Debates of February 27, 2019 (day 62)

Date
February
27
2019
Session
18th Assembly, 3rd Session
Day
62
Members Present
Hon. Glen Abernethy, Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Blake, Hon. Caroline Cochrane, Ms. Green, Hon. Jackson Lafferty, Hon. Bob McLeod, Hon. Robert McLeod, Hon. Alfred Moses, Mr. Nadli, Mr. Nakimayak, Mr. O'Reilly, Hon. Wally Schumann, Hon. Louis Sebert, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Testart, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Vanthuyne
Topics
Statements
Speaker: MS. YOUNG

Thank you, Mr. Chair. They are fully eligible to be part of the program, as well. They have received gas tax funding through us, as well. One of the things we tried to make sure we did with the creation of this program was make it scalable. If they want to do asset management with software, that is available to them. If they would prefer to do their asset management exercises through paper-tracking, we would do that, as well. Depending on the capacity and the desire of the community, the program is scalable to what their needs would be. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The designated authorities, have we started approaching them? Because this is actually a very important program. I mean it helps them monitor equipment, facilities, and that, so have we been approaching them to encourage them to be part of this? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, all of our communities in the Northwest Territories, we have been approaching. The designated authorities are one of them. With our gas tax, we have been focused on making sure that they have the same opportunities as tax-based communities and municipalities. So, obviously, we are reaching out to all of our 33 communities, and this is something, concerns from the Member but probably some concerns from our leadership, that we will be having discussions with this weekend. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, when we talk about gas tax, there are challenges, and, you know, we have had conversations about this, where communities' the funding has been withheld there. Can the Minister update us with the designated authorities, what is the status, whether it is today or a follow-up? I know we have had a conversation, but can we get that follow-up to tell us where we are? It is just not designated authorities, but any communities out there that are being impacted by this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I will commit to doing a follow-up on the gas tax. I have had meetings with the Member on communities, and not just in particular in his region but communities across the NWT, and, like I said, if it comes up this weekend, we will have those discussions. I know there has to be more than just us being at the table; right? We need to have reliable staff working at the municipal governments, Indigenous governments, with the designated authorities, to address some of these issues, but I think that is something that needs to be addressed because, if we are not going to be able to flow that funding out, then the needs of the communities might not be met. Hopefully, we will have those discussions this weekend with the elected leaders across the Northwest Territories. We will follow up with the Member and give them an update. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you. I am assuming this is where we would be talking about the Auditor General's report and from previous. So MACA agreed with the number of recommendations and made commitments to do a number of things, including reviewing and improving contribution agreements by April 2017 and consult with INAC. What has the department done to implement the OAG's findings with respect to designated authorities in these contribution agreements? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Ms. Young.

Speaker: MS. YOUNG

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are working on this. We have had a little slower process than I think we had hoped in engaging all of the parties to talk about what changes need to be made to the contribution agreements. If I am not mistaken, the timeline for the designated authority agreements was actually at the end of 2019-2020, that we would have had all of the changes complete. That is still our target to have that work done. The work that we would be doing over the coming year would be to engage with communities on proposed changes with the contribution agreements. Overall, with the Office of the Auditor General, of course, we continue to implement all of the recommendations that were there. I think the biggest challenge is that, the Minister has mentioned, is the capacity of communities. At times, they are in great shape to engage with us, and, other times, they have other priorities on their mind. Staff turnovers have been significant in the past couple of years again, and that is having an impact on our ability to engage with communities. However, as soon as they are willing to work with us, we are willing to work with them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize if my notes said "2017." That is what I had down in my notes, so I apologize, and I thank the department. That is my last questions for this section. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions about the municipal funding gap, and I apologize if they were already covered. Has the Minister or his staff indicated when there is going to be a physical document made public for filling this gap? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know this has been a concern for not only MLAs and the government but also with municipalities. As I answered questions in the House earlier today, I am just going to be open and honest. I don't think we will be able to fill that gap during the life of this government. We have only got about seven months. Honestly, future governments are probably going to have a hard time filling this gap as well.

In my Minister's statement, I did mention that we have made some very significant improvements in terms of infrastructure, as well as O and M. I am more than certain that it will be a discussion that we will have this weekend when we meet with the NWTAC. We have already met with them, myself in capacity as Minister, on two different occasions with the Executive, and we have had those discussions. I have informed them that it is going to be a challenge.

It's reality. Our fiscal realities throughout the North, we all know what they are, but we also know that the economy isn't what it used to be, and our aging infrastructure is something that needs to be taken into consideration. I will be honest with the Members, and I will be honest with the mayor, council, and membership this weekend that we are not going to be able to fill the gap that the Member has referred to. It is something that we will have to work collectively together to address, and not only municipal and territorial. In my answers earlier today to questions, we are continuing to lobby the federal government to help us address some of those needs.

