In terms of individuals who do fall out of the Wellness Court system or

don’t even get

to the Wellness Court system, they do become institutionalized and spend some time in the North Slave Correctional Centre, or any of our institutions for that matter.

I was wondering if the Minister had any information on how much it costs to house one inmate per day in the North Slave Correctional Centre. Thank you.

To my recollection, it’s

just over $303 per day. That’s to house federal inmates. Our own inmates, the number may be a little bit different, but when we invoice the federal government for housing federal inmates it’s $303.08 a day.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When some individuals commit a big crime, they’ll get put in jail for a very long time. I just did some quick calculations here and at $303 for a year, that’s about $110,000 per inmate within our correctional system, which is equivalent to a job position, possibly a part-time nurse in a community, just to put it out there.

But I want to ask, what is the Minister doing to work in the communities to develop some type of treatment or counselling program, especially in our small communities, to prevent individuals from having to eventually come to the end result, which is being institutionalized in our North Slave centre? Thank you.

Community justice committees

have

been

successful

in

the

communities.

Tomorrow,

in

fact,

we

have

proponents who have expressed interested in the on-the-land program. They will be meeting here in Yellowknife tomorrow. So we’re hopeful that out of this meeting tomorrow we will arrive at a proponent that we can work with that we can see the program get up and running somewhere here in the Northwest Territories. So we are doing that, and we also are looking at mental health first aid for our staff in our facilities. We also have three psychologists on staff in our five facilities across the Northwest Territories and we will continue to provide the required help that the inmates who are incarcerated in our facilities need and deserve. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Honourable Minister, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Since 2009 the Standing Committee on Government Operations released a final report on the Review of the Official Languages of the Northwest Territories. There have been several meetings since then with key stakeholders, such as FFTs, Aboriginal language groups and even as far as reaching out to both the Revitalization and Official Languages boards, talking about the amalgamation. Those are discussions that we will be having. This year I will be meeting with the board, seeking their input about the amalgamation prospects.

This has been a long time in the making. We made a lot of changes. This is a working document that we are currently working with the Aboriginal groups, and we’ll continue to do so. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister. I understand that there’s been lots of talk; there’s been lots of getting

together. However, there’s been no change.

I asked the Minister about what he called an official languages strategy that he mentioned he was going to table in this House.

I again ask the Minister, does that strategy exist and has it ever been tabled? Thank you.

When it comes to Aboriginal languages, this is an area that’s obviously dear to my heart. I speak the language. I speak fluently in my language. I feel that we need to do more in this area.

When it comes to the Official Languages Act for the Northwest Territories, we have to deal with Aboriginal language groups. Sometimes it can be a very

complex

situation

where

Aboriginal

language… There is a five-year strategic plan that’s been developed by Aboriginal language and we have to work with that. I am of the view that we need to have an integrated approach, coordinated

approach with Aboriginal groups, and that’s what is happening now.

We’ve made changes to our contribution. We’ve increased our funding to $3.4 million to Aboriginal languages groups so they can hire their own coordinator and also deal with the language nests at the community level. So, we are making substantial changes along the way. This is a strategy that we need to work with all Aboriginal language groups. Mahsi.

I have to assume that there is no strategy; the Minister has not referenced it at all. I appreciate the work that Education, Culture and Employment has done in regards to languages, and I also, like the Minister, think Aboriginal languages and the preservation and advancement of Aboriginal languages is extremely important, and we are starting to work in that direction. But the Official Languages Act is a law, a piece of legislation, and the regulations that follow it require representation on our languages boards. It specifically asks for specific representation.

I’d like to ask the Minister, knowing that these recommendations go back more than five years now, why has the Minister allowed these boards to continue to operate in contradiction to our law? Thank you.

These two boards exist so they can provide advice to the Minister responsible for Official Languages

– in that case

the Minister responsible is myself

– and seeking

their advice throughout the Northwest Territories. Due to the fact we’ve devolved various changes to our overall official languages, one of them is the Francophone Language Secretariat, the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat is another one, and we’ve increased our contribution agreements to the Aboriginal governments. Those are changes based on their recommendation.

As I stated earlier, the next meeting of the boards will be at the end of this month, and I’m looking forward to the discussion of amalgamating the two boards into one. This work has been ongoing for quite some time now, based on the feedback that we received from the general public and Aboriginal language groups, and we’re moving forward on that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I have to say it’s a little late. It’s been five years since that recommendation was made by the standing committee in the 16th . I appreciate these

changes that are happening, but if the Minister wants the boards to operate the way they are right now, he needs to have brought forward legislative change.

Why has

the Minister waited this long? He’s

presumably going to do something next week, but why has he waited and not brought forward a legislative proposal or suggestions for legislative change? Thank you.

We will be having a meeting with the board at the end of this month to seek their input, and then we’ll move forward on that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m

going to use the occasion to once again return to the cost of living under the context of power bills, and I’m going to ask questions to the NWT Power Corp Minister.

Let’s start off by examining the cost of power and its distribution here in the Northwest Territories. I’d like to ask the Minister, would he be able to speak to the rates of return to Northland Utilities and the NWT Power Corp in both the thermal, non-thermal and the hydro zones here? If he could do that breakdown on the cost that Northerners are paying to get their power. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll get that information and provide it to the Member. Thank you.

That’s okay. I have it here, so the

Minister doesn’t have to do it. Rate of return for Northland Utilities is just over 9 percent; rate of return for the thermal zone is zero percent through the NWT Power Corp; and rate of return on the NWT Power Corp in a non-thermal zone is 8.5 percent.

I’m going to ask the Minister of the NWT Power Corporation, noting that we can adjust rates of return on our equity that go back to the Power Corp, what type of influence, power stabilization is the NWT Power Corp Minister doing to ensure that zones like the Yellowknife region and the hydro zones below the South Slave are getting fair value for their money? This government can socially engineer power rates in other jurisdictions, why aren’t we working across the Territories to stabilize all costs? Thank you.

We did a rate restructuring a number of years ago. We have the thermal zone and the hydro zone. The rates for the thermal zone are pegged to the Yellowknife rate. In the hydro zone the cost of business is done and the rates set through the Public Utilities Board.

I appreciate the Member’s question. We are looking at how we are structured as a system. We are looking at generation issues that we know we need to address that would help bring down the cost of living as it relates to the price of energy. We are looking at all those major areas as we look to the fundamental government priority of lowering the cost of living. Thank you.

I’ll allow the Minister to correct me

if I’m incorrect on this point, which is I believe power to the golden gates of Yellowknife is delivered at about 18 cents a kilowatt and I think that there’s a big margin between that and the end user who picks up their power bill monthly.

Can the Minister confirm what the power rate is delivered to the Jackfish plant that comes available for Northland Utilities to pick it up for its distribution cost, and how we can help narrow that gap so Northerners can afford a power increase, especially knowing that in a couple short days we’ll be receiving another 6.2 cent increase on top of the high power rates we’re already receiving? Thank you.

The rate of power in Yellowknife is governed by the fact that, one of the reasons is that power is generated by the Power Corporation and it is distributed by Northland Utilities, and that rate is set through the Public Utilities Board. As we look to the future, we look at that issue; we look at the issue of the cost of power, the fact that we’ve had a number of incidents here in Yellowknife with low water, turbine failure on the Snare system that have all driven up the cost of business and generating power in Yellowknife. Thank you.