This is page numbers 3767 – 3794 of the Hansard for the 18th Assembly, 3rd 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 community.

Topics

Kieron Testart

Kieron Testart Kam Lake

It is interesting that the Minister is so confident in BIP's success because all the concerns I hear are about BIP. I already know he is not willing to reform BIP, to do a review of BIP to take action on these concerns. So, given the high-profile nature of several procurement issues -- I am talking about the Housing Corporation modular project in Hay River that the failure of the procurement policy resulted in the loss of 40 full-time jobs, a Minister's riding, by the way, Mr. Speaker, and, of course, the NTPC power generators ongoing affair, which is at least half a million dollars of government funding that has gone to that -- do these high-profile issues convince the Minister that we need to take a look at how we procure things so that we can save some money and save some jobs?

Wally Schumann

Wally Schumann Hay River South

The Member throws a lot of comments out there. There are a lot of issues around both of these procurement issues, and I am not going to talk about it in this House because that is privy information. He is throwing stuff out there that is not realistic to the rest of the policy that helps northern businesses under the BIP policy. Our preference is to continue with the way we do business, and I have said it in this House a number of times: we are going to continue to the way we do business and follow our policies.

Kieron Testart

Kieron Testart Kam Lake

One of the issues with BIP is that it only applies to the first $500,000 on procurement contracts. Is the Minister willing to be flexible with that amount so that businesses that are looking to take on larger projects, who are northern-owned and operated, can receive greater benefits from procurement?

Wally Schumann

Wally Schumann Hay River South

I have said in this House before: I came from private business. I was there my whole life. I have done procurement with the Government of the Northwest Territories my whole life. I have bid on projects for various amounts from $1 to over $1 million. The BIP procurement policy protects northern businesses to a significant amount, but at the same time we are here to protect the public purse, and we will continue to do that. As a businessperson previous to being in this House, I believe the policy is there in a meaningful way to help protect us and give us a leg up, and I believe it is significant, and I will stick to that.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Kieron Testart

Kieron Testart Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Minister's clarity of purpose on this. There are a number of companies that are grandfathered in or are meeting a 50 per cent requirement that are still either owned in part or owned entirely by southern companies that can benefit from southern supply chains, so we are giving those companies a 20 per cent markup through their northern preference, even though they can double dip, so to speak, and benefit from southern markets. Is the Minister willing to look at those requirements and the list of grandfathered companies that are benefitting from southern supply chains and take that into account when looking at potential reform for this policy? Thank you.

Wally Schumann

Wally Schumann Hay River South

We continue to review all of the our policies and make sure they are doing the support to business in the Northwest Territories. The Member has brought up an issue that I have not heard about. No one has come to me saying there is a disadvantage, being these companies that are grandfathered in. This is something that is new to me and, if he is glad to come down to my office and have a discussion about that, I would be willing to sit down with him. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. In the last session, you may recall a number of my colleagues and I talked about modular homes, specifically about the contractor's failure to deliver all of the units by last summer, as the contract specified. Last we heard, the Minister was making alternative arrangements to complete and deliver these units. Can she please provide an update, and I will break this down into pieces, first on the three units that were partially complete when they were delivered to Ulukhaktok? Mahsi.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, the original plan was to have 19 buildings from the Concept Energy. At this point, we are proceeding with the completion of 14 of those units. I do not know if all of them have been tendered out yet. I do know that five of the projects have been deferred because, there were two communities, one community was we had worked with the MLA and private market-holders who had expressed interest in building in that community, and so we try not to disturb the market within communities. Another one, we worked with the MLA because, I believe, they would be market units, and it was determined that those units were not necessary in that community at that time. So we are working with them all. The three units that were started, those were the easier ones, so I believe they have been tendered out, and they will be completed.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you for that response, to the Minister. I would just like to get a little more detail. So, of these 14 units that have or will be tendered out, what are the completion times on that?

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Some of the units are in process now. The majority are being conducted right away. Northern communities have a little bit more of a struggle because of the winter, because of the weather. A lot of them will be started with the warming of the weather. All units will be completed by the end of this annual year.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Mr. Speaker, now that the Minister has had some time to reflect on how this contract kind of went awry, what are the lessons that she is taking away from this experience?

