Recent efforts have indicated because of the age of the facility which was built back in 1970, obviously this government will not make an effort to replace it, but make an effort to renovate it. Recently there was review of request for proposal submissions to renovate the facility as early as January 23, 2015.

Has a contract been awarded and when can the community expect an effort to make improvements to the facility? Mahsi.

The senior citizens home in Fort Providence does have a live-in caretaker who is on shift during the evening from 10:00 until 3:00 at night which provides some security. During the day, Fort Providence has some home care workers who do go into the facility. The home care services are provided primarily by nurses who come into the home and support from other professionals such as physicians and occupational therapists from time to time that go into the facility.

As far as the reconstruction or renovations needed at the home, I’m not aware of the status of that particular project at this time. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Minister for making an effort in trying to reply. Initially I wanted to ask the Minister of the Housing Corporation, but obviously he’s not here.

My other question is with the budget plus the efforts of this government, there seems to be maintaining the status quo of the health and social services programs. We have an increasing aging population of people who want to continue living in their communities and in their homes. The Department of Health and Social Services has made efforts to maintain the status quo. The real effort should have been perhaps to increase and enhance the Home Care Program, so ideally you have health care professionals working with a team of local people to provide services to elders in their homes.

With that in mind, would the Minister agree to support the community’s desire to elevate the seniors home in Fort Providence from an independent care facility to specialized care, a Level III? Mahsi.

I’m just trying to get up to speed on the situation over there. The senior citizens home has gone through some review and there has been the determination that more services could be provided. The Housing Corporation has issued a request for a proposal for a design required for the changes that are necessary. At this time, the Housing Corporation is looking at the RFP submissions. We were hoping that sometime close to the end of last month they

would be able to review those proposals to see how they were going to proceed with any design changes that may be necessary to accommodate the people at the senior citizens home in Fort Providence. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to understand the Minister of Public Works and Services in terms of the aging inventory of capital assets that the government maintains throughout the communities. In this particular instance, we have an aging seniors home. There have been efforts to perhaps renovate it.

What is the policy of this government, especially the Department of Public Works and Services, of these aging buildings? Do they become, at some point, just not usable and the government has to demolish it? At what point would the government engage with the local community to determine the fate of these buildings? Mahsi.

Most of the buildings designed in the communities right across the Territories that are owned by the government usually go through a retrofit during their mid-life. The retrofit is designed to double the life of the facility at that point. The funds that go into the unit are looked at for amortization. We re-amortize the building to the end of the building. After that reaches the end of its life, the government will do an evaluation and at some point determine the building goes beyond economic repair. Once a unit is beyond economic repair, then we go through the regular disposal of that asset. We use a policy that Public Works has where we offer the building to other agencies or other departments that may want to use it, or community agencies for disposal one way or another. That is the process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions for the Minister of Justice. As you know, policing has been an ongoing issue in Tsiigehtchic and I’d like to ask the Minister, since the commitment to overnight in Tsiigehtchic, how many times have the RCMP overnighted in the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the best of my knowledge they are still trying to work with the community of Tsiigehtchic to identify accommodations so that the members can overnight in the community of Tsiigehtchic up to

eight nights a month, but they have to first identify suitable accommodation in the community and they’re working with the community to do that.

From what I understand, the main problem here is that the detachment is looking for an in-kind service. It was stated a couple of days back that we just have a $3.8 million increase in the Justice department.

Will the Minister ensure the detachment in Fort McPherson has adequate funds to secure accommodation so they can overnight in the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If that is the case, I’ll go back to the department and we’ll have a discussion with the RCMP on that topic. That shouldn’t be a hurdle to having members overnight in the community of Tsiigehtchic. If it is, we’ll try to correct that. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions about the Public Service Alliance of Canada union in Hay River which represents the workers of the Hay River Health Authority. Mr. Bouchard and I have a constituency meeting tonight and questions continue to surface in the community.

There are two things afoot right now. One is the move to a new hospital facility, the other is the establishment of a territorial health authority board that’s territory-wide. Those are two things that have caused people to wonder if our government has given further contemplation to the price and their willingness, or any plans to incorporate the Hay River Health Authority employees into the same union as all other Government of the Northwest Territories employees. I’m not sure whether the Minister of Finance or the Premier could answer that for me. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our government’s restructuring of the board authorities, where we’re moving to one health board to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the health system of the Northwest Territories, part of the planning is also to look at the Hay River Health Authority and to examine the feasibility of bringing it into the public service at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So, it sounds like Mr. Bouchard and I could tell our constituents that a takeover of that union and those employees into the

territorial government union, the Union of Northern Workers, is not imminent at this time. Certainly if this were to happen, it creates all kinds of efficiencies; it creates opportunities for mobility between health authorities; it creates a standardization which makes the health system territory-wide a lot more streamlined and a lot easier.

So, would it be correct to characterize that this is not imminent at this time and could I also ask if there’s been any recent costings of what the price tag would be to our government to do this? Thank you.

The Minister of Health has identified this as a priority and we’ve realized that if this had been done some time ago, it would have been a lot cheaper. I think when it was first looked at it was going to cost about $7 million; I think it’s more than that now. We do have information available and we can get it and provide the latest estimates to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I’m aware of what that price was. When we met with the union in Hay River, I don’t know, 15 years ago, they were talking about this, and Mr. Miltenberger probably remembers that meeting as well. It has grown; the price tag to this has grown substantially and I would suggest that putting it off for many more years is just going to continue to see that price tag grow.

So, thank you for that information. I will pass that along to the folks who will probably be at our constituency meeting tonight and tell them that the government is continuing to review it and we will have more information in the near future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On January 8, 2013, the headline in the Yellowknifer said, “Deepak International to reopen dormant diamond factory plants – Minister David Ramsay heralds rebirth to the industry.”

So, first off I want to acknowledge the Minister’s expertise and gestation. However, noting that the incubation period of the diamond cutting company has taken over two years to show results, can the Minister tell the House what benefits did the government receive by striking a deal over two years ago and how long are we locked into this deal? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There has been no government funding that’s gone into this. We have recouped close to $2 million in the sale of the two buildings on Archibald Street and it has taken some time, but our hope is that those factories will be running in the very near future. Thank you.