Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we had the focus area, the moratorium on the focus area now I think has been in place for about two or three years. We had initially put a lot of it in place when we were doing the rec leasing from the MACA side of it on Commissioner’s land.

As to the actual timetable, I will find that information here as soon as I sit down and relay it to the Member when I stand up again for the next question. Thank you.

It’s not something that we are looking at right now. I know one of our sporting partners might be looking at something along those lines. But our sporting partners do provide a lot of workshops and that in the communities. They identify potential up-and-comers. We have a number of programs within the department that supports. Once they get to a higher level we have the Elite Athlete Performance Grant and we’ve had a lot of uptake on that. We have a lot of athletes competing and doing well. So, there are a number of programs that we offer.

Again, the concept is very good. One of the challenges...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct; we haven’t gotten it yet.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me from Municipal and Community Affairs, I have to my left Tom Williams, deputy minister; to my right I have Gary Schauerte who is our director of corporate services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to present the 2015-2016 Main Estimates for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. Overall, the department’s estimates propose an increase of $4.02 million, or 3.8 percent, over the 2014-2015 Main Estimates.

Highlights of the proposed estimates include:

funding of $48.3 million to provide for community government operation and maintenance costs and $17.6 million for water and sewer costs, a total increase of $2.27 million from 2014-2015;

forced growth funding of $2.939 million is comprised of $469,000 for Collective Agreement increases, $613,000 in community government...

Through the programs that we offer the communities. Like, we work directly with the communities. If the communities want to purchase that particular piece of equipment and work with a local organization to operate it for them, I think that is allowed under gas tax and through the CPI funding again. Thank you.

I believe that was one-time federal money that they accessed to purchase that equipment. But through the programs that we offer, the Gas Tax Agreement and the CPI funding, they are able to use those funds to purchase those pieces of equipment that they might need to get their residents around. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s a good idea. We’ll work closely with the Department of Health, and all the information that we can gather, we’ll make sure that it’s available on our website. We will take the Member’s suggestion and we’ll work to implement it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We appreciate that support.

As the work picks up, there will be opportunities where we will have to come forward to request more money to deal with all the work that we are doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his comments. I think we’ve all been to the communities and we’ve seen the work that they’ve done. With the responsibility they’ve been given they’ve done a lot of fantastic projects in the community. As the Member said, they have the ability now to make the decisions as to what their priorities are. I appreciate the comments and a shout out to the communities.