This is page numbers 6023 - 6088 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 know.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the North, we have access to those persons that can bring cultural suitability to treatment programs. What we are missing is a certified or licensed health component due to recruitment issues.

Mr. Speaker, is the Minister willing to consider establishing a treatment centre, whether in the NWT or in the south, that provides clients with treatment that reflects northern appropriate culture in addition to services provided by licensed health workers? Thank you.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know that the Member would like me to say yes, and he wants me to leave the past behind. But I think that when we're looking at spending tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, I think it's really important that we take away the issues from the previous treatment centres. Most importantly, that they were never more than -- they were never filled to capacity, that there were issues that related to staffing, that related to the programming, that kept people away. So the idea of committing tens of millions of dollars to do the same thing again simply doesn't make sense to me.

What we've heard consistently from Indigenous governments is they want a regional approach so that people in the Gwich'in settlement area can deal with a Gwich'in healing camp. Likewise, the Tlicho and so on. So I think that one treatment centre for the whole of the NWT is not something which I'm confident will work but I think there are other approaches that will, and I look forward to working on them. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are related to my Member's statement regarding diagnosis at small community health centres. I note the vision of the health department is for best health, best care for a better future. One of the values is caring, which states we treat everyone compassion, respect, fairness, and dignity. Another value is accountability, which states system outcomes are measured, assessed, and publicly reported on.

Mr. Speaker, I have repeatedly been asking the health department if they would consider conducting professional evaluations on the delivery of health care, especially in all the small centres, to no avail. I ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if she will give direction to the department to begin to develop a system to conduct professional evaluations of all small health centres and that these be conducted on a yearly basis. Mahsi.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we have to take a step back from this question and the efforts that this Member has made, and which I appreciate him making, to try and improve the quality of health care in small communities like his.

What I see is that there is a historic mistrust of the health and social services system, which I understand. It has very deep roots and despite our best efforts at cultural training, cultural sensitivity, and anti-racism training, those problems persist. And it is my goal to live up to those values which the Member enunciated in the preamble to his question.

What I have seen work in the time, that I have been health minister, is developing relationships between the chief operating officers of the regions and the people in the communities that those regions serve. And so it's my hope that the Member will reach out to the chief operating officer of the Deh Cho region, get to know her, and to talk to her about his concerns so that relationship-based care has a place to start for him in improving the relationship between the health and social services system, himself, and his community. Thank you.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Of course it's another case of passing the buck, getting me to do the work of her department. The Minister herself should be relaying these messages to all the health and social services authorities.

Mr. Speaker, one of the values of the health department is accountability in that system outcomes, and I'm stating it again, are measured, assessed, and publicly reported on, and that sounds like an evaluation type of value.

Can the Minister apprise this House and the residents of the Northwest Territories when we may see fruition of the department's value of accountability? Mahsi.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have layers of mechanisms to ensure that the services that we deliver are appropriate, culturally safe, and effective. We have, of course, the new patient advocates. We have the office of client experience, which will look into particular complaints of the kind the Member has brought forward. The people who work in the health centres are licensed by regulatory bodies. Those bodies have complaint processes. We also, of course, are accredited on a regular basis. The next accreditation exercise will take place in September. So accountability is happening at many different levels in the health system, and we strive for continuous performance improvement to better meet the needs of the NWT. Thank you.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the young person I spoke of in my Member's statement is one example of how the health care system is failing our residents despite the vision of best health, best care for a better future.

Can the Minister explain what the health department is doing to provide the best care, the best health care that speaks of compassion, that speaks of respect, that speaks of fairness and, most of all, that speaks of dignity of our residents. Mahsi.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a department with over 1,800 staff and a $610 million budget. So I don't know if the Member really wants me to explain everything that we're doing to serve the residents of the Northwest Territories. I support, and our staff supports, the goals that he has enunciated - that people are treated with respect, with dignity. They are provided with effective care that resolves their issues.

Diagnosis is a really complicated process. It can vary between a practitioner being able to look at somebody and diagnose an ailment almost immediately to something that is much more complex beyond the skills and equipment available in local health centres, and that's when people are medevaced or referred to Yellowknife for additional treatment.

