Debates of September 25, 2017 (day 80)

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to acknowledge that, yes, it has been 10 years, actually, since we have done the new deal. It is almost time to call it an old deal, but I do not want to bring the connotations with that. Until we actually look at how we are going to address the funding gap, then I can commit that things will stay status quo until we have a solid plan of how we are going to address it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Anything further, Mr. Blake?

That did not sound too promising. You know, as I mentioned, it is a positive program that we have here. The longer we could keep this going, the better it is for our communities. As the Minister visits around, she, too, will notice. She opened a facility in Fort McPherson, I believe it was last year, and a new shop that they built on budget. That is the main thing, and hopefully projects like this continue through the years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Like we said, we are looking at leveraging the federal monies for infrastructure and then addressing the communities with deficits in them. I do want to stress that Municipal and Community Affairs is about community development and self-determination. The new deal, actually, whatever Minister put that in 10 years ago, in my opinion, did a great job. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few quick questions. The department accepts annual capital plans from each of the communities, and I am sure that in some instances, the department is very hands-on in helping provide assistance to help them build those capital plans.

First of all, these might be a little bit technical in nature, but along with building and developing those capital plans, are each of the communities responsible for developing an asset management plan so that they can track the life cycle costing of the investments that their capital plan is making? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, it is important for all of the communities to actually do the Asset Management Strategy. It is a requirement under the Federal Gas Tax Fund. We are right now piloting 10 communities with the Asset Management Strategy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is that 10 in addition to a number of them that do this already? How many communities in total do we have that provide asset management plans? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The federal government actually gave money to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to develop an Asset Management Strategy checklist for communities. The 10 that we're doing is total 10 for this time. We're just starting that, so each year we'll be doing more, but our goal is to have all communities implement it because it is a requirement from the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's positive news; I'm happy to hear that. I know it's a critical tool to help communities identify their infrastructure gaps, so that leads me to my next question: having a number of these communities not have asset management plans, are we aware of each community's actual infrastructure gap? If we are, how have we determined that without an asset management plan? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll let the deputy minister, Eleanor Young, address that answer.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Ms. Young.

Speaker: MS. YOUNG

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As part of the funding review that we did in partnership with the NWT Association of Communities, we developed a 25-year needs assessment on all core infrastructure for all communities and looked at working with their insurance program. We also looked at when all of that infrastructure would require key investments, replacement, or retrofit, and that was how we developed the current estimate of the $23 million a year shortfall currently. Again, that's not counting the phase 1 infrastructure funding, but that is how that number was developed, was we used core infrastructure for all communities where its investment was required and then developed that infrastructure deficit analysis.

Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Vanthuyne.

That's great. Thank you for that information in reply to that question; that's insightful. I guess I'll stem off of the capital plan to ask about communities' energy plans.

Every community energy plan has an infrastructure component to it. My question is: are any of the communities' energy plans included in their annual capital plan needs? For example, if they've identified that their community government office needs to replace their traditional boiler with a pellet boiler, is that identified as part of their capital plan? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Ms. Young.

Speaker: MS. YOUNG

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, starting this year we're -- I should backtrack for a second. Every year when we get a community's capital plan we do what's called a peer review, and that is how we've been feeding information back to the community about energy considerations, climate change considerations, and things of that nature. Starting this year, we've actually changed it so that we have a checklist that as we do the capital plan review with the community we will check the discussion on each of those items off as we go through the capital plan review so that it's done as they develop the capital plan instead of feedback after they've developed the capital plan. That's how we intend to address that starting this year, moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again thank you for the explanation. That sounds like an efficient thing to do on a go-forward basis.

Next question is we're aware now of significant federal funding that's going to be available and there has been some line of questioning earlier about how we might be able to access some of those new funds. We're aware that some of it will not be eligible for things like housing infrastructure, emergency services infrastructure, et cetera, but we just talked about community energy plans. There is going to be significant amount of funding available for green investment. There's a rural and northern communities component. How much of this $570 million over 11 years is going to actually get into, well, I don't know if it would be MACA's hands, but how much of it is actually going to get down into the community level? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point actually I can't give you a figure because we're still in the process of negotiations with the federal government, so until the federal government has signed off and agreed where we can use the infrastructure monies, then I can't say where that money will be going. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think, just as a general comment, what we're hearing from the government, and now we're probably going to hear this department-by-department, is that there's still a lot of uncertainty around these federal funds. I don't know what to say about that in terms of do your best I suppose, and I know we are, in terms of trying to solidify how we will get accessibility to these funds so that we can start making commitments and provide certainty to our communities. I'll just close with that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I should note that, yes, although we don't have finalized on where the Phase 2 of the Invest in Canada Plan funding will go, we do have still 29 communities that are still working on their infrastructure plans or projects from the Phase 1, so the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund, which was almost $52 million, and then the Public Transit Infrastructure money, which was $320,000. Those projects are supposed to be done at the end of March 2018, so some communities are still working on those. That's just a note. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Next we have Mr. McNeely.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to add to my previous colleague's comments on access and capital from the national programs, is it the department's intention to review community-by-community on their capital improvement needs? Say, for example, taking an old boiler, a diesel-heated fire boiler, from one of the facilities and turning it into something a little bit more greener such as biomass, for example? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McNeely. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, every community is expected to do a capital plan on an annual basis within that. That capital planning process looks at not only what communities need, but also the infrastructure that's in place and how long they're serviceable for, when they will need to be restructured, climate change, addressing climate change, addressing energy conservation, so all that is taken into consideration during the community's capital planning process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Report of Committee of the Whole