Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I want to thank the Minister for that commitment. I look forward to seeing the priorities that the department has set for legislative change. That will be a very helpful and interesting document to look at for transition planning. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is all I have.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one comment, and then one question in this area here.
First of all, I would like to commend the department for making progress on long-overdue legislation updates and that you have completed Bill 1, the Western Canada Lottery Act; Bill 8, Emergency Management Act; Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Cities, Towns and Villages Act; and you are now close to doing 911. I am very happy with that. It has been long overdue, and I give kudos to the department and the staff for doing a great job on that there.
Departmental consultations with partners in the development of legislation is important, but the department should bear in mind that the proposed legislation is also consulted on by the standing committee. Has the department given any consideration to what it should be doing to assist community governments to understand their responsibilities under the amended ATIP act? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned previously, I have met with the executive for NWTAC. That was an agenda item that we had discussed. I know it is a bill that is under the Department of Justice. I also appreciate the Member's comments about the bills that we have passed. For the Department of MACA, this is the most bills that have ever been passed during one term of government. We are continuing to work on that plan, which we will share with Members before the end of this legislation.
Yes, we have been meeting with our stakeholders. I would say that the City of Yellowknife has probably the biggest concern with ATIP moving forward, and we have got to make sure that they have the proper training and that they have the proper resources to do ATIP. Moving forward, those are the discussions that we have had. We will see how that applies. Maybe for a little bit further detail on the work that has been done, through you, Mr. Chair, I will go to my deputy minister. Thank you.
Ms. Young.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very quickly, our intention is to work with the Department of Justice and create a working group of community government stakeholders to talk about what an implementation plan will look like under the new legislation, because the legislation allows us to bring communities in under regulation. The plan is to work with communities to identify what training will be required, what other capacity may need to be done in terms of the creation of filing systems, et cetera, and what resources may be impacted with communities with the implementation of ATIP and put a plan in place for communities. We are starting with a working group to flesh out what all of those details will be, and then we will come back with a recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you. Hopefully just one quick follow-up here. Has the department started looking at developing a course or a training program that will be able to help municipalities deal with ATIP? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this moment, no, but it will be something that we will have to look at addressing and providing. I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but we only have so many resources within our department to provide the services, but it is something that we have taken into serious consideration, that, when ATIP goes through, we are going to be one of the partners at the table that is going to be providing the training for our municipal governments. We will definitely be doing that. I just want to assure the Member that it is something that our department will be undertaking. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have heard the Minister beat the dead horse, but this is a new thing that we, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, are imposing onto the municipal governments. I appreciate the Minister, understanding that we have short resources and that, but we have to make sure that we are prepared. I am hoping, and I am going to take the Minister's word for it, that we are actually going to start looking at this, to develop a course that people are able to take. That will be my last question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just a comment from Mr. Thompson. The Minister would like to respond. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will continue to work with the Department of Justice to address some of these concerns and look at how we can offset some of the training costs. Thank you.
Thank you. Municipal and Community Affairs, directorate, operations expenditures summary, $3,805,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Please continue to the next activity.
Activity 4, pages 342 to 345, public safety. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask the department if they could maybe provide us a little bit of insight on communications as it relates to emergencies or safety matters. In 2014-2015, we had very significant forest fires. I just remember at the time that, between MACA, ENR, who would be responsible for fighting the fires, and then, say, Infrastructure would be responsible for highways and what-have-you that might be inhibited by the fires. It was often a bit of a challenge to understand who was leading communications and how communications were being done. Can the department maybe explain a little bit about what their communications plans are when it comes to emergency response? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comment, because one of the things that we are really focusing on is community emergency management plans and making sure that our communities are doing an annual practice. We are also working with the federal government on some of these disaster mitigation plans, looking for funding to push through that, really, based on the region where the emergency might occur. We work with our superintendents. We do have staff, who Members met when we did our 911 presentation the other day, who are on top of things. As a resident of the NWT, and as the Minister responsible, I am pretty confident that we do get the information out to all of our communities that are experiencing any type of emergencies. We work very closely with our superintendents, and we do have a strong response.
The main thing, and something that we are going to be focusing on, is the emergency management plans with our communities. We do have communities that are at flood risk, but also, you never know when we are going to get big fires like we did in 2014. I think it was an interdepartmental focus within that government to get that information out through Twitter, through Facebook, as well as on our websites, and I think we all saw that information. For a little bit of further detail, maybe I will ask Mr. Schauerte to add a little bit more.
