Agreed.
Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs 2011-2012 main estimates and the activities MACA is planning to undertake in 2011-2012 that supports the visions and goals of the 16th Legislative Assembly.
MACA has a very broad mandate which focuses on community governments but also provides a range of programs and services to individual and other sectors such as sport and recreation, youth and volunteers.
The department’s 2011-2012 main estimates total is $93.3 million in operations expenses. Of this funding, approximately 78 percent is provided to our key stakeholders, community governments.
The 2011-2012 main estimates funding level is an increase of $2 million net of sunsets or 2 percent from the 2010-2011 funding level. The increase is comprised of $1.6 million in forced growth funding and $850,000 in strategic initiative funding offset by funding that is sunsetting this fiscal year.
MACA will also provide community governments with infrastructure acquisition funding of $28 million in 2011-2012 comprised entirely of capital formula funding. This is a decrease of approximately $12 million from the 2010-2011 fiscal year which is due to completion of the Building Canada Plan funding from the Government of Canada in 2010-2011. In addition, the Gas Tax Agreement will provide community governments with additional funding of $15 million in 2011-2012, unchanged from the 2010-2011 funding level.
MACA’s 2011-2012 main estimates include $43.3 million to provide for community government operation and maintenance costs and $12.6 million to provide for water and sewer costs. MACA, with input from the NWT Association of Communities, will be undertaking reviews of both these funding programs in 2011-2012 and the results of this review may result in changes to the budget in future years.
To date, over the term of the 16th Legislative Assembly and reflected in MACA’s 2011-2012 main estimates, a total of $7.7 million in funding has been provided to the department through the strategic initiative process to reflect the 16th Legislative Assembly’s priorities. The majority of this funding is allocated to youth, recreation, healthy choices and community capacity building initiatives. This year’s main estimates includes $850,000 in new strategic initiative funding.
Base funding of $300,000 is included in the main estimates to support community capacity in the areas of fire and emergency management. The department is conducting a capacity assessment of community government fire departments in 2010-2011 and funding in 2011-2012 will be used to provide training tailored to each community government based on these assessments. Emergency management training is also being planned for next fiscal year to provide community governments with the basic information and training they need to address a variety of potential emergency situations.
You may recall that all community governments were required to develop integrated community sustainability plans as part of the Gas Tax Agreement and that all community governments met the March 31, 2010, deadline to complete their plans. MACA’s main estimates include new funding of $150,000 to support the department in its work to assist community governments to now implement their plans, and MACA and the NWT Association of Communities will develop a work plan to support this work.
Amongst other activities in 2011-2012, MACA will assist community governments to facilitate engagement with residents by helping to coordinate community forums, by providing technical advice and assistance related to the implementation of integrated community sustainability plans and the sub-plans related to energy capital and human resources.
The 2011-12 main estimates also include new funding of $150,000 to establish a permanent Youth Ambassadors Program. In the past, MACA has had great success with this program and did not always have the necessary funding in place to provide the program on an ongoing basis. New funding in 2011-12 will provide for the program design of a permanent program to support youth ambassadors at national and international multi-sport games events with access to the program by youth from all communities.
MACA is also planning an alumni element designed to recruit former ambassadors into project leadership roles and the establishment of a formal longitudinal evaluation process to measure the outcomes of the program. Participants will include the next generation of community leaders, which will help the GNWT achieve its goals related to healthy choices and community development. Currently, MACA works with Health and Social Services, Education, Culture and Employment, Transportation and Justice to administer the GNWT’s Healthy Choices Framework to support the Legislative Assembly’s goal of encouraging healthy choices.
Finally, MACA’s main estimates include a strategic initiative funding increase of $250,000 to undertake survey work for municipal assets so that these assets can be legally transferred to all community governments. The funding associated with land surveys for municipal assets is for two years only and is scheduled to sunset in March 2013.
Forced growth funding accounts for $1.6 million of the year-over-year increase to MACA’s budget reflected in the 2011-12 main estimates. This increase is to provide for increased grants-in-lieu payments to tax-based communities, to establish a permanent budget for the department’s work in supporting the board of revision and the Assessment Appeal Tribunal, to increase MACA’s capacity to assist with property assessment, and to provide for Collective Agreement costs.
