losing, in some areas, 10 metres of coastline per year there. I’d say the writing is on the wall for that community.

We’re looking at $22 million here on top of the $32 million for the fire suppression this year. Have we estimated the cost? Are we planning on what to do or what it’s going to take to move the community of Tuktoyaktuk? The writing is clearly on the wall there. I would think the Minister would recognize that.

That work is underway. Senior officials have been up to the community, along with the regional staff, to look at what’s necessary. All the efforts to hold back the rising waters and the storm surges have proven fruitless, the amount of money spent on gravel and big rocks and it just gets washed away.

The issue of relocation is one that is clearly the most viable option that is being looked at and that work is underway.

Just for perspective here, would the Minister agree we’d be talking probably in the tens of millions of dollars for that exercise?

It’s early days, but absolutely we’re going to be spending in the many millions of dollars as we get started, and if it’s the whole community, all the low-lying areas, the relocation, the lock, stock, and barrel relocation of the community would be very expensive.

We’re spending now $50 million over the last 12 months and planning for the next eight or ten months so that people that could experience high power rates would be protected from those. The latest information shows that we’re talking billions of dollars for public infrastructure and damages over the next 15 years. Then we have private, commercial and institutional infrastructure. Are we planning on bailing out all of those to protect our public from the costs of climate change in this manner?

We place a high priority on the cost of living. We will do the things we can, like what’s before the House right now in terms of mitigating those high costs. If these extreme weather events continue to drive our costs then there are going to be some significant hard decisions that are going to have to be made on how we manage our way through that.

I agree with the Minister there. Would the Minister agree that comprehensive planning can help mitigate what the costs will be without planning?

As we have discussed over the years, we have to do both. The mitigation initiatives that we have to reduce our carbon footprint to get off fossil fuels will help do our part in terms of lessening the pressure on the climate change and warming temperatures, but we also know that those types of activities don’t bear fruit for 30 to 40 years. We’re also going to be spending more immediately and more greatly on the adaptation that’s going to be required with things like erosion, permafrost, the money we’ve spent in our lifetime here just on replacing failed piles and all those other related costs. We have to do both.

We have to do both and to do it effectively, it takes planning. I think the Minister would agree with that. How, in what modest way, are we planning to use some of this $22 million to do both?

As I laid out in my comments, after a good discussion with committee, initiated by Member Bouchard, we are going to look at taking 10 percent of that money and putting it in towards efforts that are going to, hopefully, or help, diminish some of the demand through things like speeding up whatever streetlights need to get done to LEDs, and we’re going to put some more money into Arctic Energy Alliance and work with them to beef up their rebate programs, their incentive programs for people to switch to more energy efficient equipment or solar and those types of things. But I’d ask the deputy minister if he could walk us through the details.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Anyone else? Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The initiatives that Mr. Aumond has just spoken about, I’ll get back to them, but I want to ask the Minister in regards to the low water. Are we expecting, in the upcoming years in the next government, that will continue? Is there any type of prediction as to the low water that we’re dealing with in the Bluefish Hydro area that this government is going to be expected or asked to forecast a huge amount of dollars to offset the high cost of having that facility operate? The way I guess I understand it is that the whole Northwest Territories is paying for this expenditure. Is there any type of forecast that this is going to continue on, year after year we’re going to be baling out the hydro energy use used by people in this area? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya, Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The hydrological prediction and looking into the future is not an exact science. It’s tied to many variables that you don’t know from year to year. What we do know is that over the years the snowpack has diminished, the glaciers are melting, the rainfall patterns are changing and we’re now into year four of a drought. Around the world what used to be reliable weather patterns have now disappeared, so we are anticipating this is the second year, which is why we’re doing things like putting out the expression on solar and wind and we’re working to invest to get off of fuel. Here, the prediction on the water, I am anticipating we’re still going to be on low water next year unless we get what they say is going to be a warm winter with lots of snow. But at this point that’s a prediction and we don’t know if it’s going to come to pass.