Thank you. Mr. Schauerte.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In addition to the answer provided by the Minister, following the 2014 wildfire season, we did do an after-action review out of that event. One of the major things as it relates to communications coming out of our analysis of that event is that we have worked very closely with corporate communications and the Department of Finance to establish a protocol around how communications would exist in the event of an emergency. Very clearly, until an emergency event occurs, communications for all of the respective mandate areas are the responsibility of individual departments. Using the example provided by the Member, the Department of Infrastructure would have responsibility for road notices or any of those kinds of things. Once an emergency event has occurred and we are in the process of declaring a state of emergency, then our emergency management organization kicks in under the territorial emergency plan, and it is then that organization which will coordinate communications on behalf of our government in an integrated consolidated fashion so that, when we are in an emergency event, we are speaking to one voice about all matters related to government services. So it really is, the trigger point or the key is, whether or not a state of emergency is declared at that point. That is when MACA would take the primary role in communications. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask about the consumer affairs program. Can we get a bit more detail on how this appropriation supports consumer rights in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Mr. Schauerte.
Municipal and Community Affairs administers the Consumer Protection Act. The role of the department really is a role of advocacy. We do encourage consumers to raise their own complaints around how they may be treated within the business community or how they might have financially been impacted. When a resident reaches a point where they feel that they may not be able to address a consumer issue on their own, the department could certainly have some kind of role where we could have some kind of a negotiated process between the person who may be bringing an issue forward and the vendor or the person whom they might have an issue with. We don't have any binding authority under the Consumer Protection Act to regulate in this area or to render judgment one way or the other, so, really, our role is in terms of advocacy or negotiating some kind of mutual agreement between an individual resident or a vendor. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Thank you for that thorough description. I appreciate having a clear understanding of it, but what kind of advocacy is done, then, if as you said, there is no binding authority in the act? I mean, if a consumer feels that they have been treated unfairly, what can they do? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is something that we can really put some more work in. I'll just asked my deputy minister here, but what I can't provide Members is the amount of consumer affairs concerns that we have had, how they have been dealt with, and then also making sure that we can, I guess you could say, do more of an advocacy role on our websites and through our regional offices.
Mr. Schauerte.
Certainly, as the Minister suggested, we could continue to provide more communication about our role. I think, in respect to the question raised by the Member, I would cite one example that our consumer affairs office did when concerns about gas prices were brought to our attention in the department. Through that consumer affairs unit, we undertook an analysis of gas prices in the Northwest Territories, in market communities. We did see that there were certain vendors who continued to keep their gas prices at the same price forever, regardless of what they might have been paying for the commodity, and so you really wondered about whether or not there was an active market economy going on where you would expect gas prices to fluctuate. As a result of our investigation in this area, we went and met with a number of vendors, and we specifically talked to them about how they set their gas prices. It was actually an interesting example of having the government go and meet with vendors. We actually started to see fluctuation within the gas-price markets as a result of our intervention in that case.
Sometimes, it is as simple as the government asking questions and raising concerns on behalf of the resident that compels the vendors to perhaps adjust how they are setting prices or things like that, so that is an example, Mr. Chair, of how we would apply advocacy on behalf of a resident. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
How many people or positions are employed by this program? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. From my understanding, in terms of the staff positions, it is less than one position, so it is something that we do need to look at and address. As I have said, moving forward, we do have a lot of responsibilities. We have taken a lot of work on. This is the most legislation we have done, so, you know, our resources are stretched, I would say, pretty thin, but we are doing the best with the resources that we do have within this department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A dead horse has taken a beating tonight. Mr. Testart.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, and I think the Minister's response indicates, you know, a sheepishness around this activity. The actuals, if you look at the budget document, you know, the actual from 2017-2018 was $233,000, and it is down to $150,000. Clearly, the department took a look at this function and cut the available resources, and that might have been because of a fiscal discipline activity or an austerity measure. I am not questioning that. What I am questioning is our government's commitment to the Consumer Protection Act when we have less than a person working on this advocacy. We just heard one of our witnesses give a very good reason why this is an important function and the department's past success in this. Why aren't we seeing more resources being put in this for a government that has a stated mandate of controlling the cost of living, which is correlated with competition rates in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will continue to keep this as a priority and a focus within the department. As I had mentioned, this is something that we will continue to work with and get that information out of how many concerns that have we have had. I did tell the Member that we will get that information to all Members and see how many complaints that we get every year. We will also work with our regional offices to get this information out on consumer protection for our consumers, to let them know what they are entitled to. Like any other program, I think this is one that needs to be looked at and evaluated and monitored, and we will commit to, I will commit to, doing that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
First, I thank the Minister for looking into it. I think the point here is that, if we have legislation that protects consumers and has had proven success in the past in doing that, then we should be looking at how we can advance that. I don't think a lot of people know about their rights under that act or what the department does in this regard. I would like to know why the appropriation has been reduced this year or why the budget has been reduced for this function this year. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Schauerte.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I understand the question correctly from the Member, he is referring to the 2017-2018 actual of $233,000. That represents what the department spent in that activity during that fiscal year. The $150,000 is what we have proposed in our budget. There is no reduction per se, Mr. Chair, but the activity in 2017-2018 represents an over expenditure in that activity. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Thank you for that clarification. Okay, yes, I see that now. All right. What explains the increase? What was the additional spending? Thank you.
Thank you. Does the department have that information, Minister?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, we don't have that detail. I will make sure that staff get that information for the Member, and we'll share it with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
