Michael McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased to advise the House that yesterday the Hon. Lawrence Cannon, federal Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and I signed the Building Canada infrastructure plan Base Funding Agreement.

This agreement sets the stage for $185.8 million in new infrastructure funding to flow to the Government of the Northwest Territories over a seven-year period. It is notable that the Government of the Northwest Territories is the second jurisdiction in Canada to complete negotiations and sign the funding agreement.

A key feature of this agreement is the unique cost-sharing...

Mr. Speaker, the methodology that is being used right now is to have each community develop a capital plan, an undertaking that has been already started. We require that information as part of our Gas Tax Agreement.

We also have transferred all the capital dollars to the communities, and they now decide what projects they want to see in their communities. It’s the same plan, the same capital projections that will come forward and will be utilized as we have the discussion with the federal minister to sign off on community projects. It will indicate what portions of dollars will come from where...

Mr. Speaker, that’s correct. The money will be distributed on an annual basis over seven years. It comes to about $26.5 million annually. It was decided that $20 million will go toward transportation projects and $6.5 million would go toward municipalities.

The Minister of Transportation indicates he’s going to tag along with me for that.

Laughter.

Mr. Speaker, it’s difficult for me as the MACA Minister to commit any money on behalf of my colleague for Transportation. However, I certainly expect that he’s listening and he would take it as notice.

Mr. Speaker, I think, first of all, we need to see a request from the community with a small indication of how they want to move forward. I think there’s been some discussion already in terms of what we need to have done to bring this project more into focus. We need to see some firmer plans, we need to see some price tags, and we need to see some more legwork done.

I will follow up on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was very excited to be able to have the document in the plan for the funding agreement on the Building Canada Fund signed off before the end of our time here in the session. A number of projects are waiting to be brought forward. At this point the agreement consists of the funding criteria, and it describes what will be accepted.

As to what projects will be brought forward, so far there’s only been agreement on one project. We have had discussions on how we would flow money to the municipalities. We haven’t finalized that, but that is the next stage. The next stage...

Mr. Speaker, that’s a commitment we’ve already made through the New Deal initiative. It’s a commitment we made to all communities — that we would work with them. Some communities, however, have really been able to grab this whole initiative and move forward rather quickly. Others are struggling, and we still have to work with a number of communities. We will continue to do that. We are already doing that with some of the other funding sources that are coming forward.

Of course, there are still a number of challenges we have to continue to work toward solving, and that is in an area of capacity...

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of projects that were left over on our capital plan when we transferred the dollars to our communities. These projects are all in the area of water plants. We have met with the NWT Association of Communities and have discussed with them. They have indicated we should have these projects completed, and that the remainder of the money, as it comes forward, should be distributed to the communities on a formula basis, similar to what we’re doing with our capital money and our gas tax money.

There are a number of different areas that have been put forward as national...

So at that time, while we’re in the area, I would be very pleased to come into the community to have discussions about gravel, infrastructure, water plants, sewer lagoons, dumps — whatever the community wishes to discuss with us, Mr. Speaker.

I didn’t realize I was tagging along with the Minister of Transportation, but I’d be pleased to go into the community. In fact, we’ve had other invitations from community leaders in Aklavik.

We plan — or at least I plan — to be in Inuvik for some of the ceremony for the 50th anniversary.