We have a Fuel Stabilization Fund that’s set up to level out the impacts of these types of occurrences across the whole territory so that no one area has to pick up the tab if something goes wrong in their particular region. The Fuel Stabilization Fund doesn’t have the resources, so the options are fairly simple: we either just keep raising rates or we, as a government, step in to try to make sure that we don’t drive up those rates to make it unaffordable to live here. Thank you.

The Member raises good points. What was once old is new again. I mean, I’ve been a homeowner for just about 40 years and I’ve had a woodstove from the very first time I set up housekeeping with my expectant wife. Now, it’s been rediscovered and it’s like a technology or a skill that people have lost and have to relearn. Yes, we do sit in the heart of the Boreal Forest.

We’re also, in Norman Wells, for example, building up something of a biomass industry where they’re bringing in pellets. Businesses and homes are converting. The Power Corporation is still on natural gas. Everybody else has been given their notice and we’re making the switch. The thing about natural gas is it’s demonstrated to be somewhat cheaper than diesel, about 20 to 25 percent cheaper. When the price of oil was a bit higher, the difference with biomass was about 30 to 40 percent. Plus it’s a renewable resource. A lot of it is locally harvested and just about all of it will be once the pellet mill gets put in place.

In terms of the power, we’re looking at about $30 million for one megawatt. Lutselk'e, when the studies were done, and we invested hundreds of thousands of dollars with Deline to prove that out, and if they want to go bigger and put in a transmission line for two other communities and it’s more than one megawatt, then that price of that hydro dam would increase accordingly and it would be a bigger impact.

There are, in my mind, with today’s technology some better investments. For example, I’ve mentioned Lutselk'e where we have a power purchase agreement with the Lutselk'e community and Bulldog Power for a power purchase agreement, and they’ve put up, I think, 35 kilowatts of power and it’s feeding into the grid.

There are some that would say it’s just for show, it doesn’t really work. But what the solar people have shown us is that you get seven months of good solar here and if you can cut all your other energy requirements for seven months and then only get a marginal solar output and have to use other types of backup, you’re better off than just say, ah, it’s not worth it and just keep burning diesel. As we know here in Yellowknife, burning diesel is not an option.

We have intentions in the coming years to go across the territory. For example, all the thermal communities, especially the small ones, have all been changed out with LED streetlights to cut the demands. The money that we’re putting in that Deputy Minister Aumond talked about is going to be available there to all the communities. We are, in the 18thAssembly, those of us who come back, are going to have to look at some significant investments in Yellowknife, up in Inuvik, where you could put in nine megawatts of power that would cut the diesel consumption in the Northwest Territories for generation in half, which would be a cost savings as well as huge impact on our carbon footprint.

We have lots of work to do. We’ve come a long way in the last four or five years, but clearly, there are a lot of things to do in terms of the energy sources that we use and the affordability.

I’m certainly looking and being very optimistic as to the solar project in Colville Lake. People up there are looking forward to seeing the benefits. It could certainly reduce the cost of their consumption. There is a lot of money spent on energy, especially with their small co-op store that has a huge power bill every month. We’re certainly looking forward to that project and hopefully that will be duplicated in the other communities.

That’s the goal. Really, it’s the goal for the homeowner either living in public housing or their own private housing is to get a cheap power bill. A lot of complaints from my communities is the amount of money that we spend on good, reliable energy. We want that. When we flick our light, we want to make sure it goes on and stays on. That’s what we pay, the cost, and that’s where I’m wanting to use some of my comments here is to look at ways that we could have ultimately clean energy.

Hydro is one of the cheapest and cleanest energy other than natural gas or things like that. But we have a lot of natural gas in our area. The Norman Wells oilfield burns off a lot of natural gas every day. That flare stack is going off a lot, steady and constant since the ‘30s. I guess that’s my point, is that can we tap into the natural gas and to look at those other customers. If not, have we looked enough with the hydro in Deline? Have we explored it aggressively and persistently to see if this is a possibility with the money that we have?

