Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I did a Member's statement on the funding gap for municipal governments. My questions will be for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Can the Minister advise us what amount of the annual funding gap at the beginning of this Assembly, what is the gap? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Member's concern, and I appreciate his statement. This is a concern that we've been working on and trying to address. We have been working with the NWT Association of Communities to the Member's question. At the beginning of the 18th Legislative Assembly, the funding gap was approximately $39 million; 15 in operations and maintenance, and water and waste combined; and an additional of about $23 million in capital. For the current fiscal year, the funding gap is about 4.5 in O and M, and 4.8 in water and waste, including new costs identified for solid waste management. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister, and I appreciate the department's work with the NWT's Association of Municipalities. Can the Minister advise what the department has done to close the gap over the last three years?
We have seen some increments in the capital funding since about 2014. MACA has been successful, though, in reducing the gap in operations and maintenance funding and environmental service funding by almost about 50 percent.
On the capital side of things, we have seen a significant funding investment through the federal infrastructure programs that has helped us mitigate the gap over the short period of time. We are running some of those projects out to the municipalities over the next year.
One initiative that MACA has started and implemented is an asset management strategy, and we are working with all the communities to develop that and look at ways we can maximize the useful life of their public infrastructure, and not increase the pressure on capital funding moving forward so we can actually stretch our dollar in working with our municipal governments.
I greatly appreciate the Minister's answer to that, and I'm very excited about the department working on their asset management, getting a longer life out of our facilities, and making sure they work better. I applaud the department for doing that. Has the department done any calculations or projections to determine the cumulative shortfall of the funding gap since 2016, and what is the amount of funding gap right now?
To date, the department has not done any analysis on the cumulative shortfall. MACA continues to move forward on an ongoing basis to improve the ways that we do fund communities. As I mentioned, since 2014 we have seen a slight increase in the amount of funding that we do get. We do have to work within a GNWT fiscal framework, but we continue to look at ways we can try to lobby for more funds. Working with the federal government is one way that we've done it. Looking at some of their programs to help us offset some of the costs in our municipal governments, and we'll continue to work with our partners, in particular the NWT Association of Communities, to find ways that we can look at closing this gap, or at least making an impact on that.
Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much for the Minister for providing that information. I understand the fiscal realities of the Northwest Territories, and I understand that, but we're talking about our municipal government. I would hope that the government would start looking at trying to close that gap even quicker. Will the Minister commit to tabling the department's strategy to fulfill the mandate commitment of 4.55 at the next sitting of this Assembly in February? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Member does recognize our fiscal situation here within the GNWT, and as we go through our operations budgets as well as our capital budgets, we have to compete against things such as schools, health centres, roads, other types of infrastructure. Then you have to look at all the program services that we provide to residents of the Northwest Territories. We are working diligently with the NWT Association of Communities as well as our municipal government and our leaders across the Northwest Territories to address the concern that the Member has brought forward. It is, as all Members know it is, a tough way to make decisions in this House sometimes, but I will make a commitment that I will table the strategy in the winter session and make sure that we do share it with our stakeholders so that everyone is aware of the strategy that we are looking at moving forward to address the concern that the Member has brought up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Member for Kam Lake.
