This is page numbers 5451 – 5490 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was housing.

The House met at 1:31 p.m.

---Prayer

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Good afternoon, colleagues. Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Minister of Justice

Mr. Speaker, communities have worked with the RCMP to develop policing priorities and action plans that designate specific priorities to make our communities safer. I would like to share with Members how this collaboration is making a difference in our communities.

Stopping bootlegging and stemming the inflow of prohibited liquor is a main focus for many communities. This priority is very important, especially around Christmas, holidays and other community events. It requires active participation by everyone, including community members and leaders, RCMP and partners, to combat bootlegging and maintain healthy homes and communities.

In Deline, strong partnerships between the RCMP, citizens and community leaders recently led to successful initiatives including check stops and investigations. These resulted in a seizure of a significant amount of alcohol: in December, a total of 67 bottles of vodka, 51 cans of beer and two bottles of wine. Charges were subsequently laid under the Deline Liquor Restriction Regulations.

However, it wasn’t all about punitive activities. In addition to enhanced law enforcement, the community of Deline hosted cultural activities with RCMP participation throughout the holiday season. Their aim was to help promote sobriety and safer, healthier choices. The results are clear. In December 2014 there was a 32 percent reduction in the number of calls to the RCMP for service compared to December 2013.

Other communities have seen similar successes. Fort Resolution saw charges laid for a seizure in December totaling 73 bottles of liquor, and Fort Good Hope had 51 bottles confiscated in one seizure. Each of these communities saw positive change for December as a result of these actions.

If you have information about any illegal activity affecting your community, speak with your local RCMP. You can also call Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers is safe and anonymous and will get your information to the people who can help to make positive change happen.

As you can see from these examples, each of us is able to have an impact and make a difference when we work together to build safer homes and communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Glen Abernethy will be absent from the House today due to illness. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like most MLAs, many of us spend a large portion of our time assisting our residents with affordable housing situations. For the most part we find solutions but, sadly, there is still much disappointment for our most vulnerable in society. This has prompted me to speak today about what I think should be a basic human right. That right, Mr. Speaker, is the right to shelter.

There is nothing more colonial in our modern-day history than the way a number of bureaucrats and politicians in Ottawa decide on budgets for our nation’s housing crisis. Sadly, with federal CMHC funding declining to zero in the next 23 years,

provinces and territories are left struggling to fill the void of affordability, adequacy, quality and homelessness. In essence, housing has become the real orphan of public policy in Canada and the North is not immune.

With our small population base and our inability to increase own-source revenues, this state of dependency is further cast into despair of resentment and dysfunction in seeking resolution to the question many of us ask: Do we have the power and the means to address the challenges of housing in our foreseeable future? Many are optimistic. I myself am very skeptical.

You see, this download of responsibility has created nothing more than a crisis of governance that provincial, territorial and Aboriginal governments share. None of these entities have the means to address this issue alone, even with the best of intentions and collaboration. Dysfunction is imminent.

It’s time, with 2015 being the year of elections at all levels, I ask citizens to address these challenges in the voters booth by asking and seeking clarity in the way we divide the fiscal pie, to ensure that the proper revenue streams are going to the right orders of government and to make sure the housing crisis is deserving of a proper transparency and accountability its citizens want and need.

We can learn from our history when it comes to our housing crisis, but we cannot afford to live in it any further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Expanding Tax Revenues
Members’ Statements

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a revenue problem. It’s no surprise that when the Minister of Finance was gathering views of NWT residents during his Budget Dialogue 2014, no one called for lower taxes. Indeed, some suggested increasing revenues through smarter taxation and improved royalties.

The need for investment in sustainable energy infrastructure, home retrofits, early childhood education, adequate housing, job training and addictions is obvious. Expenses are going up. How can we address this need? Shifting to a smarter tax approach is a good start.

Reducing taxes on low and middle income earners balanced by slightly higher ones for high income earners would help with cost of living, attracting new residents and retaining current ones, both yielding federal transfer revenues.

Sin taxes are a natural target and we’ve acted on these for tobacco and alcohol, but let’s recognize that the definition of “sin” includes pollution, and

start making polluters pay instead of blindly accepting these health and environment costs with no ability to pay.

With no revisions since 1997, the NWT’s transportation fuel taxes are significantly below the national average, yet fossil fuel prices have gone through the roof since then. We don’t even tax a penny on natural gas and propane. Economists have shown that, done smartly, establishing a price on pollution, including carbon, would help us to capture industry innovation and reduce cost of living while improving our job numbers with other benefits.

Some corporations reduce northern tax payments by using creative accounting techniques and using commuting labour from afar. A capital tax would help make sure they pay their fair share. Another untapped revenue source is a resource income tax, which could contribute to our Heritage Fund and help smooth out the boom and bust nature of our resource economy.

Hotel and airport departure taxes, common throughout Canada, are unlikely to affect tourism, considering their small proportion of overall travel costs.

While yearly increasing our subsidies to the extractive industry, the Minister was consulting with the public about our budget. In those consultations, people were clear in demanding more than the promise of a few jobs over the life of hugely profitable projects in exchange for our non-renewable resources.

