Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Sunday will be Father's Day. I'm hoping that the Minister of Health and Social Services could deliver some good news. Mr. Speaker, could the Minister of Health and Social Services please explain the existing support for families during the delivery of their children?

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are physicians across the Northwest Territories providing obstetrics services. We also have midwifery services in Fort Smith, Hay River, as well as the MORE OB program up in Beaufort Delta, and we have birthing here in the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, and I think it's to the Member's point, there are individuals that do have to come out of their smaller communities to centres like Yellowknife or Fort Smith, Hay River, or Inuvik to facilitate birthing. To bring those individuals in, the mothers, we do bring them in on medical travel and we do provide, whether it's one of our boarding homes or other mechanisms, places for them to stay when they have to come to one of the centres. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for acknowledging that. Our challenge with supporting family, yet from small communities, pregnant women have to be brought here for their own safety and wellbeing at Yellowknife, and they stay here for extended periods of time, and they're separated from their children. Can the Minister explain, how does the department support fathers to ensure that they could be with their spouses during the special moment at delivery?

Mr. Speaker, unless there's a clinical need, medical travel isn't available or escorts aren't available for birthing mothers who have to come to one of the centres, and it is up to the family, the father, to find their own way to the central location where the birthing is going to take place.

Mr. Speaker, there's been discussions in terms of the efficiencies in terms of government spending and revenues, and one of the focus points has been the issue of medical travel. Will the Minister commit if there is perhaps down the road an opportunity to review the program, would the Minister commit to ensure that the involvement of fathers during the delivery of their children is considered with the view of trying to support families in that special moment?

Mr. Speaker, medical travel is actually currently being reviewed and one of the pillars that is being reviewed is escorts when and how they should be supported. We did go out for public engagement. We got a significant amount of feedback from residents across the Northwest Territories as well as other stakeholders and we are moving forward with that plan. I’ll have a conversation with the department, certainly, and I’m certainly willing to continue to have a dialogue and discussion with the Members across the floor about what we should be covering under escorts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t hear a commitment from the Minister. Will he commit once again to support the review of medical travel at the same time with the view of support and follows to be involved and besides their spouses, during the moment of delivery of their children? Yes or no? Masi.

I’m not going to commit at this time to covering fathers during birth, but I will certainly look at exploring the possibility of how we can be, you know, provide better support and other mechanisms. But at the end of the day, our medical travel is incredibly expensive. We have escorts for certain criteria. Criteria like a patient who is under 19 years of age who needs an escort. A patient who is breastfeeding an infant and requires an escort. A patient who has a medical or physical disability of a nature that they require an escort. There’s a lot of criteria that we have to apply and in the situation of birthing, those situations may not apply unless there’s a clinical need on behalf of the mother. But we will certainly look at it, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral question. Member of Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, I spoke about NTCL. My questions are for the Minister of MACA and he might have to tap into his expertise in Finance and Lands as well.

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NTCL owes about $685,000 in property taxes, last time I checked, to the town of Hay River. Does the department have a contingency plan for this money, if NT can’t pay it, as the town’s an unsecured creditor? Or is the town expected to absorb this cost? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my first advice to the town would be to seek some advice from their lawyer or their accountant and in fact, I would advise all communities that find themselves in this similar situation to seek the proper advice. If the $685,000, or $600,000, just close to $700,000 is owed for property taxes, the town does have the ability to explore the recovery taxes as per the Property Assessment and Taxation Act, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

s I stated earlier, NT’s probably the largest holder of land in Hay River, by quite a large margin. Is the government aware of how much land will revert back to the GNWT if NTCL does go bankrupt or how much will revert to the town or how much will revert to the feds.

The Member is correct. The company does own a large number of properties in Hay River. As for the actual number of which ones are, if any are GNWT owned, I would have to follow-up and get that more detailed information and how much is owned by the town. So I’ll commit to the Member that I’ll try, I’ll work to get a breakdown of exactly where these properties are from, if they’re leased, they’re owned and I will provide that information to the Member.

I thank the Minister for that. My next question is the town, the land that does revert to the town or the GNWT, well, I guess the town is my concern. Much of it is going to need environmental remediation. I mean, NT’s been there for 70 years, there’s you know, hydrocarbon contamination on a lot of the sites. There’s contamination from paint, from all this kind of stuff. So is the town responsible for the environmental remediation? Because it could be tens of millions.

Mr. Speaker, the environmental remediation would be the responsibility of the owners. So if the town owns the land, responsibility for remediation would be theirs. If the GNWT owns the land, then the responsibility for the remediation would be the GNWTs. We have an Environmental Liabilities Committee, which would do an assessment whether contamination exists on the land and so the land would go to on our environmental liabilities list and would be remediated according to the GNWT priority and procedures. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where whoever owns the property would be responsible for the remediation.

Masi. Oral question. Member of Hay River North.

I believe this is my last question. My fourth.

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I’m also concerned about the waterways because there’s been barges sitting idle for years and I’m wondering who’s going to be responsible for the clean-up of that? Is that a federal responsibility or is that something the GNWT is going to help out with?

Mr. Speaker, as far as the waterways go, that would still be a federal responsibility, so it seems that in this case, it could be, you know, the town has some interest in it, the GNWT may have some interest in it and the Government of Canada may have some interest. So I think it would be wise for the three organizations to get together and decide a plan to do some remediation if the company goes, I mean, the company is in receivership, so we’ll have to come up with a plan going forward. But I do know on the government side of it though, we do have our committee that would do an assessment on any remediation that we might be responsible for.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Masi, Mr. Speaker. Maybe it’s environmental liabilities day or week. I apologize, I didn’t give the Minister much heads up on this. It’s been a busy week. Earlier this week, I made a statement about the significant financial security shortfall for the Cantung mine and how our government really didn’t deal with the issue after we inherited the site under devolution. Today, though, I made a statement about the significant financial security shortfall for the Prairie Creek site. Can the Minister of Lands tell this House whether the GNWT holds the surface lease for the Prairie Creek site? Masi, Mr. Speaker.