Certainly, the Minister is correct. You and I and other Members had this discussion on the old becoming new. Going out there and harvesting wood for ourselves and making sure that people in the communities through no matter what can have a wood burning option, a wood stove, a good wood stove, and cut wood, that would certainly cut down a lot of other issues. Do we have that type of incentive so if people want to get out and say yes, I’ll cut a cord of wood? There’s an incentive to go out there to get the wood and to burn it and decrease their use of diesel fuel, because the fuel that we get is coming from outside the Territories, sometimes even outside of Canada, while at the same time we’re sitting on huge reservoirs of oil and gas and we’re not doing too much about it. That’s crazy thinking, I think. Why not use our own resources? Let’s look at that. Let’s not be scared of it and fear, fear itself. Let’s see what we can do for ourselves.

That’s where I want to end, with these energy types of discussions. Let’s start looking at our own resources and not be dependent on foreign oil or foreign gas here.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Your 10 minutes was already up, but I looked at the clock and it said 4:43, and I thought you had four minutes and 43 seconds, so that was a bonus, okay? So I’ll take that as a comment. Thank you. We’ll move on. I’m going to call the page again and people can still put their hand up and speak to it. This is detail remember. This is not general comments anymore.

Finance, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had one other set of questions here. I’m wondering when the Minister will be purchasing the $20 million worth of diesel fuel for this purpose.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bromley.

Thanks to the deputy minister for that response. I know he’s aware that some of the conventional authorities are forecasting $20 a barrel of oil. Certainly the price is dropping and it’s anticipated to continue to drop. I believe we budgeted about $1 per litre and I’m wondering, if that’s so, what are the potential savings on this purchase?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The most immediate one is the 10 percent we’ve talked about and taking advantage of what was budgeted and what we anticipate or know we are going to be paying here in the foreseeable future, leaving us enough room should there be any kind of subsequent increase. If we budget a dollar and we get it at 80 cents a litre, I’d have to ask Mr. Kalgutkar to do the math for me to give us an idea, or Mr. Aumond, to give us an idea, but this is how we’ve accommodated putting this money into conservation was on that gap.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The deputy minister mentioned 25 percent savings, 75 cents instead of a dollar. Just to help the Minister out with that complex math, with a dollar a litre and it’s 80 percent, then that’s 20 percent savings and we’re putting 10 percent into these other initiatives. I guess I’d like to ask the Minister to commit, should these savings be realized, that he bumps up any savings in this amount committed and allocated to renewable energy and energy efficiency such as we’re doing with the 10 percent we are very sure we’re going to get, really make that commitment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The potential for possible savings, I know it’s 20 percent. I just wasn’t quite sure it would be of $2.2 million. We are going to be putting out expressions of interest to do five and 10 megawatts of power here. To actually put the solar on the ground is probably $35 million or so. So we are going to be committing to some very serious investments here in Yellowknife in the coming years as we are going to be up and down the valley as we move to make these critical investments managing our debt limit and those types of things. Yes, there is going to be continued commitment to invest major dollars. I would suggest far and above savings we might realize from this particular low water surcharge. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t want to spend any more time on this, Madam Chair, but we’ve been interested before and an expression of interest is not a commitment. An expression of interest is curiosity. We need commitment. We have passed over and over again the opportunity to put in renewable energy to avoid these costs. We could do a much more significant effort here had we taken the sufficient funds last year to put in five megawatts that would have handled at least a third to a half of the monthly demands now forecasted in materials the Minister has provided us with from the Power Corporation

and reduced the need for those dollars this year, so we cannot keep doing that. That’s just a comment. I’m happy to leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Finance, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Agreed?

Agreed. Thank you. Moving on to page 7, Health and Social Services, administrative and support services, not previously authorized, $302,000. Community health programs, not previously authorized, $30,000; nursing inpatient services, not previously authorized, $1.023 million. Total department of Health and Social Services, not previously authorized, $1.355 million. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a question about the nursing inpatient services operation for the Hay River Health Centre. Obviously, I’m pleased to see some of the dollars for this new facility, but I know the demand and the request for a substantial amount more. Can the Minister elaborate on why those positions weren’t approved that we were asking for?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There was a hard look taken at this, as there are a lot of our expenses as we look at our fiscal challenges, and it was determined that what is before the House is what the Hay River Hospital could make work with the resources that are available. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Bouchard.