For the record, I will just let the Member know that we are continuing to work on it. We will have a strategy. That strategy, we will hopefully be tabling in the House in the May/June sitting, and we will share that with committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That was a short question to get a long answer. I am not asking the Minister to fill the gap in the next year. I want the plan to do it. I understand that the plan is now going to get delivered in the May/June sitting. That is good; I want to see the plan. I don't expect this Minister or this Assembly to make up the total gap in the year that is left.

The shortfall that was calculated, I think, back in 2014, was around $32.5 million. Is that new document going to include a recalculation of what the gap is? A lot has changed, probably, in five years, in terms of the assets that our community governments have, their condition, and so on. Now that all of that system is in place, it should be easier to recalculate what the gap is. Is that gap going to be recalculated, and is that part of what the Minister is going to give us in May/June? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, it will include that. It will also include us having those open dialogues and discussions with our municipalities. I thank the Member for keeping us accountable in terms of the report that came from 2014. As you have known, we do have this asset management plan that we are addressing. All of those are going to be taken in account as we move forward.

I do want to say that we have made some improvements in terms of working with municipal governments to address some of these needs, as was mentioned in my Minister's statement earlier today. We will continue to address those, but as I said, it can't always be solely on us as the government. We need to make sure that municipality governments, Indigenous governments, and the federal government come to the table as we lobby them for funding to address some of the concerns that we are hearing this afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Minister. I look forward to getting the recalculation of the municipal funding gap to update the 2014 calculations. That will be great. I have got a couple of suggestions for him in terms of what that strategy should contain.

There should be, in my view, an annual update of that gap, and it should be made available. The Minister might want to table a report in the House or something about the progress that is made towards that gap on an annual basis. It is going to require a pretty sophisticated tracking system. You have already got the asset side of it down, but the money coming in. Some of this could be, and the Minister has alluded to this, made up by the federal government through some of its infrastructure funding programs. You are going to need to have a more sophisticated system to track the incoming money and how it is helping you to reduce this gap.

The last point I guess I want to make is that we have got to make sure that the MACA Minister gets to the table at Cabinet to make sure that more of the federal infrastructure funding actually goes to the communities instead of building roads. That is what it has got to come down to. Are we going to put our communities over building roads? It is that simple in my mind. The big mega projects that Cabinet keeps pushing are taking money away from our communities, quite frankly, and that is what it comes down to.

I want to urge the Minister, and I am glad the other Cabinet Members are here to hear me say this because I make the same point on housing all of the time, we have got to meet the needs of our people, and that has to come over the mega projects that Cabinet keeps pushing.

I look forward to the Minister's response on this. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since I have been in the role as the Minister of MACA, I have had pretty good discussions with the executive of the NWTAC. I have told them that we have got to work together to get this addressed.

At the same time, our staff have been taking on some administrative roles for some of the municipalities because they aren't able to find SAOs or find people that can do financial work for them. That takes away from the work that we do at the department level, and it is something that I have been pushing. We need to make sure that the resources that our municipal governments have are adequate to address the concerns that the Members have raised. We want to promote that. We do that through the School of Community Government and getting our district offices out promoting our programs and services that we provide.

In terms of communities over roads, we all have got to work together, and I think that, as elected officials, and this is something that I will say this weekend when I meet with the mayors and council, they have a role to play as well, being elected for their constituents.

MACA has done a great job in working with our municipalities. In some cases, we have had to take more responsibility on than we would have liked to, but we are working to make sure that all communities have the resources to implement this.

I do appreciate the suggestions from the Member, but really, when you look at the realities, there are resources issues that we need to address, and we are working on trying to address those through the programs that we provide. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Before anybody says this, I have the greatest respect for our staff within MACA. I think they have been working flat-out on this work. The problem is the priorities that the Cabinet sets as a whole. The mega projects dominate what we apply for, for infrastructure money, and that is what is driving this government now. It is not the needs of our communities. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize if this should have been asked in the previous activity, which I don't think it is. I think I can get away with it here.