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

So, the allocating of these 19 units was at the beginning of my term a couple of years ago, and I do appreciate the Member saying: what lessons did I derive from that experience. It's important to look on the things that we do and to reflect and to make sure that we make better decisions in the future. I believe in northern houses for northern people, done by northern contractors, so my initial goal was to actually have those units as a manufacturing strategy. There are a lot of modular units that come from the south, especially in our community of Yellowknife, that are sold and the money is not staying here; it's going south. So the initial idea was to be able to build that industry within the Northwest Territories. It would bring jobs to communities. It would keep the money in our community. It would be spread throughout. It would bring apprenticeships and lots of opportunities.

The idea, though, was not a failure in the process. It was a business failure, Mr. Speaker. I learned from it that, if we are going to be start doing manufacturing, we need to start small so we don't set people up to fail. We need to provide better supervision of the units, but I haven't discounted it. I will still look for ways to ensure that we can promote manufacturing in the territories and promote jobs and keep our money in the north.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister's answer. One of the debates we had at the time that contract was going to go out was the relative advantages of module homes versus stick-built homes. Given what she has learned from this contract, does the Minister now have a preference for one kind of housing over the over? Thank you.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

That was another lesson that was learned actually. We still need to have diversity in our options for housing. There is still a cost savings for residents to be able to access module units versus stick-built units. There's a substantial savings with that.

We had some difficulty actually getting those units, completed or half-completed ones, onto the barges. So we did learn, and the expense was more than we expected because of the barging and the cost with that. What we have learned through that is that module units are easily done within the southern communities where we don't have to barge them and where we don't have to deal with the transportation. We need to re-look at that within communities that aren't accessible by road, although I do want to state that Inuvik still has some buildings that are looking at module. I know that IRC might be looking at modules. It's not something that we're writing out of the northern communities. It's just we have to look at accessibility into those communities and the cost factors to getting them and then apply that to a cost analysis, module units versus stick-built. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.

Frederick Blake Jr.

Frederick Blake Jr. Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a follow-up to my Member's statement. I have a couple of questions for the Minister responsible for Housing. I would like to ask the Minister, it actually came up in my constituency meeting. We had leaders in the community, the chief and mayor and also the president of the Designated Gwich'in Organization who brought up the issue that they would like to see a housing authority in Tsiigehtchic board actually set up in the community with members from the community to make decisions that are needed in the community.

I would like to ask the Minister: will the Minister ensure the community of Tsiigehtchic will have a housing authority board in the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct. The best solutions for communities are actually to have the services within the community. It's not the best service to be outside. Those in the community know the situations. They know the strengths and the challenges of community members, so I would like to see a board in Tsiigehtchic as well.

We do have a local housing organization in Tsiigehtchic with a manager. The difficulty has been the board. In 2013, actually, we met with the community and we talked about a board. Out of those people in attendance, only one person actually stated that they wanted a board at that time.

We also put out a call for board members and we didn't get enough interest. That's not okay, though. I mean, that was four years ago, almost five years ago, so it's time to do another one. We actually are going into Tsiigehtchic on March 27 and at that point, again, we will be discussing the board, finding out if the residents want the board. I'm hearing the MLAs saying they want the board, and trying to gain interest from member communities to sit on that board. That seems to be a little bit of a harder challenge. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Frederick Blake Jr.

Frederick Blake Jr. Mackenzie Delta

I'm sure there are no problems finding people to sit on the board. I think what we need to do is make the community aware. You know, when a department is coming into the community, it's always important that it's outside in the community, whether it's on the CBC, the afternoon radio show that everyone listens to. We have to make sure that there are people out there who are aware of this meeting that's taking place. Will the Minister ensure that there is proper community communication and also put it on CBC Radio?

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Again, the Member is right. We need to communicate better and we need to communicate with the communities when we are going into their communities. I know that there are some communities that listen adamantly to the question period within the House. I'm hoping that those who hear will spread the word that we are coming on March 27. I'm hoping that the MLA, when he returns to the community, will spread the word that we are coming on March 27. I do state that we will make sure that we have adequate communications going into the community to make sure that as many community members as possible know that we are coming in on March 27.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. March 27, it is. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.