We heard – and I had to go check my notes – this drinking water website or an updated version of the website probably almost two years ago, almost when I first started as a Member. I’m still very concerned.
This is the only website that the public has in order to validate, reassure them in a transparent manner if the testing is being done. So what are those barriers that we can’t update this website with the community drinking water teams that are allegedly doing this testing? Thank you.
The information, I think, is contained within the MACA website. Again, as I said before, we recognize that we need to improve it, so this site is going to be specifically for the drinking water. We have a project team that’s put together. The launch date is June of 2014. So right now you’d have to navigate through the MACA website, but we’re trying to make it more user-friendly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Maybe I will rephrase my questions. We do have a drinking water website that MACA administers. The website has a water quality database broken up by community. It is broken by bacteriological testing as well as chemical testing. Yet, when you drill down to each community, in some communities there hasn’t been a test for sometimes up to a year or 12 months ago or six months ago. If you have one testing, you may have only the one chemical testing, but no bacteriological testing. In some cases, you have bacteriological testing and no chemical testing.
So, what are the barriers for putting that information on this particular website today? I’m not sure if we need a working group to do that. It’s about data entering. Are the tests there? Have the tests been done? What have the barriers been in putting them into this “only” public website available to residents of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
We were anticipating that we were going to launch the new website, but the Member is correct; there is a website there and it has a database. So there actually is no barrier other than entering the information.
I can commit to the Member that we’ll go back and ensure that our website is updated and kept updated even though we are anticipating the launch of the new system in June. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s commitment. The Minister is aware that I’ve been very vocal on water. We’ve got some great stewardship; we’ve got some great water management strategies. I know the Minister of ENR is well known for the ethics we’re bringing to the Water Strategy and I support all those initiatives. I just want to make sure we’ve got something that the public has access to and it’s updated regularly. I think that’s my goal.
I will leave this with my last question. The GNWT report on drinking water, the last one tabled, according to this website and according to Hansard, is 2011. We have not seen a 2012 report nor have we seen a 2013 report. When can the public and Members here anticipate seeing both water drinking reports tabled in the next little bit? Thank you.
Our plan is to table them during the May/June session.
I appreciate it. I am looking forward to seeing those documents. No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Next on the list is Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just have one question and I forgot to ask it earlier and realized it belongs on this page. It has to do with legislation or a legislative agenda as well.
Members have been asking since the 16th when or if MACA will take action on Access to Information and Protection of Privacy legislation for municipalities. The last I understood there was some work that was going on. I believe there was some consultation with communities. Can I get an update on where that is at as well? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Director Schauerte.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department is completing a discussion paper, a public discussion paper that we intend to take to community governments to outline different facets of what an Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act might look like for community governments. It’s our intention to deliver that consultation paper in the spring this year and we recognize that our Minister is under obligation to return to standing committee based on recommendations from the Privacy Commissioner. We intend to respond to those recommendations from the Privacy Commissioner. Thank you.
Thank you, Director Schauerte. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to Mr. Schauerte for that. I’m very glad that this is finally maybe coming to some kind of fruition. It’s an issue that the Information and Privacy Commissioner has raised for, I think, at least eight years. So it’s about time that the government actually took some action. So, no more questions. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Bromley.
Just briefly, I know the Minister has been looking at building standards and other legislation that might cover it, but can I just get an update on where the Minister is at with that? I know last time we chatted he was going to look at the new federal legislation that we subscribed to, or ascribed to. I forget what it was called, the building codes, the National Building Codes anyway, which had an energy element in it, an energy standard and we were going to subscribe to that. Could I get an update on that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll just touch briefly on that and then I’ll ask the deputy to speak to some of the meetings that they’ve had with some of the interested stakeholders, but I did commit to following up because there was some changes being made to the National Building Code. Actually, to be quite honest with Mr. Bromley, I haven’t followed up on that yet. I meant to go back into the site and see what some of the changes were, but I know our department has been working with some of the stakeholders in getting some of their input. So I’ll ask Mr. Williams to touch on that and I will commit to getting on the website tomorrow and having a look at some of the changes because they were contemplating some changes and I think it was during our deliberations last year when the consultations were going on. So I’ll check that tomorrow and I will get Deputy Minister Williams to touch on the discussions they’ve been having with stakeholders. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Deputy Minister Williams.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In early 2013 MACA consulted with industry stakeholders concerning the need for building standards legislation in the NWT. The stakeholders indicated additional time was needed for the study on the topic and to provide meaningful input. So, no further feedback has been received since then.