Madam Chair, in the process here we’ve heard some stories of reports from the Hay River Health Centre or healthy authority that have a request for up to 33 positions. I think that was narrowed down to 21 and now has been approved for about 11.

I’m wondering if the Minister has any of the backup information on those positions and how we dwindled down from 33 to 11.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We were talking about a similar situation the other day with respect to Stanton and new facilities. When it comes to Hay River, when the building began construction the Hay River authority was tasked with figuring out how many positions would be required to properly run that facility. I think, as in most cases, there was the “I would love to have” list, the “absolutely need” list and the “I would like to have” list. The 32 was the dream list of adding programs, enhancing some services and doing some things slightly different. But given the mandate of the project, it wasn’t about expanding programs or adding new programs, so we were able to bring the list down a little bit as a result.

Then they provided a secondary list that included 21 positions, and some of these positions are absolutely required, but some of them need more justification and we won’t be able to justify that we actually need some of those positions until we actually get into the facility and run it for a while and can then clearly articulate the demand. Those positions were not supported through this process.

The positions that were identified, the 11 and a half additional positions plus and 3.15 relief, are essential to the operations of the new facility, given its size, the modification of how they’re providing programs. So, the 11.5 full time and the 3.15 relief are mandatory. The rest would have been nice to have, and given time, we may be able to justify that we actually need them, but we need to get into the facility first.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that explanation; I’m just wondering if there is any report or any kind of a briefing note that I can get from how we got from 32 to 21 down to 11, just so I know what the potential could have been, what the likes that we would like to have are and then what we actually got as far as positions and stuff like that. I know that’s been discussed between the department and the Hay River Health Authority and it’s been kind of a confidential document. But now that it’s been tabled today so now it’s open for discussion and it’s open for us to get that information, can I get that commitment? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, the wish list of positions was informal; it was never really submitted. As far as the other positions, I can provide the Member with the list of positions that are approved and we could put together some general terms of the types of positions that we need to continue to justify. It might take us a bit of time to be able to justify that. I don’t want to leave the impression that the positions that weren’t approved will be approved, because every position needs to go through a formal process and we must determine that they’re mandatory, that they’re needed to operate that facility, and we probably won’t be in a position to justify that until at least a year after the opening of the facility, to give us a chance to run it for a while and see what’s needed. So I can share the list of the types of positions, but I just want to be clear that it doesn’t guarantee that those positions are in fact necessary. It’s a “nice to have” list.

Yes, these are questions that came before our constituency meeting. Obviously, the department and health administrators typically meet and have those discussions without the interference of MLAs. Obviously, we’re wanting to get that information so that we can answer to the public the questions of where we went and how we got from a certain number to a different number to even a lesser amount. So, any information like that that the Minister can provide will give us way more ammunition for discussion. Thank you.

I’ll just repeat the same thing. I mean, we have the list of positions that have been approved, including the full-time and the relief, and those were deemed to be essential for opening the new facility and running the new facility. There were a number of other positions and many of them are, like, point five of a position or point 25 of a position. It was very difficult to provide a sound justification without actually being able to get into the facility to open it.

I’m happy to share some of those numbers with the Members from Hay River, but I do want to be clear that that does not mean that we have been able to justify that those positions are in fact necessary. We likely won’t be able to determine whether they’re necessary or not until we’ve been in that facility for up to a year operating to see where some of the pressures truly are. So, I don’t want to leave a false impression that those positions are real or are justified in any way, but I’m happy to share the list.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Health and Social Services. Mr. Yakeleya.