I asked a question the other day to the Department of Infrastructure. Recently, we received some correspondence. It was from the City of Yellowknife, and it was with regard to the ability to create new NWT building standards. I don't have the letter before me, so I am kind of paraphrasing, but I'm sure you are aware of the correspondence. I don't know, I guess they're trying to ask for the government to enable them, or in fact asking us develop NWT building standards. I put this to the Department of Infrastructure, as I said, the other day. They are not really in a position, nor wanting, I suppose, to do such an undertaking and develop these standards. We currently work through the National Building Code, the National Fire Code. We have electrical codes. There is EnerGuide 80 and the Good Building Practices for Northern Facilities, and that sort of thing. I'm wondering: what is the department's response to that correspondence? Is it something that we're looking into, or is it something that we're looking to enable communities to do? What is the response of the department with regard to that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I may go to my deputy minister in a bit, here, but, as the Member had mentioned, obviously we do have to comply with national building codes. He mentioned fire safety, electrical, and really what it comes down to is the safety of our residents. We want to make sure that they are safe when we're looking at building new infrastructure. The work that we're continuing to do, obviously, we started really complying lately, but we are doing some great work within MACA over the last few years to make sure that we are compliant. I know there have been some issues from contractors and other people in the North. To get a little bit more detail, I'll ask my deputy minister to speak, but we have started really working on making sure that we are compliant here in the North. What it really comes down to, Mr. Chair, is the safety of residents, and that's what we want to ensure. For a little bit more detail, I'll go to my deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Young.

Speaker: MS. YOUNG

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As Members know, the department, one of its mandate items was an update of the Fire Prevention Act, and you may have noticed that we have delayed the work on that into the next Assembly. This topic is part of the reason for that. As we had started our first phase of review of that act, one of the biggest things we noted was issues around the whole plan review fire inspection function and how that relates to functions that are within the Department of Infrastructure, but also functions that operate at the city level within their development approval process. It became clear that we need to do some additional work in that area before we bring that legislation forward, because there is some problem-solving to do about how all of those things work together. I do anticipate that those conversations will continue this summer, as we work with stakeholders on what to do specifically around the Fire Protection Act, but I expect the broader plan review building approval process will become part of that conversation, and we will be bringing that information forward for changes in the act in the next Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Nothing further from committee. I will call this activity. Municipal and Community Affairs, community operations, operations expenditure summary, $2,166,000. Does committee agree?

Speaker: SOME HON. MEMBERS

Agreed.

Thank you, committee. Moving on to activity 3, directorate, pages 338 to 341. Municipal and Community Affairs, directorate. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think this is the part of the department that is responsible for, as it says here, overall direction and planning. This is a big department, in that they have a whole bunch of legislative responsibilities that include things like consumer protection and a number of other areas that I just can't put my fingers on, but legislation coming out the other end hasn't been very quick. I know the previous Minister had talked about sort of a legislative priority-setting exercise to look at the big backlog of requirements in terms of legislative change. I haven't seen anything happening over the last several months, that I'm aware of. Is this something that's still going on within the department to help set legislative priorities? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we do have a list of legislation through the department. Obviously, we want to prioritize them. We have one before standing committee right now, and it's something that I will continue to work on. As I mentioned, the department, we only have so many resources to do the work that we can. There is a list of legislation that needs to be done, and we are working on it. When we did get the mandates from the 18th Legislative Assembly, it did take away some of our resources to focus on getting this mandate done. At the same time, as you heard earlier, we are continuing to work with municipalities on addressing some of the issues there. It is a challenge to get all this done, but I just wanted to inform the Member that we do have a list of legislation that will need to get done, and we're doing the best that we can in that area. I think 911 is one of the areas that we are focusing on, and I appreciate the committee for working with us on that. I'm looking forward to getting that one passed. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and I recognize the good work that the department has done in terms of implementing, or beginning to implement, 911, and I commend them for that, but there is a number of other things here; the Fire Prevention Act, Senior Citizens and Disabled Persons Property Tax Relief Act, Home Ownership Property Tax Rebate Act, Consumer Protection Act, further changes to the Cities, Towns and Villages Act. The Minister knows the backlog better than I. Does the department have a process for setting priorities amongst those? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, I know that there are a lot of acts within this department that need to be addressed. I think 911 is going to be one that is going to be very successful, and one that we're going to monitor and evaluate as it proceeds. Yes, we do have a plan, based on our resources, that we can address some of these legislation priorities. We will deal with them the best that we can. I know, during business plans, we did have questions whether or not our department was resourced well enough to address some of these issues, and as I just previously mentioned, we're doing the best that we can with the resources that we have.

I know there are some concerns. I know we're going into a new election this fall. We do have a transition committee and, if there is any legislation that Members would like to see moved forward into the next government, I encourage them to bring them forward. We only have about seven months until the writ is dropped, and I know some of our committees have a lot of bills on their plate at the moment. We do have a plan. We're working on it. We're doing the best that we can with the resources that we have. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister share that plan with standing committee? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we are working on this legislation, once we have a document done, we will share it with committee. We will make sure that it is shared before the transition documents are completed so that the next government that comes in knows what legislation needed to be completed within our department. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.