Smoking shack built behind N.W.T. legislative assembly

A committee of MLAs from the previous legislative assembly approved the building of a shelter for smokers tucked away behind the assembly building in Yellowknife, CBC News has learned.

The cozy wood-frame shelter sits in the service delivery area at the northeast corner of the legislative assembly site, in view of the Pat McMahon Frame Lake Trail trailhead. Itfeatures three concrete cigarette butt receptacles, two benches and in a touch ofdecorative irony a floormat sporting the no-smoking symbol.

"Since the smoking area is in a service delivery area, the structure provides a safe place for those who smoke and some basic shelter from the elements (rain, sleet, snow, wind)," saidBarbaraAbramchuk, a public affairs and communications advisor at the legislative assembly.

The shack cost less than$10,000and went up last May,says Abramchuk.

Board approved move

Months earlier, in August 2014,the 17th legislative assembly's board of management received and approved a plan "to move the designated smoking area for the legislative assembly from the area by the flagpoles to behind the building."

The boardat the time consisted of former MLAs David Ramsay, Robert Bouchard and Jackie Jacobson and current MLAs Jackson Lafferty and Frederick Blake Jr.

The board is responsible for the overall management of the legislative assembly, which governs its own affairs and remains independent from the executive branch of government.

"The change included the construction of a basic structure on a gravel base with benches (which had been moved from elsewhere) at the designated smoking area which was to be used mainly by building occupants," said Abramchuk.

The decision, she added, was partly"based on the principle of a smoke-free entranceway for employees and visitors."

The territory banned smoking in government offices in 1987. More recent legislative assemblies have taken steps to lower the N.W.T.'s high smoking rate.The 16th legislative assembly, for instance, approved $1.2 million in fundingpartly to finance the government's "Don't Be a Butthead" program.

The percentage of N.W.T. residents who smokehas steadily declined in the last five years, butremainedthe second-highest in the country in 2014, at 33.3 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. That's nearly double theCanadian average of 18 per cent.

'Why would government provide an exclusive smoking area?'

The union representing nearly 4,000 territorial government workers is questioning the construction of the smoking shack.

"I'm not aware ofany other government buildings that are provided exclusive space for smokers," said Todd Parsons,president of the Union of Northern Workers.

"And it does raise the question: why would the government provide an exclusive smoking area for employees at the legislative assembly and not other work sites?"

The Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife declaredits grounds tobacco-free in 2012, forcing smokers to leave the property to light up. Smokers there now huddleon a traffic island between the hospital and a grocery store parking lot.

The health centre in Hay River and the hospital in Inuvik followed suit that same year and in 2013, respectively.

"Health care facilities are non-smoking and it's the entire property," said Parsons.