This is page numbers 5011 - 5050 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd 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 work.

Topics

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will have to get the information for the Member. Thank you.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, can the Minister speak to what is going on with the ongoing pest control treatment at Lanky Court? It's my understanding there has been different messages put out to clients there, threats of fines should they not be out of their apartments at the time, conflicting reports on whether or not the pesticides or the pest control methods are safe for people to use. Yes, any information the Minister could provide on that would be great. Thanks.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Housing has been working very closely, I want to say, with Northview. We have addressed several issues with our leases that we do hold with them as well too. The one that was most recent was a security issue that we did have. We have been working with Northview as well too looking at the pest control, and I am aware of what has been happening here in Yellowknife. I will have to follow up with the Member to get a further thorough detail on the reporting that has been received. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I do appreciate the Minister's willingness to get back to me. Can the Minister commit to going and spending some time at Lanky Court and actually going into some of these apartments? I have people that are in hotels due to mold. I have water pipes that are broken. There's people with cockroaches scurrying all over their stuff. And a lot of these people aren't even actually into the housing units yet. They're actually YWCA renters who are on housing waitlists. So I do think that the Minister and the department needs to get a better understanding of how terrible the conditions are. Our people deserve better housing than living in the slums that we're putting them in. Thank you.

Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will have to follow up with the Member as well too. And I want to be very clear on the leases that we do hold with these third party and also holding them accountable. But not only that, that Housing is actually responding and we are working with these lease agreements that we do have and we are providing fair, adequate housing to our tenants here and throughout the Northwest Territories. I will have to follow up with the Member. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you. Can the Minister share any comprehensive evaluation or other data that takes into account by needs assessments, best practices of Indigenous treatment centres in other jurisdictions, and client uptakes and outcomes of the departments preferred service offering to back up her claim that treatment centres do not work in the NWT? Thank you.

The Deputy Speaker

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you. Minister for Health and Social Services.

Question 1285-19(2): Treatment Centres
Oral Questions

November 2nd, 2022

Page 5024

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, when I say treatment centres don't work, I'm talking about attendance at the treatment centres. Since we established the contracts with the southern treatment centres, the number of people going to treatment has increased significantly. And this is information that the Member asked for last week, which was sent to her today. She will notice that there is a drop-off in the years that COVID has been active but since 2014, 2015, a total of 1,446 people have been to treatment. Thank you.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you. Will the department and health authorities consider that a change in their own approach may be necessary to make treatment facilities successful rather than assume treatment centres definitively will not work in NWT? Thank you.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yes, thank you. We did a comprehensive addictions survey about a year and a half ago, and that collected a lot of valuable feedback about what people experienced in treatment and what they wanted for aftercare. One of the requests there was to have treatment closer to home, and that's something that we are having conversations with the Indigenous governments about. I want to note that when it was time to set the priorities for this Legislative Assembly, nobody asked for a treatment centre. Thank you.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

With the contract between GNWT and Poundmaker's Lodge now terminated, replacing Poundmaker's with another suitable facility based on Indigenous treatment centre is an urgent matter. What is the department doing to fast track its process in securing new options, and what do those timelines look like? Thank you.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the department has developed an RFP that will go out before the end of the year asking Indigenous-focused treatment centres to submit proposals for serving NWT residents. And our hope is that that contract will be in place for the new fiscal year, April 1st. And if the Member has any particular recommendations or contacts in Indigenous treatment circles that we should pursue, we would be happy to hear about them. Thank you.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Well, like I said before, she can work with Tlicho government on this approach.

In the spirit of wanting to provide a range of suitable options for NWT residents, will the Minister commit to learning more about client preferences and contracting a greater number of southern facilities that meet our needs for addiction treatment? Thank you.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the six facilities, now five, that we contracted was the result of an RFP process. What we were looking for was variety in the possibilities that we could offer. And I believe those contracts were for three years, so they have about a year and a half to go. So this is a process that is renewed from time to time. And we can certainly test any options that the Member might want to bring to our attention at that time. Thank you.

The Deputy Speaker

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Edjericon

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I stated earlier today that this government's financial position is in dire straits. Without new revenues, austerity measures are a likely outcome for the future years. As mentioned earlier, simple math. I believe it's time to be honest with our residents about this reality here in the Northwest Territories today.