MACA continues to support community governments in their capacity building initiatives and funding first approved in 2010-11 for the public service capacity is again reflected in MACA’s 2011-12 business plan. There has been a great deal of work done on this program over the past year and the input of our partners from the NWT Association of Communities, the Local Government Administrators of the NWT, and the Department of Human Resources has been critical to the program design and implementation. Most of the programs under this initiative are started, and the department is currently working to finalize an evaluation framework to use to measure results and to report on the program and its outcomes.
In 2010-11 MACA finalized its strategic plan. A key element of the strategic plan is the development of an accountability framework that will outline legislative requirements and other public accountability measures required for MACA and community governments. The accountability framework is intended to provide MACA and community governments with information and clarity on roles and responsibilities related to departmental legislation and policy and to articulate the type and form of support and information that MACA provides to community governments.
Mr. Chair, MACA has made good progress on the strategic plan in 2010-11 and will work to ensure that all stakeholders are provided with information on the department’s progress on undertaking the actions outlined in the strategic plan and will report on results on an annual basis.
This concludes my opening remarks, Mr. Chair, and I will be pleased to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Do you have witnesses you’d like to bring into the Chamber?
I would, Mr. Chair.
Is committee agreed that we allow the Minister to bring his witnesses into the Chamber?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, if I can please get you to escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. If I can please get you to introduce your witnesses for the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have with me to my right, Mr. Mike Aumond, deputy minister, Municipal and Community Affairs, and Ms. Laura Gareau, director of corporate affairs for Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. As with previous departments, what we’ll do is we will allow Members to make some general comments on the opening remarks. We’ll do all the Members and then we’ll go to the Minister for a summation and a general response. Then we’ll consider going into detail. Are there any general comments? Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regard to the area of Municipal and Community Affairs, I think we have to realize that some communities are still challenged by the decision to allow communities to take on more programs and responsibilities. Communities are still challenged by way of capacity issues regardless if it’s a lack of professional staff such as SAOs, financial officers, and even, in some cases, in regard to maintenance. People that they require to implement their responsibilities and obligations under the community empowerment that’s taken place by transferring those program responsibilities. But again, I think that the way, regardless if it’s the gas tax money or looking at the way it’s been allocated based on base plus funding in regard to per capita, but for the smaller communities that have small populations it means well but it doesn’t really give them the capacity they need to take on, regardless if you’re dealing with a maintenance issue such as road dust control or dealing with the area of water and sewer. But having that extra funding to assist them to really implement the obligations they’d like to carry out, but more importantly, with the illustration in regard to the communities to basically develop their own community capacity issues, but more importantly, looking at the access to the gas tax money where you had to write your energy plans and those types of initiatives. A lot of communities were not able to meet that idea where we had to bring in the Arctic Energy Alliance and other groups to assist them in regard to developing those requirements in order to fulfill the obligations under the gas tax.
Again, I think that it’s great when you have a large population base where you are receiving the benefits of the gas tax money, the area of property tax, in regard to your tax revenues, in regard to taxes from the different fees that you’re able to acquire those additional taxes, but in most communities you don’t. Without having the ideal population base, those are challenges you’re going to continue to face.
Again, the other issues dealing with high costs of operating those municipal structures in communities versus the cost of operating them in large urban centres, again, is a challenge that a lot of our communities are facing. I know one of the issues that you’ve heard time and time again is the area of the health and the well-being of communities to realistically meet or exceed the programs that you see elsewhere, regardless if it’s dealing with road maintenance, dust control, areas in regard to accessing federal money so that you’re able to deal with the area of federal regulations regardless if it’s dealing with the processing of grey water or even dealing with the potential of a carbon tax in the future, that we have to be realistic that a lot of these communities don’t have the human resource capacity to take those on. I think that we have to be realistic that the shoe doesn’t fit all, and more importantly, the challenges are different from the large versus small rural and urban communities.
Again, I think it’s important to realize that we still have an obligation to ensure that those communities have the capacity to deliver on things that we impose on communities. Again, it’s one of those arguments going back to the 13th Assembly, is offloading to communities. We’ll establish legislation here in the Legislature, but realistically trying to have that legislation implemented in all communities does not work. You have to allow some flexibility when you draft legislation to find out that you have unique circumstances where that legislation will not be able to be achieved or receive the same level of success in all communities.
