I believe the Member is speaking to the $200,000 increase on the grants and contributions side. I don’t think it’s the emergency management part on the bottom here. Maybe the Member could just clarify that. I believe he’s speaking to the $200,000 to $400,000 on the top there under grants and contributions. Because in emergency management side there’s, like, a $5,000 increase.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Bromley, could you clarify your question?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I was referring to the increase from $200,000 to $400,000 for ground ambulance and highway rescue as well as the Minister’s mentioned, I think, in his introductory remarks, an additional $350,000 for emergency management. I can look up the specific comment here. It was $350,000 for the Ground Ambulance and Highway Rescue Services Program increase in contributions to community governments. That’s probably in a different division, but anyway, we’re looking at $550,000 increase here apparently for the same thing and I’m wondering if it’s going to help with these sorts of issues that I mentioned.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We just want to make sure we had our information correct here, or semi correct. They give it to me and then I hope I give it to you correctly. The $200,000 increase there was some of the additional money, the $350,000 that I was talking about, the contributions to the community to help with their desire to provide some emergency services in the community. Usually it was on an application base, and we tried to allocate all the money. The other $150,000, we’ll find it later on when we get to the School of Community Government, because our intention is to use that for first responder training. This year is to help the communities. We have had some application in the past. I think we’ve even considered doing a second round of applications. If all the money is not used up we’ll go for a second round of applications, so we can probably top them off a bit more. I will get Mr. Williams to speak on some of the Member’s concerns on the emergency management side of it.
Thank you, Minister. Deputy Minister Williams.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member asked, what are some of the activities in the area of emergency management that will help protect our communities. MACA, right now, is working with community governments and key stakeholders to complete a territorial-wide hazard identification risk assessment that would help evaluate and better understand how climate change might affect the identification and selection of disaster mitigation strategies and the types of preparedness activities that are necessary. This report was recently completed with money that we received from AANDC to do the study, so it’s going to assist us greatly in making sure our communities are prepared and we can identify future risks that you mentioned with rail and increased traffic on the rail lines, et cetera.
Thank you, Mr. Williams. Mr. Bromley.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. That’s good to know and I think it would be of interest if committee could see that report, obviously. Territory-wide, was it like all our communities or did it include the highways and other transportation corridors? Do we know? Just in association with that, and I’ll see if I can finish this up here, I’m wondering if we’re working with Transportation on this, as well, because they might have a role to play too.
Certainly, it was territory-wide. We did take into account highways, community boundaries, rail lines, so it did encompass a lot. We wanted to identify what are the hazards and the risks out there so we’re better prepared in reacting to any emergencies. As for working with the Department of Transportation, certainly, we have consulted with them on this project, so we got some input from them as well.
That’s all I had, Mr. Chair. I guess maybe I’ll just ask if the Minister could make that report available to committee.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Yes, we’ll make that committee report available.
Thank you, Minister. Committee, we’re on page 6-17, activity summary, public safety, operations expenditure summary, $1.717 million.
Agreed.
Page 6-18, activity summary, public safety, grants and contributions, $400,000.
Agreed.
Page 6-19, information item, public safety, active positions. Questions?
Agreed.
Page 6-21, activity summary, community operations, operations expenditure summary, $2.627 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know this department is putting a lot of effort into community capacity building and I know that it comes up again under the School of Community government, I believe. I believe we were putting about a million into it, and obviously, there’s less than that in the School of Community Government so I’m assuming that it’s in here. If that’s the case, and this is the appropriate page, what’s the status of that work? We’ve been doing it for a little while now. Is there some sort of evaluation? I think the Minister got this question last year and was, I think, intent on getting some evaluation done. Are we ready to hear how our efforts are working? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Deputy Minister Williams.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually that funding, the million dollars for the Public Service Capacity Initiative, is under the School of Community Government. We have done an evaluation and it will inform reinvestment in our funding model in this year in the ‘14-15 budget. We actually have a steering committee meeting tomorrow on it.
I see the $680,000 in School of Community Government. Is there somewhere else that $320,000 could be located in another division? Thank you.
The $320,000 is contained in O and M to run the programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, deputy minister. Committee, we are on page 6-21, activity summary, community operations, operations expenditure summary, $2.627 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 6-22, activity summary, community operations, grants and contributions, $185,000.
Agreed.
Page 6-23, information item, community operations, active positions. Questions?
Agreed.
Page 6-25, activity summary, School of Community Government, operations expenditure summary, $3.252 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am always curious and I’ve been trying to find out over the years, but I wonder if the Minister could supply me with a list of the courses that address the opportunity, need and methods for energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy conservation in the courses offered in the School of Community Government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We may have shared that information before, but I will follow up and we will provide a list of… I think it was a list of courses that you were asking about, so we will provide that to committee.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Bromley.
That’s it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Next on my list is Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just with the School of Community Government, I was contacted by one of my remote communities. They have to, I think, pay their own way to attend a lot of these training functions. Particularly to Yellowknife it gets quite expensive. I guess the issue here is, they probably do it already, but can they do more training in the regions and the communities just to reduce the cost of those almost like fly-in communities?
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will look at opportunities to try and get out into the regions as much as we can because it is quite important, but for those who come here, it is the community government that pays. I believe now their coming for training is eligible under the gas tax funding. So there are opportunities there too.
The Member makes a good point, though, and we’ll try and ensure we do what we can to try to make sure that we bring the training to the community where they will be needing it the most. We have some examples and the deputy minister just pointed out equipment operator training that was brought to Tulita. So there are opportunities there, we just have to ensure we’re on top of it. Thank you.
It sounds like the Minister is aware of the issues in the small communities, because their funding is always tight and the Minister has heard that from many members, too, in the communities. It is about the amount of money it takes to travel out of the communities to get to Yellowknife. It sounds like he’s willing to move some of the training closer to the communities, especially about governance and management. In the small communities there is a high turnover of people that manage the communities, so they find themselves training more. Like I said, it’s quite expensive.
This gas tax funding for training, it seems like there’s some flexibility there. I don’t know if that gets out to the community as well. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, there are changes to some of the criteria for the gas tax funding. We use every opportunity we have to share it with communities if we can get them to get it through NWTAC AGM and that. We’ll ensure that all communities are updated on some of the changes to the criteria. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we’re on page 6-25, activity summary, School of Community Government, operations expenditure summary, $3.252 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 6-26, activity summary, School of Community Government, grants and contributions, $680,000.
Agreed.
Page 6-27, information item, School of Community Government, active positions.
Agreed.
Just a note, 6-29 is land administration with the new department. Taking us all the way to page 6-33, activity summary, sport, recreation and youth, operations expenditure summary, $5.42 million. Mr. Dolynny.
