Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, active position summary.
Agreed.
Moving on to page 6-13, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, operations expenditure summary, directorate, $4.244 million.
Agreed.
Moving on to page 6-14, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, grants and contributions, directorate, grants, $168,000.
Agreed.
Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you. There are occasionally advantages to being a woman, perhaps.
Ladies first.
I wanted to ask a question with regard to this community government funding. The budget indicates funds are allocated in accordance with the extraordinary funding policy. What projects, what is this particular extraordinary funding policy say is applicable under this contribution? Thank you.
Minister of MACA.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this funding is provided to community governments when two factors are in place. One, the community government is unable to provide for unanticipated expenditures from within its budget without a significant negative impact on community government operations and, two, where the community government can demonstrate that it could not have fiscally planned for the unanticipated event. Thank you.
Mr. Yakeleya, you had a question on that page?
With the funding to the Arctic Energy Alliance, I know that this program is very popular in my region. With this funding here, is the Arctic Energy Alliance going to be going into the regions to start training people to do some of the regional work rather than headquarters coming in all the time and being booked and just don’t have enough time and people saying they don’t stay around long enough to do… There are lots of houses in the community that want to take advantage of this program. Is that something that this is going to be looked at by the government and the Arctic Energy Alliance?
Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, out of this $390,000, I think $50,000 is for the Arctic Energy Alliance, but we also have an additional $150,000 that we still contribute to the Arctic Energy Alliance to do their work required. We’re starting to see, I think they’re trying to put some people in the regions now. I know for a fact that there might be one in Inuvik and they did some work for the NWT Housing Corporation. So they’re very much still funded by MACA and by the different partners and they’re just continuing to carry on their work.
Now, is this Arctic Energy Alliance, are they looking to maybe move out of Inuvik and come into the Sahtu region even though sometimes the Inuvik region does include some of the communities in the Sahtu in terms of their authority? Is that something that the Minister is going to look at in terms of asking the Arctic Energy Alliance to start to probably regionalize their offices? Get out of Yellowknife and go into the communities.
Mr. Chair, they are in Inuvik right now, but they do have plans to get into Norman Wells and Fort Simpson so they can have a presence in some of the larger regional centres. Thank you.
Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, grants and contributions, directorate, grants, $168,000.
Agreed.
Contributions, $390,000.
Agreed.
Total grants and contributions, $558,000.
Agreed.
Moving on to the next page, Municipal and Community Affairs, active position, directorate, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Moving on to page 6-15.
Agreed.
Moving on to page 6-17, Municipal and Community Affairs. Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, can I ask the Minister in terms of, you know, you look at community rescue services on the winter road in the Sahtu for the time that we have the winter road, for three to four months, the issue is the search and rescue or the emergency community emergency management planning. Has the department considered using the Canadian Rangers in terms of emergency rescue or emergency measures in terms of road rescue or calling on some that are similar to the ambulance type of service? Members were talking about they have these Rangers here, that they can certainly be called up and be part of the emergency response team on the highways in between the communities. That might be something that they can work on, Have the material right now… I don’t really know if there’s any type of equipment that could be considered as emergency rescue supplies in our communities. I don’t know. Have we taken stock of what we have for use in emergency on our winter roads?
Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The use of the Rangers, I mean, is not something that has been considered for when you just go on the road, because they’re usually on the land rescue type service or search and rescue. This ambulance money, I mean, we have $200,000 budgeted and it goes to the seven communities that try to provide an ambulance service. The uptake on it, we don’t have all communities because there’s a huge liability factor to it, and so I think communities are looking to try to get their capacity upgraded before they think they can take on or feel that they can take on the ground ambulance because it’s a huge liability. I think some communities just want to stay away from that until they have the proper training and proper equipment. Thank you.
I certainly agree with the Minister in terms of his explanation to the ground ambulance services. I bring this up because one of the Rangers in one of my ridings said, you know, why don’t we utilize the Rangers, get them the training, get some equipment, if there’s an accident on the winter road they can call one or two or three or four Rangers together, a quick call, small communities, with the proper supplies and equipment. It wouldn’t take very much and they could go and help our communities.