Another one is in the area or firefighting and emergency measures. We all have an obligation with regards to fire suppression and that we have a trained volunteer workforce, but more importantly, be able to deal with emergencies when they come by way of having the capacity to do so. In all communities, yes, we have a volunteer fire department, but again it is a different level of fire suppression or fire response that we have in regards to communities I represent. In most cases we are finding that the community fire response is more of a go there with the volunteer firefighters and basically water down a fire, because you don’t have the capacity and you don’t have the means where you can plug into a fire hydrant or have the water capabilities to be able to really fully fight a fire with the equipment that you have. All you may have is whatever water is in the fire truck, in which you have to access water from a different source after. I think those are the type of things that we have to be realistic of, but more importantly, ensuring communities realistically have not only the equipment but the training and the resources to do what we expect them to carry out, and not fund it on a per capita basis because it does not meet the needs of communities, but more importantly the objective that we have put forward for them to achieve that.
Again in the other areas, in regards to sustainable communities, sustainable communities means more than just basically carrying out municipal programs and services but being realistic that the communities can function as a community by way of having the social economic programs and services, regardless of it is policing, nursing or looking at economic programs and services that other communities take for granted. I think in most cases you wonder why communities are struggling just to maintain staff in communities. A lot of it has to do with the well-being of those staff. You take a teacher, you take a lands officer, an SAO or finance officer, take them to a community and try to tell them once they get there, sorry, there is no nursing or policing. Excuse me, I don’t think they are going to be there too long. I think that is one of the reasons we have such high turnovers in a lot of our communities. We as government have to ensure not only program service dollars, but ensure that the environment that those communities are operating in is also cognizant of the human resource capacity ability for communities to attract people, keep people, and also ensure that the programs and services are universal throughout the Northwest Territories so that all communities can see the benefits that flow from that.
Again, I think that this government has to find a way that communities do have the means, the financial means, but more importantly the financial ability to be able to access resources, and not to continue finding themselves in a competitive area where we are competing community against community for the same resource dollars, especially when it comes to federal infrastructure dollars or even basically having to tell them, sorry, there is only this much money, $330,000, for a particular program, then you find out after the fact that the program dollars that you are earmarking have been already expended because it is an application-based program. There has to be some way that you have dollars allocated by way of classes of communities for ensuring that there is a fair way. If you don’t have an SAO or you don’t have a community planner, or you don’t have a financial officer to assist you on pulling that paperwork together, you lose out a lot of times and a lot of opportunities surpass a lot of communities just because they don’t have the community capacity to take that on.
Again I think it is important in this Legislature that we have to get away from empowering communities but also ensure that we give them the resources and making sure that they have the support that they need to carry out their obligations and basically ensure that we are able to assist them whenever, but more importantly, find ways of taking down the red tape, taking down the barriers that are in place between small rural communities and large urban centres, because there is definitely a discretion as we can see from a lot of federal infrastructure funding that was put out there, which a lot of communities still haven’t been able to carry out the agreements that we have in place or the dollars they have accessed, because of capacity issues, contracting or whatnot. I will leave it at that and see what the responses are from the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. We are on general comments. I have nobody else on my list. Is committee agreed that we have concluded general comments?
Agreed.
Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say a few words here. I know the government here has been working pretty close with my communities and I was just thinking about Colville Lake. It has been in the news and I have talked to the press about this with the water and sewer facilities in the school and the health centre. What I heard back was that it is a Municipal and Community Affairs issue and a community of Colville Lake issue, not they are working in regards to that infrastructure. I want to ensure members from Colville Lake that this issue here is being worked on. There are certainly other things that need to be included; putting in roads so the school could get their facility up and running. But what I understand from Public Works and Services is that all the materials are there at the school, all the equipment is there, but they don’t have any roads for hauling the water or taking the sewer out. Probably the same situation as the health centre.
I do want to say to the Minister that I hope there are provisions within this short lifespan of our government, now it is about six months, so we can get some movement on there to see where Colville Lake is in the sewer and water facility. I just want to say that and I also want to let the Minister know how much I appreciate, the communities appreciate the use of their resources in the community. When I was talking to the SAO in Tulita, he is very happy that the department released one of its staff people there from the community to help him out in a situation. If we didn’t have Municipal and Community Affairs staff going into our communities, it would have cost the hamlet quite a considerable amount of money to help them with some assessments on some of their infrastructure, so he wanted me to say how much they appreciate the staff being there for the small communities.
