I am not asking for year-round coverage. The RCMP do come around every other weekend, but I would like to ask the Minister: what other actions will the Minister take to work with the RCMP to advance public safety goals in Tsiigehtchic, particularly having resident RCMP officers during times of break-up and freeze-up as of the fall of 2017?

I am afraid I cannot commit to having the RCMP there during those specific times. As I mentioned earlier, they are able to go to the community now and spend the night there since housing has now been provided by the NWT Housing Corporation. So coverage has improved. I cannot commit to having them there specifically during break-up and freeze-up for that entire period.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister at least speak to the RCMP “G” Division to see if they would be open to providing this service in the spring and fall as the community requested? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Department of Justice continues to work with the RCMP to address the concerns of the small communities. I will bring this concern to the RCMP, but I certainly can’t guarantee that the coverage requested could be provided. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the unpopular forest fire season is upon us, and my questions today are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I spoke earlier today about how in the riding of Yellowknife North, which includes the Ingraham Trail, there are over 500 “assets” or “values at risk,” including many of our own GNWT parks. I am wondering if the Minister could start by maybe informing us what his department is doing in terms of working with other departments, such as Lands and MACA, with regard to identifying values at risk and in communications internally, within those departments, in advance of a fire or emergency situation? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, we all recognize the importance of proper communication during the upcoming forest fire season and forest fire seasons of the past. We are working with Lands on a data-sharing process so that all departments are aware of the good values on the land, and we are also working with MACA through their emergency measures officer on emergency preparedness. We communicate daily with the EMO during extreme fire seasons. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you to the Minister for his reply. I am happy to hear that internal communications are a priority for our government during these times of necessity for emergency preparedness. Let’s take it a step further. I would like to ask the Minister: what is the department doing with regard to communicating to the property owners who own these assets of value?

We are working on establishing contact information with all property owners. That is why we stress the importance of all property owners to let us know where they are, let the departments know where they are and, more importantly, give us some contact information so we are able to contact them in the event of an emergency. We talk of properties and values, but our most important value is the people who are out there. We need to know who is out there so, in the event of a forest fire that is moving very quickly, we can react to that.

We are looking at different communication methods. I think the Member said in his Member’s statement about the use of Twitter during the last fire, so we are looking at different communication methods that would communicate or improve our communication with folks who are out there. I stress again the importance of folks out there letting us know where they are, so we can have that information at our disposal.

Thank you to the Minister for his reply. I have to commend some residents on the Ingraham Trail recently for working hard to actually collect a lot of property owner information, so that they can share it with their respective departments within government. That will be forthcoming, if it hasn’t already.

One of the things that we have done, and it is very commendable work in recent years, is the fire smarting program. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, the department has just engaged with the public on Ingraham Trail with regard to fire smarting during a public barbecue. I am just wondering if the Minister can elaborate a little bit more on how many more workshops there are that they want to put on for fire smarting, and more importantly, what are we actually doing to measure the effectiveness of these fire smarting workshops?

We are planning a workshop in every region during this fire season. We have had one that was conducted in North Slave already, and that may be the one Member we spoke of. We have had two conducted in South Slave already so far this year. We are planning a FireSmart representative workshop this fall, so that all the regions will be able to conduct their own workshops in the future. We continue to work with individual value-at-risk owners in communities to protect their values at risk from lowland fire. We also have identified four communities that could be at extreme risk this coming fire season, so we are working with those communities to see if there are opportunities for us to assist them or do some fire smarting breaks with them, which will have another impact on providing some work to some local people. We are working with those four communities and we will work with them to see what we can do to help them with the fire breaks and the fire smarting around their communities.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister might have partially answered some of this. It is one thing to educate folks on the fire smarting aspects, in terms of what they can do to put a degree of barrier around their property in the instance of a fire. We know that, even when resources are active and on the ground, help may not arrive, so I guess my question to the Minister is: what are we doing to educate the public about how fast a wildfire can spread, and how the onus is on the owners to protect their properties? What we can do to support them in protecting those properties? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think the Member said it well when he said that part of the onus is on the property owners to take steps to ensure that their properties are protected. As far as educating the public about how fast a wildfire is, well, it is hard for us to predict. We can help them to try and be prepared in the event that there is a very fast wildfire that is moving. I think the wildfire will educate us more than we can educate the public. We have to be prepared for it, and we will communicate through our websites and other social media.