Madam Chair, the question is to the Minister on this supp here. Couldn’t this be requested in the operation of this money? Why does it have to come into a supp? Are other facilities in the same situation as the Hay River Hospital in terms of the positions that are required? I know we have a unit, a wellness centre coming up in Norman Wells. Could they be in the same position? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The reason we have to do this now is because the health centre is nearing full completion and we anticipate that we’re going to be moving in during this fiscal year. In order to ensure that facility can operate properly when it opens, recognizing that it’s designed differently, its set up differently, it’s going to have a slightly different model of care. Not an expansion of programs but a slightly different model of care. There’s going to be an emergency unit, an acute care unit and an ambulatory unit. It does require a slight different make-up of staff. So, we need to do that now and be ready for the opening of that facility.

The same will be true of Norman Wells, depending on what the completion date is and when the opening date is. We’re in the process now of looking at what the requirement for positions for Norman Wells will be, and we know it will be a significant increase over what is there today because it will have a long-term care facility in that building, which does not currently exist. So we will be having to have some discussions, or rather, the future government will need to be having some discussions about the number of positions required to safely and effectively operate the Norman Wells Health Centre and long-term care facility.

Thank you, Minister, for the explanation. This request, in the previous discussions, could not have been foreseen that we’re going to be coming back to this Assembly to ask for a supp for the additional support that’s going to be needed for the opening of the Hay River health facility. So, hypothetically, the Norman Wells Health Centre could be in the same situation in regards to a supp because the planners didn’t sign this. If they would have, they would have put the money and it would have been done, already put in with the plan, the whole design here. But something happened that they said we need a few more dollars here to support the facility that’s going to be operated. I’m just trying to look at precedents being set, or has been set already and that the facility in Norman Wells could possibly, theoretically, be in the same type of situation where future government may have to look at a possible supp in regards to supporting that type of facility at the time that it opens. Thank you.

I would like to say that we won’t have to come forward for a supp for Norman Wells because I’m hoping that the department and FMB and the Department of Finance are able to finalize what is actually required and included in the business planning process so we don’t have to come forward for a supp. But, at the same time, I do recognize that some of this stuff is fluid and we are doing the planning but we don’t know the exact opening date of the Norman Wells facility so there are still a couple of ifs in the air. But I would like to say that hopefully we won’t have to come forward for a supp. Hopefully, we included it in the business planning process, but I am cautious because things may change as we’re getting closer.

Well, certainly I agree with the Minister that we surely hope that the Norman Wells facility would be staffed sufficiently when it opens. You know, we didn’t think this back a year ago with the Hay River centre; we didn’t know this. Now that we know that they’re asking for an extra million dollars to provide the facility with the support that’s going to be needed and with the planners that they had in FMBS that you weren’t asking for this additional dollars, and the Minister is correct because things do change over time and I just want to make sure that the facility, such as Norman Wells, will also have this type of flexibility when they open up in the 18thAssembly, other than to say sorry, missed the boat, can’t do it, do without, do with less. You know, have that type of openness in the 18thand I would support that operation and not revert to, well, we don’t have the money, whatever, whatever. I’ll leave it at that, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Just very quickly to provide reassurance to the long-time serving Member who knows we have a rigorous process here and we pride ourselves on trying to be fair and even-handed across the North. The requirements for Norman Wells, when those facilities proceed, will be given the same kind of consideration that all facilities are given to make sure that the qualities of service are there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Anything further, Mr. Abernethy?

Thanks, Madam Chair. I was going to say basically the same thing. When the facility opens in Norman Wells, it will have the staff required to operate that facility. That number is still yet to be determined. Hopefully, it will be done through the business planning process.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Page 7, Health and Social Services, administrative and support services, not previously authorized, $302,000. Community health programs, not previously authorized, $30,000. Nursing inpatient services, not previously authorized, $1.023 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $1.355 million. Agreed?

Thank you. Moving on to page 8, Department of Justice, corrections, not previously authorized, $111,000. Policing services, not previously authorized, $1.045 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $1.156 million. Agreed?

Thank you. Does committee agree that we have concluded consideration of Tabled Document 324-17(5)?

Agreed. Thank you. Ms. Bisaro.