I look forward to going through the department’s budget and I want just leave it at that for now. I don’t have too much to say. I think the department is doing pretty good and I will leave it at that. I know the percentage that they give, funding, to the community is probably a good example as to how government should be devolving things over to the communities. Municipal and Community Affairs does put a lot of funding into the communities and I think that is a good example of how we should be operating our governments. Instead of keeping everything in Yellowknife, give it to the communities and the regions.
I just wanted to say that to the Minister. There are some good things happening with MACA and I look forward to having some discussions with him as we go through the detail. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next I have Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted this opportunity to comment on a few of the initiatives and a few of the issues in my communities that were raised with me during the course of my community tours. I think the biggest one is that as I tour all the smaller communities, they continue to raise the issues with the New Deal and capacity. They still really do not find that there’s enough money there to run their communities. One of the communities, the cost of street lighting alone far exceeds what was budgeted by the New Deal formula system. I think it was, like, $10,000 or $12,000 a month for community street lighting and I think the formula said they’re only allocated, like, $6,000 or $7,000. So they are finding inconsistencies and shortages as they try to run their communities.
I think I’ve done Member’s statements in the past, Mr. Chair, where I asked. Yes, the New Deal has been around for about two or three years and I strongly feel that it should be evaluated sooner rather than later. I think raising the questions in the House with the Minister, the Minister advises, yes, it’s going to be reviewed, but I’m thinking in a couple of years and I think they need it sooner just to evaluate all the different areas. The communities are still struggling and there’s a reason they’re struggling and I really think that Municipal and Community Affairs should try to find out where their struggles are. I know that they’re sending in staff people to help assist the communities with capital planning, but the capital planning and long-term strategies are okay, but I think it’s the O and M issues that they really have been struggling with. We’ve had lots of capital money, but it’s just the O and M, how to best manage it because they really are experiencing some shortfalls, Mr. Chair. So I really feel that this program should be evaluated sooner than later.
Moving on to another issue is the issue of Fort Liard. I know that when there’s a tragedy in the community such as a death -- and Fort Liard experienced a drowning in the springtime -- we often provide communities with $10,000 worth of emergency funding to assist with the search and rescue. In this case, for whatever reason, MACA did not provide the necessary funds to help the community with $10,000 worth of search and rescue emergency funding. A couple issues there, which I certainly disagree with. One of them was that it wasn’t properly applied for and it wasn’t applied for by the right organization, meaning perhaps the hamlet should have applied. But in other cases in my riding about three or four years ago, the Fort Simpson Band had applied for the funding, they were the call centre, they managed a call centre when they did their search and rescue and they successfully applied and got the $10,000 in search and rescue funding. I still think that the community of Fort Liard, through the ADK Band, should still have access to this $10,000 in emergency funding. They expended all their resources, they took the care and time to set up a cost centre for all expenses because there was lots of expenses like food, fuel, shelter, et cetera, for the 10 days that they were out there searching for one of their loved ones, then only to find that this emergency funding, because of technical reasons, wasn’t available. I really feel strongly that we made the wrong decision there and there’s still time to make it right, Mr. Chair. I really feel that the department should reconsider that. In fact, it is going to be one of my Member’s statements here before the House shuts down for this winter session.
Moving onto another one, I know that MACA is quite involved in emergency firefighting and I think one of the issues by the Village of Fort Simpson was a highway rescue vehicle. There was a huge opportunity, I don’t know if it still exists, that one of the more northern communities did have an actual highway rescue vehicle they had purchased, but it doesn’t really suit the needs for their community. There was an opportunity to transfer it to the Village of Fort Simpson and they did ask the Minister and wrote him a couple of internal memorandums asking him to review the situation. Is there a way to make this work? It was kind of like a win-win. The community relinquishes their highway rescue vehicle and another community actually gets it. I sure wish there was a way to do it. I don’t know if there’s still a way to do it, but we looked at some different options. I still believe that the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs could and should make it happen. There are many tools at his discretion in his ministerial authority to actually make this work. I know that interdepartmental workings, guidelines, procedures are there, but at the same time we’ve got to do the right thing once in a while and make it a win-win situation. I feel strongly about that.
As well, with the community of Fort Simpson it was perceived that the O and M money for the community didn’t actually grow like other communities. I think it was like zero growth for this fiscal year and it was really hard to understand how that worked out.
