Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. At the moment, we are in the process of writing off debts to BDIC.
Can the Minister and his department write off the deficit for the Hamlet of Fort McPherson? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, we can’t, but we will work with the community of McPherson. There has been some work done already to have a deficit recovery plan. We will work with the community to see what their options might be as far as recovering some of the deficit that they are currently running. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Why did the department not step in sooner to fix this problem?
We gave our community government funding and we are confident in their ability to administer that funding. However, in some cases, we come into situations like this and it’s unfortunate that the residents of the communities normally end up paying for it. With the new Accountability Framework, we will be able to track the community’s finances a lot better, and if we see potential red flags, we can step in a lot sooner.
As far as the Member’s community goes, we have appointed a municipal supervisor to help with the deficit recovery plan, so we are working with the community right now and will continue to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Minister and his department move to a five- to 10-year plan to pay back the deficit to ease the cost of living in Fort McPherson? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We will have to examine our options. I am willing to meet with the council and the residents of Fort McPherson to fill them in on the deficit and some of the work that’s being done. There are other options that we may have at our disposal. We may have to look at possibly dissolving council and appointing a public administrator in the community. Again, these are options that we need to explore and I am going to meet with the leadership and the citizens of Fort McPherson, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That leads me to my fourth question. Will the Minister and his officials come to Fort McPherson and work with the community on a better recovery plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We would be pleased to come to the community and meet with them again. We want to make sure that they have all the tools at their disposal to try to deal with the deficit. So, we’ll be glad to work closely with the community to come up with a recovery plan. With the new Accountability Framework, we’ll be able to monitor our communities a lot closer and if there are any potential issues in the community, we will be able to identify those quicker and step in a lot quicker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
