Great. Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. General comments. Okay, I’ll allow the Minister to reply to general comments. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comments from the Members. The comments were all basically the same and I think these are issues that we’ve been working on.
Then there was the water source that Mr. Nadli had raised. We are working closely with the communities of Kakisa and Enterprise to see what options they would have. I made the comment about downloading responsibility on to communities. That is exactly what we have done, we have downloaded responsibility on the communities because the communities have proven that they are quite capable of handling all the new responsibility. We continue to work with them. We see a role now as just working closely with the communities, assisting them any way we can.
Again, the emergency issue came up a couple of times. We have a number of communities that have updated emergency plans. Some of the communities, in particular Mr. Bouchard raised Hay River, and they have an excellent plan. Having to deal with floods on a number of occasions, they have a good emergency plan in place. We’ve had a couple of issues with some of the other communities.
Again, we have 16 communities that have updated plans, 15 that need updating and two communities without an emergency plan, but we are working closely with the communities to make sure that they get all of their plans updated and we will continue to do that work. I think we have seen, in the last little while, the importance of having good emergency plans and central contact people. So we’ll get all of that straightened away. I think Mr. Dolynny’s comment was I want to see by next budget here that we have all these in place. I can commit that we’ll have more updated action plans by the time we get to the next budget session, probably even through business plan.
Ms. Bisaro raised a number of issues that talked about the 911 that she’s raised on a number of occasions. Again, I think we had that exchange in the House. She said she will have questions when we come to the appropriate page. I think I will just hold off comments until we come to the appropriate pages in the budget and we’ll have a further discussion.
That’s all I have for now, Mr. Chair. I do know that we’re going to be going page by page and Members will have questions. So rather than me trying to answer them all now, I’ll wait until we get to detail. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This seems to be a bit of a departure from what we tend to go with. When Members ask questions, most of the Ministers thus far have worked through Members and their particular questions. Now we have one saying that the rest of the comments I’m going to respond to when we get to the page. Now do we have to prompt the Minister? Is he going to answer all of our questions? Again, it seems to be a bit of a departure from what we’ve been doing.
As a matter of fact, we’ve gone through seven, eight budgets. Every one of those, the Ministers have gone through a similar process. I would think it would only seem appropriate to go through a similar process as well. I’m fine with changing the way we do things, but how are some of our questions going to be answered? These are opening comments. They come with questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins, it is the Chair’s purview that the Minister has the right to respond in a way and means he sees fit. He did make a commitment that he will deal with some of those general replies within the details. We’ll hope that the Minister holds true to that promise. If not, I am sure the Members will cue the Minister if need be. With that said, I appreciate the comments, Mr. Hawkins, but duly noted.
Committee, before we commence with detail here, we are actually going to take a very short recess. Thank you.
---SHORT RECESS
Welcome back, committee. Committee, we’re on Municipal and Community Affairs, 6-7, we’re going to defer the operations expenditure summary to the end. So I’ll ask people to turn their pages to 6-8, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. 6-9, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under general lottery licence there seems to be a bit of a fluctuation. Can the Minister provide an answer as to why?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll have Mr. Schauerte respond to that.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Schauerte.
In ‘12-13 the department committed to a revenue review. We wanted to look at the actual revenues as opposed to projections that have been historically included in our main estimates. As a result of the review, the revenues that are projected for the ‘13-14 Main Estimates are in line with actual business operations.
Thank you, Mr. Schauerte. Mr. Hawkins.
So in the revenue review, is there an overestimate of money or is the money going elsewhere? I’m just trying to get a sense of the error in the money or the extra anticipated revenue.
The revenue that’s represented will be actual revenues that we’re anticipating collecting. So these will be an actual net decrease to revenues for ‘13-14.
So is the policy not to collect as much revenue off this particular fund? Basically, I assume we’re collecting our revenue lottery commission of some sort, if that’s correct, and if that is what is the percentage or what is the revenue based on in the value of the number?
Can I just confirm, is he asking about lottery licence revenues?
Yes, I am.
The department has seen a downturn in the number of lottery licence applications that have been sent to our department. At the same time, some community governments have agreements to operate lotteries on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories, which is where the lottery revenues are collected. I believe that its 12 communities in the Northwest Territories that have this arrangement.
