Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, and I'm glad that, you know, that's happening. And, you know, I just wanted him to, you know, come and say that again so people hear it. And, you know, we need to look at a you know, we people like to see timelines because we're always, well, we're working on it but, you know, we come up with something, and, you know, it might it probably won't happen this Assembly. Maybe it'll happen next one, the one after that, I don't know. But I think that what's going to happen here is we're just going to see that that gap ever increasing. And, you know, it's going to take I think everybody to to come up with a solution for it. And my solution is always go to the feds and try and get them to, you know, pay for it. But, you know so it's just a comment there on that one. I just want to see it, you know, closed as quickly as possible.
And just one more comment as well, you know, if we all you know, we talk about it as part of mandate items and when we sit on this side, we don't have to tell Cabinet that that we want $5,000 or we want $10,000 in there. I'm sure that they're smart enough on that side to realize that's what we're trying do. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Members, we're going to take a short recess.
SHORT RECESS
I now call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we are on Municipal and Community Affairs, regional operations.
Any further questions under that department from Members? Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to take a look under grants in lieu of taxes. I want to just make a couple comments, and I'll try to keep it short as possible.
I just wanted to mention that as the new MLA for Tu NedheWiilideh riding, I also come from a background of being the Chief of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and the Akaitcho Territory government. And I also just wanted to just mention on some of the feedback I've been getting back from my constituents in regards to taxation, and I just want to talk about two things or a couple things I guess.
One is the honour of the Crown and when we say that, it's when the treaty was made in 1900, July 25th. In that treaty that talked about there would be no imposition of tax of any kind. And it didn't say in the Commissioner's report whether you had to be on reserve or not. It was very clear that there'd be no no imposition of tax.
And so later on, the 1967, the territorial council was created, and we called it the NWT Act, that governs what we have here today. And since devolution in 2014, it gave the territorial government greater control over lands and federal lands in the Northwest Territories. But the thing is that in our riding, and our constituents are bringing to my attention that, you know, we got cabin owners that are being taxed and they're deeply concerned about that. But yet at the same time, I'm not sure how the the MACA is working with the the other department that's working on the claims for the GNWT at the main table discussion with the Akaitcho Territory government and the NWT Metis Nation. Regardless, you know, there is a process already in place and some of my constituent members are very concerned that the taxation of their cabins and that kind of thing is a concern to them.
So I'm not really sure how or where MACA is in terms of trying to get this thing resolved, but what I would like to see is if that issue could be either looked at or put on hold until the resolution of these outstanding payments are done. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. I think that taxation goes under the Department of Lands. Sorry, Minister of MACA.
Yeah, so what the Member's talking about is very much about Finance and Lands. So I can tell you right now what is happening. We've been working with our Indigenous governments. If you want to get if it's a rightbased cabin, all you need to do is get reach out to their organizations or the Department of Lands. So if they want to go through their Band or their municipal governments, they go through that. And if they or they can reach out to the regional office and tell them it's a rightbase cabin. We've had the same we've had the same thing for whether it's all Indigenous governments. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Yeah, Madam Chair, that answers my questions because I mean, it's there is a process in place but then that's avenue we to address this issue. That would be great. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. So if there's no further questions under regional operations, Municipal and Community Affairs, regional operations, 20222023 Main Estimates, $102,915,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will now turn to page 355 and 356 with information items on 357 and 358. Municipal and Community Affairs, school of community governance. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. On page 356, there's an allocation to the program management of $1,072,000, and the training programs itself is 1.8, $1.83 million.
You know, the allocation of training in that program seems I mean, it takes $1 million of program management for 1.8. The balance doesn't seem quite right. So I was just I just wanted an explanation on why you have to have such a large program management for a course for training programs for $1.8 million. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.