Again, as I said before, Mr. Speaker, I stress the importance of folks who are out there to let us know where they are so we can be prepared to protect the values at risk, all people, and that is what, at the end of the day, the ultimate goal should be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we all know, last year Health and Social Services authorities amalgamated into the NWT Health and Social Service Authority. The rationale for this move was to improve coordination, communication, and the use of resources, including staff, among the regions. The Hay River Health Authority was one of the two that were left out of the amalgamation because it was engaging negotiations, but the primary reason appears to me, anyway, to be the costs associated with bringing it on board, due to their underperforming pension plan.

This pension issue has been going on for over a decade, and the price tag is growing. Every time I bring it up, it is a different number: $20 million, $15 million, $25 million. I am bringing it up again because I see the negative effects of being excluded from the NWT Health and Social Services Authority in relation to issues like medical travel, staffing, and mental health. I want to see if we can bring some sort of conclusion to this issue. My first question to the Minister of Health is: how much would it cost to bring the Hay River Health and Social Service Authority into the NWT Health and Social Services Authority? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don’t know. I know that when we looked at bringing the health authority in during the last Assembly, the cost estimates were about $20 million. Things have changed since then. We have put in 12 new positions in Hay River. There have been some other changes. There has been staff turnover. The bottom line is: I can’t tell you what the number is today, but it is likely still around that number, maybe slightly higher. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can add “I don’t know” to the number of responses I have gotten to how much it is going to cost. I know every year that the department tops up this pension plan, and I was wondering if the Minister has the numbers about how much the department has already put into this pension plan over the past 10 or 12 years, however long it has been going on.

In 2005, when I actually worked for the Government of Northwest Territories, we were looking at bringing in the Hay River Health and Social Services into the public service at that time, and I was actually working on that file. At that time, it was estimated to be around $5 million to bring the Hay River authority into the public service. Since then, because it was decided not to move forward at the time because of the cost, we have had to top up their pension every year. Last year, the top-up on the pension was about $872,000 and, for this year, we have an early estimate that suggests we’re going to have to top up their pension $1.2 million. All in all, it’s about a million a year average since 2005. If you do the math, Mr. Speaker, we’re talking $12, $14, $15 million just to keep that pension alive in Hay River.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister is making my case for me. Clearly something needs to be done. I mean the government is just throwing good money after bad here. What’s being done right now to make this happen? What’s in progress?

Late in the life of the last government, it was decided to move the Hay River authority into the public service because there were unknown things at play. There was no finalized collective agreement with the UNW for GNWT employees. There was also no finalized collective agreement with the Hay River employees. It left a lot of questions up in the air as far as what exists in one body, what exists in the other, and how do we make those come across seamlessly so that we don’t adversely affect the employees. At that time, I accepted that logic because we didn’t know those things, but I also believed at that time that it was going to happen much faster than it has as far as reaching some terms on collective agreements.

I’ve had an opportunity to travel to Hay River. I’ve seen the challenges that the Member has raised and I agree wholeheartedly with what the Member is saying. I’ve made commitments to Hay River in the past in the previous Assembly and again in this Assembly, but this is something that we must do. Rather than waiting for the collective agreements to be done, I’ve already directed the department to do an updated analysis on what it would cost but also to develop a plan on how we can move forward prior to having these agreements concluded so that we can move forward to find a way to bring health units in the Hay River into the public service. This is something that I’d like to see happen. This is something that many of us would like to see happen, but we have to be cognizant of the fact that it is going to cost a large amount of money. We’re going to have to work together to find that money if we intend to move forward with Hay River.