Madam Speaker, one of my question would be to the finance minister. Is this government planning to implement austerity measures, including cuts to services and jobs within the remainder of its term? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I conducted the budget dialogues this past spring and summer. When I did so, I presented to any member of the public who was interested the state of our funding, funds, the state of our fiscal situation, including operating surpluses, operating and capital expenses. I've put those informations before the public and received feedback on how people would like to see us moving forward in this government, whether it's through trying to increase revenues, whether it's through trying to decrease expenses or, frankly, a little bit of both. So I do want to quite sternly combat the notion that we are somehow not being honest with the public about the state of public finances. I take issue with that. I don't take the Member to be suggesting that is me or that is, you know, anything other than a desire to have more information. That's how I'm going to take this question. So, Madam Speaker, with that in mind, I am not suggesting that there's likely to be significant reductions to the public service or to programs or services at this point or in the near future. There certainly is a business planning process, and Members do have opportunity to go through the business plans with their Ministers, relevant Ministers late in the summer as part of our annual budgeting cycle. But, again, similarly, that is why we do budget dialogues in the summer so that people are aware of what the financial situation of the government is throughout the fiscal year. Similarly, during this particular session and as we go into the capital planning, this year I introduced the opportunity to have a bit of a media scrum in advance of tabling the capital budgets so that, again, I could speak openly to the media about the state of our fiscal situation and what we are doing to keep it on track. There are a number of things we're doing. This is not time for a Minister's statement but there's a number of things that are keeping us on track so that in the medium term we are not facing quite the dire straits that is being suggested here. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Edjericon

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Speaker. And thank you, Minister. If no such austerity measures are planned, how will the government manage its considerable fiscal challenges without clear resources/future revenues to offset spending deficits? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Speaker. That works out quite well, because I get to now continue what I wasn't going to say earlier. But let me give a few of the comments that I have on that one.

Well, with respect to the notion that we are about to hit the fiscal or the debt ceiling, Madam Speaker, that has been a spectre over many a fine government. That is no longer the spectre because of the changes we've introduced to the capital planning process. By reducing the size of the capital plan to be more right sized, we are not running up against our debt ceiling. We've not had to take on as great a borrowing plan as we would have had to otherwise and as such, we will not be running up into that debt ceiling the way that we were forecast to prior to making these changes.

With respect more generally to our operations, Madam Speaker, we are, again, although this particular fiscal year we did lose some revenues because of the changes to fiscal, we didn't get capital transfers as those projects do move forward later in later years, particularly with the federal government, we still have obligations, those funds will come in. They're just coming in in later years. And similarly, territorial formula financing does catch up. We have had some revenue shocks, including the shocks of COVID, which were only last year, territorial formula financing will catch up, provincial spending went up over the last two years, territorial formula financing catches us up. So we actually are expecting our revenues to go up over the next couple of years. And that's in addition to the fact that there's a number of things, government renewal is underway, the procurement review is underway, you know, changes to the public service is underway, and the public sector, of course, remains a huge contributor to our economy. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Edjericon

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Minister. Madam Speaker, eventually cuts to services and programs will be required to manage spending without a miracle windfall well outside the government ability to plan. Based on current financial projects, can the Minister tell me when these cuts to programs and jobs will come? Will it be in 2023? 2024? Or 2025? When will cuts be required, Madam Speaker?

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there's no planned cuts. I have no announcement to make here. There's not a moment of, you know, I get to say here's what's coming next. The plans that are in front of the public, the plans that I put forward, whether it's in budget dialogues, whether it's with this capital plan, there's no cuts to announce. I can't predict the future. I couldn't predict a $100 million flood any more than I could predict COVID. But what I can say, again, is we are trying to do what we can from within to manage our fiscal situation, to try to maintain the strong public sector presence that we have in the economy. And then with that, Madam Speaker, I put my Minister of ITI hat on and say what are we doing to try to grow the economy because that then in turn will keep the fiscal situation more stable for the business sector, for the public, and of course, certainly impacting on the draws on our programs and also on the benefits that we do see from our limited own source revenues. So, Madam Speaker, that continues to be my focus, is what can we do to avoid the cuts by using all the other levers available to us. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker

The Deputy Speaker Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Edjericon

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm concerned that this government is looking at kicking this can down the road to future governments instead of adjusting these financial realities head on. Can the Minister tell us if this government's setting up the next Assembly to make unpopular financial decisions to avoid making them in an election year? Thank you.