Daryl Dolynny

What we’ve heard from the Minister today is very encouraging, but the disposal of assets on airport lands is about as confusing as it comes. There are blurred lines of confusion on the role of the department and that of its Minister.

That said, can the Minister share with Members what changes may be forthcoming that could clarify the level of authority and responsibility of both the department and the Minister with respect to such asset disposal?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Late in December 2014, the Department of Transportation issued a notice regarding the proposed amendments to the Deh Cho Bridge Regulations. These regulations established a legal administrative framework for the tolling system of the Deh Cho Bridge, and with any amendments, they must first undergo a public review.

Registered owners of northbound commercial vehicles over 4,500 kilograms crossing the Deh Cho Bridge are required to pay a toll. Thankfully, private vehicles are not required to pay this toll.

The Minister and department know exactly where I’m going with this...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to welcome the Minister and the department here today. I’m going to start off by saying, I’m just going to quote a passage out of the opening comments here and it says that we are seeing an increase of $688,000, or 2.9 percent, versus last year. Now, just that number alone shows me, are we controlling expenditures? As we heard in the operational budget address, we want to keep our expenditures in line with revenues. Here is another classic example. I’m going to be putting every department on notice on this very concept. If we’re going to do blanket...

In the fulsome of time, I will leave it at that. I’ll be following up with this during the course of the year.

I only ask my final comment, does the department communicate all aspects of this occupational health and training in terms of how the government will be undertaking a revitalization, from what I’m hearing, as their safety culture? The only reason I say this is that I fear that we have a number of court cases pending within our territorial court system in which we are defending our four walls. We’ve lost one case already. We’ve been fined heavily and received a scathing report from...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, we’re hearing in progress. You know what? This is just ridiculous. All Northerners were led to believe that our use of southern facilities for withdrawal management and addiction treatments were to be temporary. The Minister is even quoted in saying, “We have not lost sight of the need to develop NWT-specific options of our approach to addressing addictions.”

Can the Minister elaborate as to when we can see and expect a NWT-specific residential addictions treatment facility based in the North and run by Northerners?

My final question, Mr. Chair. As we heard earlier from the Minister on his paid political announcement that we have a program forthcoming with respect to some form of a safety training program that is somewhat coming down in the immediate future here, would we be seeing this program implemented before the life of the 17th Legislative Assembly? Thank you.

The Minister just pointed out just one of a very broad range of recommendations that have yet to be implemented in the Northwest Territories. One of the recommendations of interest was the department being asked to develop policies, standards and guidelines in common language that are to be used across the system to establish a common assessment tool to assess withdrawal severity, stages of changes and addiction severity.

Can the Minister indicate if this has been done yet?

Mr. Chair, I do appreciate that paid political announcement.

Can the Minister indicate how many coordinators that we have in our government dedicated to safety? Thank you.

Many of these recommendations are found in this report, a report that has been in the hands of the department for almost a year. Therefore, it’s time to ask our Minister to rip off his band-aid and allow the scab of our past to fully heal.

I’ll have questions later today for the Minister as to what he has been doing in addressing withdrawal management for the past year. Thank you.

Besides working on communication, what is the department doing to establish government-wide occupational health and safety training programs?