So I’m not too sure if this could be answered tonight, but have some consideration because the Rangers said they’re willing to do it in my communities and to be part of the plan there too. You know, that could be part of their exercise in the communities.
We’ll take that as advice that we can pass on. There’s a working group that’s put together and we’re always interested in listening to different ideas. So we just have to make sure that this is one that will benefit the people that are out on the ice road and make sure that the training is proper. But we’ll take this on advice and we’ll pass it on to the appropriate working group. Thank you.
Mr. Yakeleya. Next I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know a lot of our residents are concerned about rescue services on our highways and so on. My understanding is that there is an advisory committee that the department leads, co-leads with Health and Social Services and it includes representation from Transportation and Finance, community governments and so on. I’m wondering what the status of that committee’s work is. Apparently the goal is to produce legislative funding governments and policy framework for these services that are currently being delivered by community governments. So where are we at and are we putting some dollars into that and where is that in this budget? Thank you.
Deputy Minister, Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct; there is a working group that’s comprised of a few departments, Health and Social Services primarily from the GNWT, along with MACA and community governments. It’s sort of a two-pronged approach.
Health and Social Services is really looking at it from the aspect of ground ambulance and I think there’s some good work going on there and that they may be in a position to advance some legislation early in 2010. MACA primarily is working on a funding framework, as well as a specific policy framework with respect to highway rescue.
We have money in the budget this fiscal year for that, as well as next. Probably we look to have at some time in April, May, June to have a policy framework in place that would give us the basis to sort of engage community governments and come at this in a more systemic disciplined way, understanding that community governments don’t all have the same capacity to deal with issues nor the inclination to do it at the same time But certainly we hope to be able to have a policy framework that will at least articulate the minimum standards and service, should they decide to get in to play that game, what they might be. Thank you.
Just for my clarity here, what’s the difference between highway rescue and ambulance service? Thank you.
Ambulance service is when you actually have a real ambulance that will go out and I guess address those people who are in distress. Highway rescue, in addition to the ground ambulance, is a service that would go and address the situation like with the Jaws of Life or something like that to help rescue somebody who is stuck in a vehicle as opposed to providing medical treatment, which would come in the form of an ambulance. Thank you.
Thank you for the comments from the deputy minister. I think that addressed some of the legislative and policy framework work that’s being done by that advisory committee. Funding is the other one. I’m wondering where they’re at with regard to funding. Will they be coming up with some recommendations? I understand the intent is to conclude that work within the coming fiscal year, if I’ve got that right. How much money are we putting into this? Is the department putting into this committee work? Thank you.
MACA, for its part of the working group, has $200,000 and that’s to provide communities to actually provide the ground ambulance service, highway rescue service. The money that we’re putting into the committee is sweat equity from the department. Thank you.
I appreciate those responses. I see that in the budget. I guess I’m looking forward to seeing what recommendations this committee comes out with, especially in a way of funding to deal with the shortfalls here. Thank you.
I agree with the Member. We’re looking forward to the work coming out and seeing what’s possible and what communities are willing and able to undertake here and see what kind of a service that we can provide with that. Thank you.
Mr. Bromley. Okay, we’re on page 6-17, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, operations expenditure summary, public safety. Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, just on the last comment from the deputy minister, some of the communities that don’t feel that they will be able to access some of this $200,000 for the ground service and ambulance, does that leave an option for some of the communities who are on the winter road system that could use some of the money for winter road ground services, such as the community of Norman Wells who is asking about this here? The Town of Norman Wells is asking about this, so they’re trying to find a way to look at this issue. Thank you.
Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually the short answer is not at this time, but it’s something that we will have to do some research on, but not at this time they won’t be able to access some of the funding that is currently not being accessed by some of the other communities. Thank you.
Can I have the report from the Committee of the Whole, please, Mr. Krutko?
