Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is one initiative that we’re quite fond of and it’s going along really well. It’s actually through the School of Community Government. It’s a public service capacity initiative. I’m sure that’s the one the Member is referring to, the $1 million that we’d approved to put into that. I’m not sure if I have the information with me but I would be able to provide Members with some of the communities where the money’s been allocated and some of the training that’s taken place in some of the communities. I think we have two small communities where they have like a succession training where they’ve taken a local person and they’re training them to be the SAO down the line once they get all the proper training. It’s a program that’s working very well and we do plan on continuing the program. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s remarks there. I’ll look forward to that information. Am I on the right page here? Is that funded? No. Thank you. I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. No question. Page 6-21, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, community operations, operations expenditure summary, $2.533 million.
Agreed.
Moving along to page 6-22. Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, community operations, grants and contributions, contributions, $50,000.
Agreed.
Moving along to 6-23, Municipal and Community Affairs. Mr. Krutko.
I’d just like to ask the Minister why is it that all the positions are at headquarters. Shouldn’t they be closer to the communities if that’s who we’re servicing is the community operations? Why haven’t we looked at the possibility of devolving these positions closer to the communities they serve?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. These 15 positions you see in Yellowknife support the community… The positions the Member is talking about are in the regional offices, and that is our biggest allocation of our employees, is in the regional ops. But the 15 here support the folks in the regional offices. Thank you.
Mr. Bromley.
Mr. Chair, I had a question on community energy plans. I don’t see them mentioned specifically here. Are those the community operations or regional operations or…
Thank you. Mr. Bromley, are you looking for clarification on what section of the main estimates that might be under? Okay. I’ll go to the Minister. Minister McLeod.
The Member can probably ask his question in the School of Community Government once we get to that, and I think it’s right on the next page.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. In that case, we’ll just finish with 6-23. Page 6-23, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, community operations.
Agreed.
Moving along to 6-24, 6-25. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m having a hard time connecting this to the School of Community Government with the community energy plans that were required under the New Deal, but I’m wondering, we did approve community energy plans for all our communities as part of the integrated sustainability plans. I’m wondering where we are in implementing those and are we starting to see fuel costs, at least, energy costs, go down, albeit I recognize the payback isn’t immediate and we may have some capital costs and so on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Specifically, with respect to community energy planning or generally to the integrated community sustainability plans, it’s in the School of Community Government. That’s where it’s located, but we actually have, I guess, a team approach where we use our regional superintendents along with some folks at headquarters along with folks in the NWTAC where we sort of look at the integrated sustainability plans as the whole energy component is one. Last year the task was to try and develop the plans and get them approved. We’ve done that so, really, this is just the first year of implementation for most of them, so we don’t have any hard data on where we are or what any savings would be as this was the first year. Our hope would be, though, is that after next year at this time, we should be able to report some concrete, I guess, results about where we are with not only the community energy planning but with the whole Integrated Community Service Plan as we proceed with that. We do have some special efforts underway next year, if the budget is approved for that, to continue on not only the energy planning but the entire Integrated Community Service Plan. Thank you.
Thank you to the deputy minister for those comments. I look forward to seeing that information on how we are doing and the lessons learned along the way. I wanted to ask, also, in the School of Community Government, there should clearly now be a component to every bit of training and educational programs that we undertake, a component that relates to the adaptation and mitigation of climate change. Has that been incorporated into each and every one of our programs now, training programs? Thank you.
I guess directly the answer is no, it is not; indirectly the answer is probably yes, because, for example, the school, we have a recreational maintainer course, which talks about maintaining arenas and recreational facilities and so on, and part of the knowledge and expertise and experience that as a government we would bring to bear on that, would be about trying to maximize your lifecycle costs or minimizing your lifecycle costing of operation of that building, which would mean getting your heating systems and your ventilating systems as efficient as you can to provide some extra cash and also to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
The Member might be interested to know that the NWTAC is leading a climate change workshop coming up very shortly where communities will be participating along with government staff on talking about that subject in some depth. We don’t have that in every single course that we teach, or the community government teaches or puts on for community governments in a direct way, but I would make the suggestion that in an indirect way we are always looking for efficiencies and ways to get the most out of our limited resources that we have with communities, and that everybody is paying attention to the environment and there is lots of work going on at the communities in terms of their capital plans around mitigation and adaptation, mostly adaptation. But the answer to the Members’ question is not directly, no. Thank you.
Again, I appreciate Mr. Aumond’s remarks. I believe I actually am registered for that and I believe it is in concert with a non-government organization and so on, but a very progressive piece of work there.
I guess, I appreciate that approach, but I think that what we want to do at the same time given our, perhaps, privileged understanding of the situation, what is coming down the pipes, so to speak, is to explicitly make those connections, connect the dots here between issues. So I am glad it is in there almost inadvertently but necessarily, but I think that if we can start to recognize why and how and identify the issues, it can spill over into a way of thinking and looking to the future. I will leave it at that and appreciate that that work is started. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We are on page 6-25, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, School of Community Government, operations expenditure summary, $3.202 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Okay, moving along to 6-26, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, School of Community Government, grants and contributions, grants, $830,000.
Agreed.
Page 6-27, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, School of Community Government, active positions.