So those are the key areas that are on my agenda right now, Mr. Chair, but I think as well that MACA should be commended for their expenditures in the youth recreation area. That’s something that really bolsters our community, it creates self-esteem. The Youth Ambassador Program, for example, goes a long ways to show how much support our government has for the youth. We often talk about youth and their supports and this is one way it’s real, its tangible, the youth are learning, they’re getting out there in the communities, they’re getting out to the Olympics, et cetera. Just being out there creates self-esteem and in creating that self-esteem, you can just see kids glowing. They learn better at school, their health and wellness is supported and I’m glad to see it’s going to be a continual line item, Mr. Chair, and I’ll continue to support that and any other expenditures that Municipal and Community Affairs has with the youth.
Those are the notes I have right now, Mr. Chair, and as we deliberate the budget, I’ll certainly say more. Thank you very much. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next I have Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few comments, more general, on the Minister’s opening remarks for the review. I guess the one area where I have a little bit of concern is the community infrastructure funding. I know that the community infrastructure funding is scheduled for a review after five years. I don’t understand why there was no clause negotiated in there that it would be at least indexed to the cost of living and so on. From my understanding, it’s remained at $28 million, at least that particular budget, for the full five years prior to review. So I don’t know if we’re going to have a big increase of 15 percent or something like that when they review, but I would have felt that would have been better to put the escalation in there each year.
Also I wouldn’t mind to see MACA work with the Minister of infrastructure to see what is in place to replace the Canada Building Plan, if the Canada Building Plan has expired, and what is in place to replace that. I think that’s still essential that that type of money, the Building Canada Plan type of money be utilized by the municipalities and hamlets across the Territory.
I think that again, same as for the infrastructure acquisition funding, that the Gas Tax Agreement should go up also every year. I don’t know if it’s gone up in previous years but I know there is no change for this year from last year, this coming budget from this current budget.
I agree with the comments made by the previous MLA talking about the youth programs. I think that the only one we’ve actually put a lot of effort into assisting the youth... I think more should be done, but I think this is a really, really good start. I know that communities could use more infrastructure dollars. It was thanks to the money from the Canada Building Plan that we’re able to construct a youth centre in Fort Resolution. I think we’re going to see some huge results from having a youth centre. I think we’ll see very positive results with the youth coming out of Res and so on because of the youth centre, a place for the kids to go. I think anywhere they have a youth centre they see improvements overall in youth behaviour in the specific community. I think that’s something that’s positive. I think there’s a youth centre in Fort Resolution coming on-line that MACA should put some money in there to operate and put programs in, pay for youth workers and so on, so that centre becomes a viable centre to support the youth in that community. I think the same thing should happen in Lutselk’e.
I think Lutselk’e could use a youth centre. They may have a building there. They’ve tried a couple of buildings in the community as youth centres, but I don’t think they work really well. They just have a residential place converted into a youth centre and it doesn’t really work that well, I don’t believe. Unless they actually went in there and reconstructed a building, I think that might work. In Lutselk’e the kids want to see something similar to what is being built in Fort Resolution and they’re aware of that. They’re hoping that they can ultimately get something like that. If there is no Canada Building Plan in the future, somewhere down the road they gain the support to be able to build something in Lutselk’e.
I guess that kind of leads me to my next thing on the support that the department provides to the hamlets. I would like to see more support. I feel like the money was handed over to the municipalities. Although there is a desire, no question about it, to devolve the responsibilities to the municipal councils and hamlet councils and these communities, I think that there’s still support needed, admin support, support for contracting and support for securing financing. One of the features of having a hamlet council is the ability for them to borrow money and pay back through the infrastructure funding they get in the future, whichever financial arrangements can be made. I think that this department should provide the assistance to the communities to secure financing. An example right now I’m talking about is Fort Resolution again. I know there was some issue with the streets in Lutselk’e so we can never really determine whether or not we want to put any permanent dust suppressant down; however, in Fort Resolution they’re prepared and ready to put some permanent dust suppressant down as in chipseal for the whole community. I don’t know what the total cost would be, but it’s probably greater than the amount of capital that they’re getting on an annual basis, plus that capital is probably spoken for in other projects that they wish to do. The key would be to provide them with support to secure financing. I’m not sure, I think the municipality can do that. They can probably hire their own individual financier to go out and do financing, but I think that we should be there as a government for the community to say maybe you don’t have to pay such a large amount to get a financier to come in and do the financing for you. There may be money that can be borrowed cheaper. I think with support from the government to look at those things, we can get cheaper infrastructure dollars into the community and maybe better financing arrangements. There could be low interest loans that have balloon payments and if there’s a situation set up where repaying the finance back quicker than what is laid out in the agreement and there’s some bonuses in there, that will motivate the hamlets to pay off their infrastructure quicker. Just little things like that.