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

---Unanimous consent granted

Expanding Tax Revenues
Members’ Statements

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

A better balance is needed. The resources of the North belong to the people. They are valuable and they are being exploited with too little public benefit for owners of the resource.

A revenue tune-up is long overdue, but I acknowledge it will take courage to get it done. Mahsi.

Expanding Tax Revenues
Members’ Statements

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Colleagues, before we go on today, I would like to welcome our honourable table officer and a man who needs no introduction here in the House, Mr. Anthony W.J. Whitford. Welcome back to the House today, Tony.

---Applause

The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Michael Nadli

Michael Nadli Deh Cho

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’ve got the blues, but I want to tell you why that’s a good thing. Today I want to talk about LEDs. LED

stands for light emitting diode, and these lights offer a way to replace old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs and less efficient light sources.

LEDs light up the lives of NWT residents every day at home, school, work and while travelling, from household lightbulbs, televisions and laptop computers to vehicles, streetlights, runway lights at the airport in Lutselk’e and even Christmas lights.

Yes, I’ve got the LED blues. Each of these lights uses a unique blue LED chip. This chip forms the base for LEDs of many different colours. That’s what makes these lights different from other bulbs. LEDs use as much as 80 percent less energy and last up to three times longer than fluorescent bulbs and 10 times longer than incandescent.

In our thermal communities, relying on diesel for electricity, this kind of energy efficiency is even more important for residents’ wallets and for community savings. It’s also better for the environment.

Since January 2014, federal regulations have seen retailers required to sell alternatives to incandescent bulbs, often fluorescent lights. But LEDs are still an efficient, sensible option. Unlike some fluorescent bulbs, LEDs have no mercury. If you’re interested in making a switch, rebates are available through the Arctic Energy Alliance for up to $200 for people in diesel communities.

At the community level, I know that communities across the Territories are replacing costly, low-efficient streetlights with LEDs. The NWT Power Corporation estimates that this will cut costs in half. Changing a few lightbulbs may seem like a small thing, but every little step you can conserve energy helps reduce the load on diesel generators in our communities. That means lower fuel consumption, lower cost and better outcomes for our environment.

Today I want to thank the Members’ families and communities that are already making the switch to LEDs, but I hope I can encourage anyone who is still hesitant to come down to the house of blue lights too. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As a small community MLA, in the past I have blasted Yellowknife, but today I want to commend them. I was pleased to see the City of Yellowknife address the needs of the homelessness with their Housing First initiative. They have developed a five-year strategy to deal with the homeless, especially with the youth.

In my Nahendeh riding and throughout the other regions of our NWT, there is a need to increase the amount of housing units and even homelessness shelter complexes, much like Yellowknife has planned. In Fort Simpson there are over 30 single people homeless and on the housing list waiting for units. There are individuals on that list that have been there for about seven years. As our young population ages and starts young families, they too are now looking for accommodations and places to live. There is a private market there, but one developer has about 12 to 14 units that are close to being condemned, and then where would those families go? Fort Simpson is a regional centre and people from the surrounding communities do migrate to Fort Simpson looking for work and also increasing the pressures for a place to live.

I have been in contact with the NWT Housing Corporation to work with the leadership of Fort Simpson in addressing this issue, also in finding a way to use their available programming and that of the Anti-Poverty Strategy to make an impact on increasing available public units and establishing a homelessness shelter.

Mr. Speaker, today I’m calling on our government and the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation in offering all their resources in addressing this situation.

I will be asking questions later to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation about our Homelessness Strategy and what resources we have to address these regional centre concerns. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On November 18th I attended the budget dialogue in

Inuvik where various concerns and recommendations were brought to the government in the Minister of Finance’s budget dialogue tour across the Northwest Territories. There was a big discussion around investment in renewable energy, and obviously Inuvik is going through a gas situation, and that was one of the big topics, and I’m glad to see that it was also reiterated in other regions with the high cost of living and energy that was put into the Taking Stock Budget Dialogue.

This government is working on, right now, passing a $1.6 billion budget. There is a big increase in the wages and the benefits that we do supply our employees. When I was going through the budget dialogues for the last three years, in 2012 one of the things that I noticed in the overarching themes was mention of duplication of programs. We do

have organizations in the Northwest Territories that do programs on behalf of government and do really great work that help residents become healthier, become educated, become part of society, yet we still do some of those programs within our departments.

Yesterday, during some of our dialogue with one of the departments, we got around to talking about the Third-Party Accountability Framework and how this government is increasing the budget of two not-for-profit organizations in the Northwest Territories who do work on behalf of government, and found out that under this accountability framework the department actually went out and worked with these organizations to increase their wages and benefits, like we do with the employees for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

We still have numerous other not-for-profit organizations that have been running on the same budgets, the same wages and same salaries for years.