Some of the stakeholders that we did speak to, we spoke to the NWT Construction Association, the NWT Architects Association and the NWT Association of Communities as well as the Consulting Engineers of the NWT. So those consultations took place, I guess over a year ago now and I guess the next steps are we want to re-engage with them and see if there are any changes. The GNWT did examine this topic in 2008 and determined the current environment at the time offered sufficient protection to help ensure safety of residents. I guess one of the things that we need to move this forward is sufficient evidence needs to exist to justify the expense and effort required to administer a territorial-wide building standards regime.
So, to sum it up, we have done some consultations. We’re looking at a re-engagement over this summer with the various associations and hopefully we could make a recommendation of where we go from there. Thank you.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks very much for that update. I appreciate that and I’ll look forward to any further conclusions. I appreciate the focus on safety. I think that is pretty well covered with the building standards. What wasn’t in there was quality, or longevity as the architects may refer to it, and the energy, the opportunity to reduce cost of living, basically, for both our residents and our businesses by subscribing to standards, energy standards, which is a bit tough to get your mind around. In fact, the studies show you don’t even spend, but it looks like you are, but when you bring in the cost of mortgage and operation, it’s less. So there is an opportunity to save for our residents on cost of living here. So that would be the focus I’m interested in seeing provided to our communities.
Just on the last part of that, I know tangentially the office of the fire marshal is involved for safety stuff and I see a significant drop from this current fiscal year back to that of the last fiscal year with the office of the fire marshal. I know from time to time they play a role participating in national structures and so on, but was there a particular expense this fiscal year that’s disappearing during ’14-15? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Have we jumped ahead to public safety, or are we still on the directorate?
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Bromley.
I can hold it.
Okay. Committee, we’re on page 6-13, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $5.455 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 6-14, activity summary, directorate, grants and contributions, $638,000. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a question with regard to the grant for community government funding. It’s the same amount as last year. I believe, although it does say allocated in accordance with the Extraordinary Funding Policy, the last time we asked about this I believe that there really wasn’t a lot of usage of this particular fund. So I’d like to know in ’13-14 how much of the $168,000 was used and maybe if they’ve got the information where it was used, to whom it went. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When we got the question last year, I was hoping that we’d just reallocate this funding to other areas because we have one legitimate request in for this money right now. So we’re having a look at that. But I think as we go forward we may have to take this $168,000 because all the money that we do have, we allocate to the communities on a formula. Then we have this one pot here with $168,000 and it gives the impression that we’re funding anything that’s extraordinary. So we’d like to have a look at this one application we have now, but I think going forward we may have to rethink this one sixty-eight figure and possibly reallocate it to a different division within MACA. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. That is what I was going to suggest, is that I don’t think there’s much point in leaving this money here and having it lapse every year. So I have a suggestion for the Minister and I think it probably would apply under public safety, but I think that this $168,000, or maybe at least part of it, should be available to communities to assist them in buying defibrillators for their public buildings. Thank you.
Thank you, we will take the Member’s wise words under advisement.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we’re on 6-14, activity summary, directorate, grants and contributions, $638,000.
Agreed.
Page 6-15, information item, directorate, active positions. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a follow-up. I think the Minister is well prepared for this question on the fire marshal’s office expenditures dropping this year significantly from ’13-14 to ’14-15.
Sorry, Mr. Bromley, we’re on page 6-14, active positions.
Agreed.
Committee, we’re on page 6-15, information item, directorate, active positions.
Agreed.
Alright, 6-17, activity summary, public safety, operations expenditure summary, $1.717 million. Mr. Bromley.
Questions, Mr. Chair.
---Laughter
The fire marshal, what’s happening with that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
We had a long time to get ready for this question. I’ll ask Mr. Schauerte to explain the reduction in money.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Director Schauerte.
In our previous budgets the department was resourced for three positions for the latent Mackenzie Gas Pipeline. In prior year, we made a proposal to reallocate the funding for the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline to other positions in support of government priorities. In our particular case, we used the money to create, in part, the new assistant superintendent positions at the regional level. We also used resources from residual as a result of financial shared services to be created, so what we see, the reduction was a plan review position that was located in the public safety area related to Mackenzie Gas Pipeline applications, and with the authority to reallocate that funding this money has now been moved to regional operations. The amount of the reallocation was $108,000.
Thank you, Mr. Schauerte. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In terms of emergency management, I see a bump-up in the grants and contributions of a couple hundred thousand, and I know the Minister referenced another $350,000. What is the Minister aiming at here? One of the things that has come up in terms of community management planning is the increase and the expectation of further increases of the transportation of toxic and explosive materials through our communities associated with the fracking activity in the Sahtu as well as along our highways and rivers and lakes and so on. I know the Minister is familiar with what’s happening down South and with these sorts of accidents primarily with the rail, but where we don’t have rail in many areas, so we’ll be dealing with this stuff on our highways more and more. Will that be included or what are these dollars intended for?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