The whole idea of chipsealing the entire community of Fort Resolution I think has so many benefits to it, it’s hard to just sit here and describe all the benefits. One key factor would be just the market value of the community. Just that alone. I think once you increase the market value of the community and people take more pride in maintenance and maintaining yards and so on and so forth, actually potential to have a quasi-type market in the community which again has lots of long-term benefits. We talk about what happens when you try to deliver housing programs in non-market communities and how little motivation there is to put maintenance into your own unit because there’s essentially no market in the communities. Chipsealing roads, having people start taking care of their yards, actually begins the process of developing a market value for the community. So, in a sense, people gain equity by doing work on their own houses, they gain equity themselves. It’s a start. I think that this government should be there with the people all the way through the process when financing is needed.
Thank you. Any more general comments regarding Municipal and Community Affairs? General comments. If not, I’ll ask the Minister to respond to the general comments so far. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Members for the comments. We do appreciate the comments we got on the money that we’re putting into the youth. We all agree it’s an investment in our future, and the Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly should be proud of the fact that as an Assembly we put more money into youth than I think has ever gone into investing in them before. I think we should all take responsibility for that.
I feel the Members’ talk about the capacity in the communities is challenged and capacity issues in the community. Obviously we recognize that and in working with LGANT and NWTAC, we’ve been able to come up with a training plan. We have successor training. I think in a couple of the smaller communities we have folks in there that are trained to take on the responsibility. In the time I’ve been MACA Minister, the number of AGMs that I’ve gone to with NWTAC and speaking with a lot of the mayors and councillors that are there, I haven’t really heard any of them, they have some concerns but none of them have ever said we don’t want the money, we can’t handle the money, but we do need some training. They recognize that and that’s something that we’re working with them to do. I think Member Beaulieu pointed out, helping them to access financing, we as MACA see our role now as assisting the communities, working with the communities. The ultimate decision, obviously, is theirs and that’s the way it should be, but we will work with them and help them to do borrowing bylaws as we’ve done with a couple of communities. So far we’ve worked with them and they’ve been able to access financing to put a project in place earlier and then just finance it over a few years.
I think as Mr. Krutko or one of the other Members -- I think it might have been Mr. Menicoche -- had talked about was the firefighting and we have identified $300,000 in this particular budget to do the assessments, do some training with the local fire departments, do the assessments on their equipment, and that will go a long way in assisting the community if they have to go out and purchase the equipment. We’re working with them.
The base-plus funding level that we use we feel is the fairest one for the communities. We have one of our smallest communities with 42 people and one of our larger communities... Well, Yellowknife being our largest community. We think it’s a fairly fair process to give them a base plus the number of people they have in the community. That works well for how we allocate our funding and sometimes there’s an argument we use with Canada that we would like to see a base-plus funding when they allocate funding to all the jurisdictions across the country.
We talk about the different investments that are made, and a lot of the investments that you see in the communities now, the communities make the investment that reflects their priorities. We see a few communities that have gone ahead and done youth centres because it was one of their priorities. They’re identifying their priorities, they’re coming up with their infrastructure plans and capital plans for future years.
One of the things that I’ve been most impressed with in the time I’ve been the MACA Minister is the amount of money that each community has invested into the youth through their Building Canada Plan or through the community capacity money that was out a few years ago. We’ve seen a huge investment by the community into the youth.
Mr. Yakeleya’s points on Colville Lake, if communities wanted facilities in the school or the health centre upgraded, they would have to talk to the appropriate departments. We see our role as if they’re talking a sewage lagoon, we would be able to assist them with the planning for that.
Mr. Menicoche, not enough money is what I wrote down. He’s not listening. He didn’t hear me. Anyway, Mr. Menicoche had talked about the amount of money that had been allocated to the communities. I can assure the Members of this House that we are doing an evaluation of the New Deal in 2011-2012 and we’re also doing an evaluation of the O and M funding and this may go a long way in determining the amount of funding that we give out in the future.
