Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I talked about the streetlights in smaller communities or the lack thereof on the roadways. Especially now with winter coming, we all know that there is limited sunlight, it’s very dark, and it’s quite terrible, actually, especially when I go there in the wintertime. I can’t walk around much later than 6:00 in some of the areas of Lutselk’e and Fort Res because of darkness. I’d like to ask the Minister, I understand that at one time the NWT Power Corporation used to install lights on the poles and then charge the municipality for the kilowatt usage. I’d like to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs if he could advise me how the departments fund streetlights and who is responsible for streetlights in the municipalities.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The way it worked before was that the Power Corporation would install the poles and streetlights and then bill MACA, when MACA had the responsibility and all the infrastructure money. Since the implementation of the New Deal, it is now the community’s responsibility to work with the Power Corporation in having streetlights installed in the community.
Could the Minister advise me if at the time when Municipal and Community Affairs had the responsibility to deal with the Power Corporation on street lighting, if the department has some sort of regulations, policies or formula for how many streetlights are needed to light up a street, how far between and so on? Any sort of regulation?
My understanding is there weren’t any regulations that were in place. It was something that the community would identify to the Power Corporation and try and have the proper lighting installed. The communities worked with the Power Corporation to come up with the needed lights in the community.
Since as an Assembly we really don’t have access to or any way of dealing with the NWT Power Corporation on this issue, I would like to know if the Minister could commit to having his department work with the municipalities and the NWT Power Corporation to have some of the lights installed in key places in the communities where the streets are not lit up at all.
Each fall and winter we work with the community governments to support their revised capital investment plans and if they identify streetlights as one of their priorities, then we would work with them to include the streetlights in their capital plans. The communities have done quite good at doing their capital plans, and I can inform the Member that one of his communities has actually identified street lighting as part of their capital plan and they’re hoping to do the implementation during this fiscal year.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When you talk about lights, there are a lot of analogies that can be made. I’m listening to some of those. When the New Deal was formed and the New Deal was signed, because there was a relationship between the Power Corporation and this government through MACA, I suspect that was included in the formula when the New Deal was signed by the communities. Can the Minister tell me if he’s prepared to commit to going back to the formula in the New Deal and to see -- apparently this is a fairly expensive proposition – if lights were actually included in the infrastructure transfer in the capital planning.
I will commit to working with the different groups and seeing what was included and what was not included. The Member mentioned earlier on in his statement about the infrastructure that transferred over to the communities and how some of it was aging, which is true. Had we gone about doing business in the old system, a lot of that infrastructure would never be replaced for a long time because they’d be at the end of the line in priorities. So by doing this, giving the money to the communities, having them have the responsibility, I think we’ve seen some good work towards some of the infrastructure being replaced a lot sooner than it would have been had it continued to be administered through MACA. I will commit to speaking with the interested parties and the parties that were affected to see how the formula was arrived at.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
