Legislative Assembly briefs
Devolution to be signed at end of session
Cody Punter
Northern News Services
Published Friday, February 7, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The fifth session of the 17th assembly got underway on Wednesday as MLAs get set to make the necessary changes so that devolution can be signed into law on Apr. 1.
"The next time we meet, the legislative assembly will have substantially more powers to make decisions on behalf of the people who elected us," said Premier Bob McLeod.
Before power can be transferred to the GNWT, MLAs must first adopt a total of 27 federal acts, something which Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny said will be taking up a lot of time during the current session.
"Unfortunately we're all working to a deadline," he said.
Dolynny added that while the bills be debated in the assembly, it is unlikely that anything will get in the way of passing devolution.
Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro used her member's statement on Wednesday to voice her displeasure over the fact that the devolution act has been packaged as part of an omnibus bill along with the consolidation of the territory's four regional land and water boards into a single board.
"The parts of Bill C-15 which refer to, and make amendments to, the (Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board) are almost universally detested," said Bisaro, pointing out that the Tlicho Government may take the federal government to court over the amendments.
"I support those that oppose the one board proposal."
After the assembly Bisaro conceded that there was likely little that could be done to separate the two parts of the bill as the federal government has already decided against it.
"Dennis Bevington already put forward a motion to divide the bill and it was defeated in committee," said Bisaro.
Dolynny said there will be the potential to review the devolution act over the next five years.
"We want to make sure that ... if we do have to accept it in its form that there's opportunity in the very short term to have it evaluated, re-looked, re-opened, re-examined and re-debated if need be," he said.
Dolynny wants power outage answers
The first sitting of the legislative assembly in 2014 saw Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny pressing Michael Miltenberger, the minister responsible for the power corporation, on the costs of Yellowknife's recent city-wide power outage.
During Wednesday's sessions Dolynny revealed 231 residential clients of the power corporation came forward to complain about a total of $350,000 worth of damages as a result of the recent power outage.
That does not include the further $1.5 million worth of damages that the city is expected to incur, he said.
Dolynny had previously suggested that a contingency fund be created in order to help pay for damage incurred by the Dec 29. outage.
Although Canadian law prevents power corporations from paying-out clients as a result of of damages attributed to "acts of God," Dolynny suggested that the failure of Northwest Territories Power Corporation was partly to blame for the outage.
"Where does the act of God cease and where does faulty equipment start?" he said.
He also pointed out that there was an incident in which Inuvik's power corporation paid compensated clients after a power surge caused significant damage in the community.
Miltenberger didn't say what exactly caused the power outage, but admitted there was a failure in the NTPC's equipment.
He added that Yellowknife was just one of many jurisdictions across Canada that experienced a power outage during cold weather.
"On a comparative basis we were very fortunate that we got everything up and running," said Miltenberger.
Hawkins calls for college accountability
MLA for Yellowknife Centre Robert Hawkins called
for Aurora College's board of governors to be more
accountable to its students during the first sitting of legislative assembly of 2014.
Hawkins said students voiced concerns about the college on a variety of different issues when he and other MLAs went to meet with them at the college's Yellowknife campus a few weeks ago.
When Hawkins asked the students if the college's board had taken the time to meet with them, he said their "answer was not surprisingly, but disappointingly, no."
Hawkins was then informed that there is currently
only one student appointed to sit on the board of governors, which is appointed by cabinet. That student is intended
to represent students at the college's three campuses across
the territory. Hawkins also pointed out the student representative hasn't been appointed yet and the position is currently vacant.
When Hawkins followed up with the board he said their
contact information was not publicly available and he was expected to send his query to the president.
"What level of accountability is this? Are they screening letters? Who knows? They're intentions may be good but they certainly don't look good up front." said Hawkins. "This is failing the public and certainly failing the students."
When pressed by Hawkins to ensure the board of governors was listening to the needs of students, Jackson Lafferty, minister of education, said it was not custom to publicly provide e-mails of the board of governors.
However, he said he would raise the issue with the president of Aurora College.
He added that a student representative would be appointed in the near future.
He did not commit to Hawkins' request to have the board of governors meet with the students at least once a term.