So, other than the anomaly of the downturn in the market, is there a fee structure that’s changed that’s coming into the GNWT as far as lottery licence concern is? So would the downturn alone explain the drop from $75,000 in the last business cycle to an anticipated $50,000 in this one?
Yes, that’s correct. There has not been a course point increase to the lottery licence fees.
The next particular question I have is about quarry fees, if we can get an explanation. I know what the quarry is and I know what a fee is. Can I get some explanation as to what type of fees are driving out of this?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chair, we don’t have the information with us, but I will commit to Member Hawkins that we’ll gather the information and pass that on to him and committee.
Thank you and I happily take that. Under real estate agents and sales persons, we have anticipated of $3,000, $5,000 last cycle, $2,000 the year before. Can I get an understanding exactly how this fee cycle works and why it’s gone up from $2,000 to $5,000 and then down to $3,000? Thank you.
Thank you. There’s a slight reduction in the amount of operating sales staff in this industry and that has led to the decreased revenue.
Thank you. When was the last time real estate agents and sales persons’ revenue fee were reviewed?
I’m not sure when the last time was. Again, we’ll look to gather that information and share it with the Members.
Thank you. A similar question to vendor direct sellers licence. Can the Minister explain exactly what that line is deriving and the last time that fee structure has been reviewed? Thank you.
Thank you. As far as the last time a lot of these have been reviewed, I mean, we’d have to go back and gather that information. Once we get the information for all these particular issues, we’ll share with the Members of the committee. On this particular one, there was a slight increase in the number of licences that were issued. Thank you.
Can I get the detail on the fee structure? I wasn’t quite clear in the Minister’s action and the last time it was reviewed? Thank you.
I’m not sure exactly what the fee structure is. I don’t have that information with me. As far as the last time it was reviewed, I said before that I’m not sure of that, either. So we will gather the information and share it with the Member.
Thank you to the Minister for that. Collection agency licences. How many collection agencies are there here in the Northwest Territories and what’s the licence fee based on? Thank you.
Thank you. A lot of these are small amounts in the work that we do. I do have some detail. However, the detail that the Member is asking for needs a little bit more work on my part and I will commit to gathering all of the detail for all of the Member’s questions, the ones that he’s asked and the one that he’s about to ask and we’ll get that information back to him.
That’s a very thorough answer and I appreciate that from the Minister. Could the Minister help me understand what plan review fees is, at $15,000? There’s a significant drop. It rose from $8,000 to $31,000 in the last fiscal cycle and then it significantly dropped to the $15,000. So I’m just trying to get a sense. It seems quite a turbulent bit of a fee prediction there, if anything very challenging to manage to predict it. So perhaps he could help me understand what fee review is, for my education as well as the House and the public, and what it’s based on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Schauerte.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These are fees that the department charges for the review of development plans that are submitted to the office of the fire marshal. The change that’s represented in the 2013-2014 Main Estimates is indicative that the department is no longer charging other government departments for providing that service.
What is the fee structure based on?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ll put some information together for the Member and he’ll have all the information he needs on the questions that he’s asked.
Land lease. Would the Minister provide me the last time land leases were looked at? I’m looking for the information as to when the last time land fees or leasing fees were adjusted. How do we come about with a particular rate on charging those things?
The Member is asking for a lot of detail that I didn’t come prepared with because we were looking at the overall numbers. If the Member is looking for more detail, then I’ve committed to providing him with as much detail as he would like.
I’d be happy to accept that. It appears we’ve come to the end of the page.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Continuing with questions is Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a question with regard to the revenue on the line Joint Emergency Preparedness. We’re going from $90,000 to nil. Is that federal funding that we get and, if so, what was the $90,000 last year used for?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The $90,000 was money that we did receive from the federal government. Some of this I think we distributed to some communities to help with their emergency action plans. Joint Emergency Preparedness is the name of the program. This program was discontinued by the federal government and they’re looking at replacing it with a program called the Disaster Mitigation Program now. We’re not quite sure of the details. We have some discussions with my federal counterpart, Mr. Lebel, and we’re hoping to get some information soon as far as what this program consists of and what kind of money we can expect to get. I will note that in our discussions with Mr. Lebel, we have told him that base-plus is the only type of funding that works for the NWT.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Page 6-9, Municipal and Community Affairs, information item, revenue summary.
Agreed.