We, I think, are trying our best. We don't always get it right. I really encourage the Member, as I did previously when he brought this case to my attention, to contact the office of client experience. We want to learn from things, which people are dissatisfied with or consider mistakes, so that we can improve the services we provide to all NWT residents. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final short supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I realize the health care system is stretched and that health care professionals are in short supply, including doctors and registered nurses. Can the Minister update this House in its efforts to attract health care professionals to the North? Mahsi.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that information to hand so I will write the Member a letter. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've been at this Taltson thing for about two decades now and tens of millions of dollars in engineering studies, and I guess my first question is can the Minister tell me how much this Taltson Expansion is going to cost? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the -- I just -- before we -- I don't have the cost right in front of me but I do want to add that we have numerous discussions with industrial companies regarding the Taltson project. These companies have expressed interest in the project. They have stated that they -- that the investors want to invest in project that use green and clean power. At this point in time, we are examining the potential for ten candidate mine customers to be able to support this project, which will start in 2033. We will need at least two or three reasonable, foreseeable mine customers in place to proceed to construction in 2027.

I'd also like to add, Mr. Speaker, that linking these two grids will improve redundancy, power reliability. We would always realize significant savings when we are faced with low water levels and we have to rely heavily on diesel generation, which comes at a significant cost. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't hear how much the project was going to cost, which seems like a pretty fundamental thing you would want to know, is how much is this project going to cost. We have an MOU to build it. We were asking the federal government to give us money. Certainly we must know how much we're asking for, Mr. Speaker. But apparently not.

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that this project has fallen through in the past is that we just can't quite get to a rate of power that is competitive with the price of diesel, and so mines do not want to enter into a long-term power purchasing agreement. I know some of the social governance and the desire to be on clean energy is changing that math for mines but, really, at the end of the day it's going to come down to what we think we can sell this power at. So does the Minister have a figure of what we can expect to sell Taltson power at? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Of course, Mr. Speaker, our goal is to sell all the power we will produce from this project. 60 megawatts is the current proposed expansion at the site, on top of what we're producing existing generation. The final install capacity of the facility and annual water levels in the Taltson system will ultimately dictate how much power we'll be able to sell. Mr. Speaker, we are currently estimating in the range of about 420 gigawatt hours of additional energy we'll be able to sell. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Selling 60 megawatts in this territory is no small feat. You know, we're definitely going to need quite a few mines and they're going to need to operate for multiple decade with long-term power purchasing agreements to sell 60 megawatts of power. And I didn't hear how much the project was going to cost, and I didn't hear how much we actually expect that power to cost. I'll note that a lot of these operations can look to Alberta that sell at about $0.12 a kilowatt hour power, which is a lot cheaper than what we could ever hope to get to.

Mr. Speaker, I'm hoping, perhaps I can get a bit more detail there. I heard the Minister say there's ten potential mines. I'm wracking my brain to even picture two mines that are on a potential route. Pine Point is an obvious one. But can the Minister tell me which potential mines these are that would actually be on the grid? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me take this opportunity to let the Member know the hydro price we will charge will need to be competitive with other power alternatives for remote mines such as an LNG and diesel at the time we proceed. You know, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that's probably not -- you appreciate it's not in our best business interest to be able to list a price today for power that will be sold to a project that won't come on line in the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I don't actually know whether we should build Taltson, and I don't think I should even have an opinion on it. I think the power corp needs to have a business case, and it needs to be evidence-based, and we need to crunch the numbers to see who's going to buy our power, for how much, and if it makes sense then most certainly we should do that. And, really, it is an evidence-based decision-making, and we shouldn't be here on the floor of the House asking basic questions such as how much is this whole thing we've been talking about for decades actually going to cost. And all of that would be done in a business case, Mr. Speaker; a business case that we have been promised over and over.

And so my question for the Minister of Infrastructure is when are we going to see a public business case for the Taltson Hydro Expansion? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are on track for the completion of a detailed business case for this project within the life of this government. This document will not be made public. As a general rule, Mr. Speaker, detailed business case information is not made public; you know, to preserve the financial that's in the context of a major project for which we are going to be seeking competitive bids for this construction. We will be working with our partners to provide compelling case for Canada and the GNWT to invest in significant dollars for this project.

Mr. Speaker, a key part of this work is to demonstrate specific benefits for the Northwest Territories in terms of growth, construction jobs, stabilized power, power rates, specific conditions, risk, that must be addressed prior to the GNWT investing in this construction dollars. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.