I will leave my comments at that and I look forward to getting to the clause by clause or line by line.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Is committee agreed that we move to detail?
Agreed.
Page 6-7 is the summary page so what we’ll do is defer page 6-7 until after consideration of detail. So, committee, let’s please move to page 6-8. Page 6-8, Municipal and Community Affairs, department summary, information item, infrastructure investment summary.
Agreed.
Page 6-9, Municipal and Community Affairs, department summary, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regard to revenue joint emergency preparedness, for me I think that’s something that we have to be realistic about, knowing that we do have communities that have seen situations regardless if it’s threatened by floods or threatened by fires, and more importantly, even threatened by storms in which basically communities are impacted. I think that we have to be aware. Again, I notice that there’s been a major decrease in that area. I think, if anything, that we have to ensure that communities are up in regard to their emergency measures plans, and more importantly that they’re able to react and implement those plans at short notice. I’d just like to know why it has decreased by almost $60,000, and more importantly, where are we when it comes to emergency plans in poor communities ensuring that we have the capability of responding to an emergency regardless if it’s floods, fires or just storms that, in some cases, knock the power out or basically have a direct effect on a community’s ability to sustain programs and services. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This line item reflects the federal government decrease in the funding that they’ve provided for us and we’ve tried to respond to it by putting a line item in for the $300,000 that would go towards doing an assessment of some of the emergency services available in the communities. Thank you.
Again, Mr. Chair, I’d like to ask the Minister in regard to emergency measure plans that are in place, how many are in place and operational and how many are still being worked on by communities?
Each community would have their own emergency preparedness plan, but I’ll commit to the Member to try to gather the information for him. I’ll commit to the Member to gather the number of communities that have their plans put together. Thank you.
In regard to the Building Canada funds, the stimulus funding, again, some of the communities haven’t concluded those expenditures, regardless if it’s solid waste sites and whatnot. I’d just like to know what is the possibility of carrying over those funds to conclude those dollars that have been allocated in regards to the federal stimulus fund or the Building Canada funds. Is there a possibility of carrying those dollars over into 2011-12?
Mr. Chair, all the money has been allocated and there are some communities obviously facing some challenges. We’re just in the process of having some discussions as to how we can best assist those communities either by an extension of the time they have to complete their projects, but we’ve had fairly good success and a number of communities are getting their projects and will be done on time, but for those that are challenged, we’re just having those discussions now as to possibly having an extension. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, as we all heard from the federal government, I thought there was a deadline. I think it’s August 31st, or whatever. It’s a federal deadline and realistically these are federal dollars. Is there a guarantee that we can carry over? Because I know some of my communities still have not been able to deal with their solid waste sites because of the location outside the community or because the way the contracting requirements are under the program in which the costs came in well over the budget that they’re working from. The same thing applies to water treatment plants and whatnot, that you do have to realize that those types of projects take two or three years just to basically have it concluded. So again, what are we doing to deal with that?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Aumond.
With respect to those projects that are funded by Building Canada Plan, there is no hard deadline approaching right now, so they can carry that money over. We will assist them to see those projects through. With respect to the stimulus funding, we are, as the Minister said, in discussions with Canada at this point in time. Results so far are positive for an extension. The deadline across the country for those stimulus projects is October 30th. So for those communities that have identified a request for an extension, we’re working with them on that and we hope to hear soon. Thank you.
Can the Minister tell me exactly how many communities are in that situation and how communities are requesting a carryover, so that we can get an idea what type of impact this is in regard to community stimulus money?
I’d have to confirm, but I believe that there are only three or four communities that are requesting an extension. But I’d have to confirm that for the Member and get back to him. Thank you.
Can the Minister or the deputy tell us which communities are those?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.
We don’t have that information right now. We’ll get it and relay it onto the Member. Thank you.
If possible, will the government consider bringing in a supp so that we can conclude those projects?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Aumond.
The money has already been allocated to the community governments so there’s no requirement for a supp. It’s just an extension for them to expend the funds beyond March 31st but before October 31st. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. We’re on page 6-9, revenue summary, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item.
Agreed.
Moving along to 6-10, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, active positions summary.
Agreed.
Moving along to page 6-13, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $4.438 million.
Agreed.