I will ask question to the Premier of this government on what he’s going to do to ensure that all not-for-profit organizations do come up to speed with the economy that we’re dealing with right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was going to speak about education in our small communities. In 2013 the Alberta Achievement Test results show that the Northwest Territories is not doing very well. Actually, this test is a measurement of our education system in the Northwest Territories, and when you look at it, the results are pretty glim and bleak in the small communities. We do have a commonality with the larger centres. When you look at the results from the small communities and larger centres like Yellowknife and Hay River and Inuvik and Smith, there’s a commonality that connects us, and that shows in the results of testing the grades 10 and 11 students. That’s where the results show that the students dip below the percentage. It goes down.

There’s something happening for the students right across the North by grades 10 and 11. Attendance grades are up, then all of a sudden they all drop no matter where you are, Yellowknife, Smith, Hay River or in Colville Lake or Deline. The attendance drops and slightly peaks at Grade 11. So that’s the factor that shows our system isn’t well.

If you look at the other tests, our small communities are way below 50 percent. Students are operating below their grade level, meaning that they can’t

comprehend. If you have a Grade 3 here in Yellowknife and a Grade 3 in Fort Good Hope, they’re not at the same level. They’re actually maybe at Grade 1 or Grade 2 at the best, so we’re failing them at that level.

I wanted to talk about what will it take to provide a quality education. The Minister talked about the four programs as being the foundation, and this is only for academics. There are students who do not want to be a doctor or a teacher; there are students who want to be in the trades. Like the Budget Dialogue says, we need to put screwdrivers and hammers in their hands to make a living.

So, I will ask the Minister, at the appropriate time, some questions on my statement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start today by praising the Finance Minister for the initiative he has shown for holding budget dialogue events for the last three years, allowing NWT residents to comment on NWT budgets.

Over the three years the meetings have produced considerable feedback, but due to the timing of the forums, I’m not sure that feedback has actually been used. I have to wonder about the value for money of this initiative. Having said that, though, I’ve previously said that we can’t put a price on democracy. Consultation is a necessary evil of government.

This year there were 97 attendees at seven meetings held all over the NWT. Other years have had about the same number of participants, but what has this exercise cost us? Has it been worth the expense?

As I said, I’m unsure how the feedback has been used. In the report from the 2014 Budget Dialogue, the section called Next Steps states “The results of this process will be used to inform Legislative Assembly discussions in its February budget session and beyond.” The budget dialogues have been held in late fall, generally in November. Given that this year the 2015-16 budget was all but finalized by early December, I don’t know how the Minister used the results of the November 2014 dialogue to influence this year’s budget.

The same can be said of the report’s statement that “Other feedback pertaining to the government’s fiscal priorities and programs and services will be used in the 2015-16 budget.” I have to ask, what info was used and how did the budget change from November 2014 to today?

On another note, there’s significant mention in the Budget Dialogue report of the government’s strategy announced last year at this time, a strategy to grow our population. The report mentions a number of obstacles to achieving this goal and one of the most mentioned is government recruitment.

I want to thank the Minister for his commitment earlier this session to provide Members with concrete evidence of the government’s plan to get us 2,000 new residents, and I look forward to reviewing that plan.

In closing, although I question the value of this budget dialogue exercise and I hope the Minister will do a value for money audit on it, I compliment the Minister and department for holding these forums and giving residents a chance to express their views in person.

I’m hopeful the 18th Assembly will continue to seek

out residents’ views on NWT budgets. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Budget Dialogue 2014 Review
Members’ Statements

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will obviously be talking about the budget dialogue that the Minister of Finance continues to hold for the last three years.

I’m not sure if I’m really that confident in this budget dialogue process. Indications from this year are we had 97 people attend and we had 11 individuals or groups submit. Those are really low numbers and I’m not sure if we’re using this to direct or just as an excuse that we’ve consulted, because the numbers look crazy as far as I’m concerned. Thirty people from Yellowknife attended. Thirty people from a community that’s very large, the centre and our capital. That’s a very small number. In Hay River we had eight and I know Hay River had more interested; we had a conflict in meetings.

From this type of dialogue, the government moves forward with the budget. Like my colleague indicated, most of this is probably in stone already. So I’m just wondering if the Minister and his department really were hearing the public in this process, or did they have a preconceived notion? Because I know at each meeting, the meetings that I attended, the Minister and the staff had a presentation to make, had a discussion on the fiscal strategy and that we were limited to what we can do anyway. So I’m just wondering if there’s a preconceived notion of how this process is going to happen and the budget that was going to happen. So, are we just playing lip service to the general public?

I’ll have questions for the Minister about what he actually learned out there this year. Thank you.

Budget Dialogue 2014 Review
Members’ Statements

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Frederick Blake Jr.

Frederick Blake Jr. Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will say a few words on the budget dialogue that has happened over the last three years. When this first began in one of the communities we even had a peaceful demonstration, which showed great support for the Inuvik-Tuk Highway Project and that is one of our priorities that we have undertaken over the last couple of years. Also with the Fibre Optic Link.

Those investments in the Beaufort-Delta region really needed to happen. Before that it was very slow up in the region, but now there’s a lot of jobs happening over the winter season, a lot of people working, a lot of happy families over Christmas.

Also, what I was hoping to say, and if this happens in the future, is come and visit the small communities, not just the regional centres. Thank you.