Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, actually there was none. The NWTAC, LGANT, and some of the organizations that we make contributions to recognize that there may be some reductions coming, and they were willing to do their part, looking at the bigger picture, understanding that, you know, we were trying to do what we can to free up more money that we can allocate to the community governments as per the formula funding reviews. They were cooperative and, I mean, nobody likes reductions, obviously, but there wasn’t a wholesale complaint to this reduction. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we don’t rely solely on the contributions from the federal government. We use that to enhance programs that we already offer to our communities. As Minister of MACA and being able to get to all 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, I’ve seen the benefits of the money that we invest in the communities and some of the decisions that they’re making as to how best to use their money, on the capital side. It has reaped some benefits and rewards for the community. It’s not a perfect system, pretty close to it, but we’re continuing to try to enhance and...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to present the 20162017 main estimates for the Department of Finance. Overall, the department estimates total $213.9 million. This total includes:

operating contributions of $81.7 million to the NWT Housing Corporation.

$7.5 million to the NWT Hydro Corporation to offset additional diesel costs related to the low water on the Snare Hydro System.

Overall the department’s estimates propose an increase of $2.6 million or 1.2 per cent above the 20152016 Main Estimates.

These estimates continue to support the objectives of limiting expenditure growth in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had eight vacancies as of March 31st. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I take the Member’s point. I mean, there’s a discussion that we should sit down with committee and get some input from committee as to what some of their recommendations are. If there’s a design of the program issue then we’ll have to address that. This is an issue that’s been on people’s radars for a while so I think it would be prudent of us to sit down with committee, get some feedback and go away and maybe come back with a redesigned program working with committee. But I will commit to that process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we agree that our folks in the communities need to understand their roles as well and the responsibilities they have to ensure that they have the proper capacity to deal with the lot of money that they are having to deal with because they do have a lot of responsibility with us giving them all their CPI money and with their O and M. Our role, we see, is to assist these community governments. Through the accountability framework, we believe that, as I said earlier on in the session, that gives us the opportunity to identify any red flags and pick out any issues...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct. That would have to be an amendment to the legislation to change the amount. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That money was a reduction to the contribution to NWTAC. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we’ve contributed just over $2.1 million towards that. I think it was a $38-million funding gap that was identified through the work of the formula funding review, which actually was supposed to start at the beginning of the 18th Assembly, but it was decided in the 17th Assembly that we’d initiate that work, so it would help us to identify some of the shortfalls that we’ve been hearing about from the communities and find ways we can address it. This year we’ve contributed $2.1 million towards that, and as our fiscal situation improves, we would be able to help...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the CPI funding the Member is referring to is not touched. It hasn’t changed. It will not change, unless we can increase it somehow in the future, but it’s been at $28,002,000 for a while. A lot of communities will use this money as cost share dollars for some of the Building Canada Plan projects. Thank you, Mr. Chair.