Agreed.
Okay, moving along to 6-28, 6-29, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am just wondering about the half million extra again that we are putting into contract services, and looking below I assume this is largely for property assessment, so surely to goodness Municipal and Community Affairs has that expertise within its department. I mean, why do we hire professionals? We want these people to be doing the work.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we couldn’t agree with the Member more; however, the expertise that we did have around industrial assessment, unfortunately that employee passed on and they are in short supply across the country; all kinds of assessors. So what we have decided to do, with the permission of the House, is we have had some success in taking local people and trying to train them to become assessors, but that is a five or six-year process, so we still need... We still have a legislated requirement to undertake the property assessment function and we will be using contract expertise to do that. We will be using the vacant money that we have for the positions to establish trainee positions so that we can get northern people involved in the profession, hopefully, so that we no longer have to hire contractors to do this. Thank you.
It sounds like there is some tragic circumstances here, but it doesn’t detract from the lack of succession planning, which is obviously gone here. I mean, we have to create an emergency before we work and plan in these areas, and I think this is the sort of thing we are starting to see in more places as we go through this budget, so I am glad it is happening now, but I hope in other areas, other divisions and departments, we don’t have to wait for that situation to develop.
I wanted to ask one other question. The new amended Commissioner’s Land Act has just come into force on February 14th with its land security provisions for leasing and so on. Where are we at with that? Do we have regulations developed and are staff on top of implementing that now? Thank you.
The regulations that the Member is referring to are now in force. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bromley, no more questions? We are on page 6-29, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, lands administration, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have got more of a technical thing for the Minister and his deputy; hopefully they can answer it for me. During the last constituency visit to Fort Liard, I had a couple of constituents who do get land taxes, they get land taxes on the land they are on but they don’t know if they actually own the land. Anywhere else in the world you pay taxes on land that you own, so they ask me to raise the issue, so I thought it was a good opportunity. Perhaps the Minister can answer that. I know that people that lease land, that actually have the deed to the lease of the land, they are actually paying the same taxes as these people who don’t own the land, so they are kind of confused about what that process is about. They never actually bought the land. If they are paying the same amount as owning the land, why isn’t that opportunity there for them to own it or lease it? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister McLeod.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. We would have to get the details and then we would have to get the details of the land. We don’t know if it is Commissioner’s land or if it is Indian Affairs branch land, so once we have, if the Member could provide us with some details, then I would commit to the Member we will follow up on it and we will have an answer back to him very shortly. Thank you.
That is what I expected. It is a little bit more technical in nature and I will be glad to provide a written internal memorandum to the Ministers’ office. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next on my list, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question here. I recall, I think it was last year, it may have been two years ago, but certainly I think both when we were discussing NWT Housing Corporation and Municipal and Community Affairs, we talked about land ownership issues for the Housing Corporation to have ownership of lands on which they wanted to build houses in various communities. There was some work I think that MACA was doing at that time in terms of I think making things a little easier and getting things settled. I just wondered if I can get an update on where that issue is at. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Aumond.
Mr. Chairman, we continue to work with the Housing Corporation on that issue. We are making progress, although it is not I guess steady progress as we would like and it is not even across the Territory, but we do have a good close working relationship with the Housing Corporation on this issue to try and rectify those problems where we can. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, thanks to the deputy minister for that. My other question has to do with a newspaper article that I saw a little while ago. It had to do with the selling of a parcel of land to the Norman Wells Land Corporation. I’m curious as to the process. My understanding is that at least some of this land, if not all of it, was within the block land transfer for the Town of Norman Wells. I was curious as to how the government could basically sell land out from underneath the nose of the Town, so to speak. Could I get an explanation as to what kind of a process applies, if it is conceivable that the government can sell land from within any community’s block land transfer? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, the folks that purchase the land followed all the process as they were laid out. This particular piece of land is outside the community’s boundaries. Its block land transfer was outside the boundary. They are in the process of going to lease the land from the Commissioner, but we have had a lot of back and forth with the community and with the Norman Wells Land Corporation. They have followed the process as we have laid out. It is not like we sold or leased the land out from under them. There is still quite a bit of Commissioner’s land within town boundaries that, if they choose to, they can access it. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, thanks to the Minister. I am still not totally clear if the land that was sold was within the Town of Norman Wells block land transfer. I will try another example. If, for instance, in the area of the block land transfer for the City of Yellowknife -- it extends I think out to the Yellowknife River -- if there was a parcel of land somewhere before the ending of the block land transfer boundary for the City of Yellowknife, if somebody wanted to purchase that land from the GNWT, would they be able to do that? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Aumond.
Mr. Chairman, I guess the answer to that question is yes, provided that all the conditions for sale would take place, and they are much the same as they are for Commissioner’s land within a boundary. We have a process. We have a pricing policy that comes into effect. The communities get consulted. In the case of Norman Wells, the block land transfer was outside the community boundaries and the community was consulted. Commissioner’s land can be leased. It can be sold as the case may be. There is a process that gets followed, whether it is a small parcel of land or it is a large parcel of land. In this case, there was no sale of land. It is being leased. This is pretty much the same process that gets followed. It was followed in this case. Thank you.