Thank you. The funding in place for program management is for both headquarter and regional positions. So the school of community government has eight positions, three that are physically located in headquarters and three that are sorry, five that are physically located in regions. But all of the regional staff do report into headquarters which is different than you'll see our regional operations staff. So all of their salary and O and M is in that one line which is where that figure comes from. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So when you go down a little bit further, so the $886,000 in contract services, I assume that's part of the training program. Is that training done by Northerners, or is it brought in is someone brought in from southern entity? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
So Northerners. We try to get as many Northerners to do the job where possible. If there's an expertise out there that we don't have in the North, then we go down south. But our first priority has always been Northerners, to train Northerners. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
This is a really important part in community governments, especially in small communities. And I know that we're going to a polytechnic university very short in the future and hopefully in the next year or so. I guess I'm kind of wondering what is the oversight on these training programs? Because it's that is really important with the governance within the communities. Many times we run into you always hear on the news that oh, there's been deficiencies and all this in this such and such a community. There's an investigation going on and all these things. And you know, sometimes when you have outside forces that are training the people that are going to be running these community governments, it's questionable. Yeah, you have to be you have to know the community and you have to be from the North in order to for this to be successful. So I'm kind of wondering on the oversight of this program. And with that, I just you know, this morning I had a discussion somewhere else at a different committee, and I was just I was questioning that because it came up for some reason. And with the new polytechnic concept coming on board and most places, in all communities, they have learning centres in all communities, and with the oversight of doing this properly, I just thought that this money would be better spent within the polytechnic university, and I it's just something to think about because of all you know, then there'd be a unified place and the training and delivery would be we would have oversight on it. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
Yeah, so when the school of community government got developed, it was to help the communities when it was with the or the college and that. The problem was is that it didn't meet the needs of the communities. So these programs that we developed were for the communities. They did have a committee, an evaluation committee that looks at it and that there. But for further detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.
Thank you. I don't have much more to add to what the Minister said. But there are a series of technical committees that provide administrative oversight and to help with the curriculum offered by the school. So that's how we do the you know, that ensuring those technical requirements are there and that the staff actually delivering the training to community governments has the proper technical background. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha, anything further?
One question, does the school of community government also offer the governance process with the leaders that are elected? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister of MACA.
Yes, they do.
Thank you. Thank you. School of community government, questions? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just looking at the website for A Brilliant North Program, and I note that it was the action plan was developed in 2010, and a lot of the targets and such are from around that time. So I'm just curious to know what the $565,000, what sort of phase or stage of this project is it in? Is it just continuing on with the work that Brilliant North did, or is there a new action plan since 2010? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.
Thank you. Actually there are discussions happening right now between us and the local government administrators of the NWT to determine is the action plan that we've been using all along, is it something we need to revisit or are we happy with it, or do we need a new one. So those discussions are ongoing right now. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you for that. I'm glad to hear that. It seems and I'm going to actually dive further into this action plan later so I can get more details on it. But it seems like a good thing.
We've heard the department mention LGANT a couple times now, which is the Local Government Administrators of the NWT. And I know it's part of a national body. Can the Minister of the department speak to, like, how many people are in LGANT here in the North, like how does that work? It's, like, a third third party NGOtype scenario? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.
Thank you. So MACA primarily deals with two organizations. One is the NWT Association of Communities, which is the group that represents mayors and Chiefs. And the administrators group is the equivalent except at the senior administrative/Band manager level. So, you know, I deal a lot with LGANT/bureaucrattobureaucrat versus the Minister dealing with the NWTAC at the political level. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. I think I knew that at some point in time and then sort of had this other vision because LGANT was always putting on or had for a while put on sort of events in the North. There was a fun disaster relief training one where everyone had to get together and figure out I think it came about because we were talking about a berm around Yellowknife if there had been a fire.
So I'm just curious to know is there more of that type of a thing being done with LGANT? It seemed like a great opportunity because then it's not just, you know, them getting together in the scenario of, like, always talking about necessarily work but almost forming a collegiate group of some sort. So I don't really know if I'm framing this right but maybe I see the DM nodding and hopefully she understands what I'm getting at. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.
Yes, so LGANT has an annual general meeting annually, and they do offer training. And their training is really geared to LGANT is really focused on supporting communities to recruit and train and retain their community government staff and sometimes focus really on those key administrative positions, so the senior administrative officer, the Band manager, or the, you know, director of corporate or the director of finance, those positions. And the you know, they really are about building public service capacity at the community government level. And they often frequently do get together and provide training to their membership or meet on areas of common interest. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
