Thank you, Minister McLeod. We’re on page 6-35, grants and contributions, $3.357 million, total grants and contributions, $3.457 million.
Agreed.
Moving along to page 6-36, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, sport, recreation and youth, active position.
Agreed.
Moving along to 6-38/39, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to reference the latest amendment to the Commissioner’s Land Act. I note that regional land staff assist community governments with community land administration planning activities and administer leases for Commissioner’s lands. Has all our regional staff been brought up to speed and what is the mechanism for informing staff to make sure that they’re up to date on our legislation? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senior managers or the regional superintendents in each of the regions meet weekly with the senior management team and the department. We also have newsletters that go out. We also have our website that staff get directed to. I know probably two or three times a year all the lands people will get together at various workshops and be brought up to speed. We also consult with our regional staff when developing legislation or policies or amending them. There are various ways that we bring staff up to date and seek their input into the various activities that we’re going to be asking them to undertake.
I appreciate those comments. I wonder if the Minister would eventually, I assume after six months or something or a year, have experience. I don’t know how fast experience will accrue on administering this new amendment, but I’d be very interested in what sort of, how smoothly it goes and if there are any kerfuffles along the way. I just think it would be something committee would be interested in. I just float that out there for the Minister to consider, comment on, if he wishes.
I want to mention the water and sewer services that are delivered through the regional operations. I note that the costs have slowly been going up there and this is an area where, I understand from the professionals that work in the field, there are some impacts from the changing climate that are being felt. Has the department taken note of that and have they got some lessons learned there? Are they tuning up that program in regard to those sorts of changes?
Certainly our experience over the last three or four years in putting in and helping communities put in new infrastructure around water and sewer, there have been lots of good lessons learned from that. We’ve been trying to stay ahead of the curve with respect to the impacts of climate change and planning for the type of infrastructure on water and sewer and where we’ll actually get our water takes place. Certainly that’s something that we’re going to be constantly working on and learning on because the climate’s constantly changing. It’s nothing we can really say, okay, now we’ve done our bit, we’re going to move on. It’s something we’re going to have to keep doing.
Last question, again I’m wondering what the mechanism is for capturing those lessons. Presumably some of them could be transferable to other regions and communities. Is that something that’s passed along through the NWT association, for example? I’m wondering what the mechanisms are for that.
Yes, certainly the NWT Water and Wastewater Association would be one forum where we would pass on those lessons and try to get knowledge from our sister territories as well as the northern provinces who operate in the northern part of their areas as well. We do have a northern working group, as well, that’s working on water and wastewater that we can use to share experiences and information and what’s worked and what hasn’t.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Page 6-39, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, $73.208 million.
Agreed.
Page 6-40, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, community government grants and contributions, grants, $51.902 million.
Agreed.
Page 6-40, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, community government grants and contributions, contributions, $13.485 million.
Agreed.
Page 6-40, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, total community government grants and contributions, $65.387 million. Mr. Krutko.
My question was on the previous page in regard to additional costs.
Are you seeking unanimous consent to go back to page 6-39? Page 6-40? We’re on page 6-40 right now. Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the additional funding of $1.140 million for mobile utility costs, I’m wondering exactly how much that dollar has been allocated. Is it in all communities? It’s a grant program. You mentioned eligible community governments. Who are the eligible community governments? Is it all community governments or only tax-based community governments?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Ms. Gareau.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The additional funding budget is available to non-tax-based communities, specifically the designated First Nations authorities.
So is that the nine communities that have what we call band status or band government status?
Yes, that’s correct.
So is that over and above the $4.4 million or is that in addition, a separate cost altogether for the nine communities and the $44.3 million is for the remaining 24 communities?
All 33 community governments receive their proportionate share of the $44.3 million, then in addition to that the nine designated First Nations authorities receive the additional funding for mobile equipment and utility costs.
Thanks for the clarification. In regard to another issue I had on contributions for water and sewer service funding, for communities like those where they have mixed services with both water delivery and utilidor services, a combination of services, where the costs may be higher for the total operational costs of water and sewer services, is that formula calculated in the way that you can accommodate those communities with mixed services of both water delivery and utilidor systems in place?
Yes, the Member is correct. Part of the formula used to determine the funding allocations do take into consideration unique community-specific factors to a certain extent. Other factors looked at include things such as the type of the plant, cost of utilities and so on.
In regard to an illustration, I’ve noticed that there has been an increase of about $300,000 from last year’s mains to the revised mains. Can you illustrate what that $300,000 increase was for?
That was an internal reallocation that the department has processed and that is due to three water treatment plants where the type of treatment plant has changed from a class 1 to a class 2 system, for example. That was in Deline, Tuktoyaktuk and Ulukhaktok. The year over year increases reflect the increased funding to those communities because of the change in their water treatment system.
In light of the water and sewer services, with regard to federal regulations and the possibility of having to process grey water, have we taken into consideration the cost of that obligation or requirement that communities will have to take on if that legislation goes forward?
We don’t have that information available, but we’ll be happy to get that information back to the Member.
Thank you, Ms. Gareau. Page 6-40, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, community government grants and contributions, grants, $51.902 million.
Agreed.
Page 6-40, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, community government grants and contributions, contributions, $13.485 million.
Agreed.
Page 6-40, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, total community government grants and contributions, $65.387 million.
Agreed.
Page 6-41, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, other grants and contributions, grants, $80,000.
Agreed.
Page 6-41, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, grants and contributions, other grants and contributions, contributions, $1.125 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to see if I could get an explanation here. We have youth corps and youth contribution programs and I’ve been advised earlier that youth corps tends to be a territorial focus and the youth contributions a regional focus. We have almost as much money here in regional operations for youth corps as we do under sport, recreation and youth. Could I get some examples of what the $500,000 for youth corps funding is used for?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Under this line, youth corps, $500,000. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess youth corps funding is split out amongst the regional offices and I guess I’ll just pick someone like, for example, in the Deh Cho we have a budget of about $210,000 that will be run out of that office. That’s anywhere from outdoor leadership to youth conferences to moose hide tanning. In the South Slave we have youth development plans and youth leadership gatherings. If you go to Inuvik we have Ivvavik Field Program. These are broken down and we can provide the Member with a breakdown of all the youth corps funding. Really then we have the territorial programs as well that are run out of headquarters such as the Northern Youth Abroad Program, Foster Family Coalition Camp Connections, Take a Kid Trapping, for example. There’s probably in total close to 20 to 30 different types of projects or programs that get run out of youth corps that are split between the regional office and headquarters but are territorial in nature.
All those are good things. I don’t need a list of the activities that are funded. I’m just struggling to understand how a regional activity has a territorial focus, but that’s a comment. I don’t need an answer.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Next on my list is Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just with regard to what Mr. Aumond was saying to the youth corps with the funding for the Take a Kid Trapping Program, some of the communities, such as Tuktoyaktuk, could the RWED office manage the funding to give to the people like for an elder to get the funding? Because the community corps or the hamlet doesn’t want to take on that funding role with regard to the paper trail that has to follow. Could the RWED officer do that?
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Mr. McLeod.
