Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, again, I don't know if I have that level of detail here. But perhaps the Minister responsible for ECE might have some of that detail available to him. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I don't have that exact level of detail. The way this funding is often distributed is based on the attendance at a childcare centre. So childcare facilities are funded per child and different rates for different ages, and there's also funding for starting up childcare centres. There's funding for enhancing safety aspects of childcare centres. There's all sorts of different funding that can be accessed, and it's not distributed necessarily by region. It's distributed according to where it is needed. But we could probably get some sort of a breakdown for the Member. I don't have that level of detail on hand. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Monfwi.
Yeah, the budget says 356. And I just wanted to know the total, like how much of that money is going to the outlying communities and how much is staying in in the capital? And yes, I would like to see the breakdown of it. And how much is being spent to the administration costs.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we'll certainly endeavor to get that. I mean, again, as the Minister of ECE had said, this isn't funding that gets divided based on region or community. It gets divided dependent upon the nature of the services provided to children. And indeed, you know, if there's more unlicensed child care, I imagine that would certainly impact what appears to be the amount of funding that might flow. It might not necessarily be reflective entirely of the services because, again, there may be choices being made around why someone might choose to be unlicensed. But we can certainly, I think, work with the Department of ECE to provide some breakdown of where the funds have gone.
Again, noting also that there's likely some changes that happen over the course of years, depending again on what different programs or services are being offered in any one community at any one time.
But anyhow, Madam Chair, again, anticipating that we can provide some of that breakdown here, and we'll commit to doing so.
Thank you, Minister, for that commitment. Member for Monfwi.
Supplementary Estimates, (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 20212022, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, early learning and child care, not previously authorized, $2,769,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Supplementary Estimates (Operation Expenditures), No. 2, 20212022, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, junior kindergarten to grade 12 school services, not previously authorized, negative $175,000. Does committee agree? Thank you. Oh, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the first time seeing this. I take it that this means we well, first off, that school boards in Yellowknife used to get their insurance in through Alberta and there was an increase so there was a request that we insure them. I take it that this is what that money is doing. Can I just clarify that we are now paying insurance for the school boards' assets? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Madam Chair, most school facilities in the Northwest Territories are in fact part of the GNWT's general insurance program, and this had been an exception for YK1 and YCS here in Yellowknife because they own their assets. But that is now changing, and those assets are going to be brought in to the GNWT's portfolio. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, sorry. I did not understand that the assets would actually be transferred along with us just covering their insurance.
Can the Minister speak to any changes in how we anticipate funding to go with the assets? I know there's some longstanding contention about what when the school board owns an asset, they're responsible to maintenance costs up to a certain amount and then the GNWT is responsible after that amount. Do we expect the Yellowknife school boards to now be not responsible for any of that funding and be treated like all other school boards in regards to their ownership of their assets? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, work was done to confirm with our insurance that the assets don't need to transfer. So the assets are still going to belong to YK1 and YCS. They will not get transferred. It is they are being brought into our program. There had been adjustments prior occasions for insurance, and of course that hopefully now in fact, they will be seeing that we'll be able to get a better insurance rate by being under the GNWT's program. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
No, okay, sorry. I'm glad to hear that the assets are not transferring; we're just covering the insurance. I think this is a win all around, and thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, my questions were similar to the MLA Johnson's. But I guess, then, my question would be why is this being represented as a negative number if it's a cost that we're now incurring? Were we providing funding to them before that we're now not providing, and it's being moved into future years. I guess if the Minister could just explain a bit why it comes in as a negative number. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so the funding that was flowing through the Department of ECE to cover well, to hopefully cover the insurance costs, which it was coming close, if not not covering already, is now going to show up in Finance because Finance is responsible for administering the costs of insurance. So you may well see this number well, you will see this number again when we get to the Department of Finance. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you for that, Madam Chair. I guess then I just wonder does insure or the legalities of insuring as a third party around an asset that we don't own, does that not then raise other issues that we should be concerned about, or does that cost more; what are the implications of that? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I asked very similar questions when this first came to me. I don't have all the details here. I do know due diligence was conducted. Perhaps I might turn to the deputy minister. He can speak just briefly to the work that was done by the department and by those responsible for our insurance portfolio. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Deputy Minister MacKay.
Madam Chair, so with respect to the Member's question, thank you for that question. So we consulted with risk management unit within Finance in terms of whether this could be done and the government insure a property it doesn't own, and there was also consultations with the insurance companies as well, and they concluded that it wasn't necessary to transfer the assets to the GNWT in order to insure them under the GNWT program.
So assets will remain with the school board, but the insurance will be covered by the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do appreciate that the GNWT is covering this for the school boards. We, as Yellowknife MLAs, did hear a lot about this being a big concern for them. And I do recognize that $175,000 is not very much money in the grand scheme of things, but more asking the questions for my own knowledge. So I'm glad to hear that the due diligence was performed. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Any further questions, comments?
Supplementary Estimates (Operation Expenditures), No. 2, 20212022, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, junior kindergarten to grade 12 school services, not previously authorized, negative $175,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Supplementary Estimates, (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 20212022, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, total department, not previously authorized, $2,594,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you.
Committee, we will now consider the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on page 5. Supplementary Estimates (Operation Expenditures), No. 2, 20212022, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, forest management, not previously authorized, $1,200,000. Does committee agree? Oh, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I recall there's kind of a saying that says we always got to keep some money in the bank because a bad forest fire season can cost us $50 million, and then we got the sup for $40 million for fire suppression, and now we're seeing another $1.2 million in what I don't think was a particularly bad year.
I have a question of how much are we budgeting to kind of keep in reserve for forest fire seasons going forward? And I know this is kind of one of those hard questions where we don't know. But do we have a general average of what we now expect to see every year for fire suppression? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't bring the mains with me either, Madam Chair. But it looks like Minister Thompson might have some information he can offer.
Thank you. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you. So basically we do a 25year average fires and compare cost. Basically our budget was $22.5 million. That's where we figured we'd be. Unfortunately, we saw additional fire in BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario, which had an impact on our helicopters which means so now other costs were driven up. So we did budget for it, but we don't budget for national or other provincial ones, and sometimes that has an impact on what we do moving forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I know there's kind of a longterm average here but I suspect that for the Department of Finance's for future projecting that $22 million we'll continually be short, and I know there are some other cost drivers in this area. We've been re-negotiating some of our water bomber contracts and helicopter contracts, as the Minister noted.
I guess, is there a plan to revisit that figure, and can the Minister speak to what are some of the other areas driving costs in fire suppression? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, one thing is that the last year , in fact, I guess the last two summers won't necessarily be indicative of the future costs, and I say that because there's been some efforts there's been an effort to fight more fires in order to ensure that there's you know, basically a lower risk is being taken, and that's as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, the need to, you know, prevent the chances if there happen to be an evacuation of a community, the need to minimize the number of firefighters that would have to come in, the need to minimize the number of firefighters that are in small in closely knit quarters in camps. So the strategy was to be much more aggressive in the last two years than what normally would be.
So these won't necessarily again, as I say, be the examples to rely on. That said, I'm certainly taking the point, and I think I would share this with my colleagues, that, you know, climate change is bringing more extreme weather events. That seems to be a fact experienced worldwide. So there was no doubt going to have to be more work done on these estimates. I'm just not sure that the last two years will be the years to use as the examples. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Any further questions, comments under this section? Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 20212022, Department of Environment and Natural Resource, forest management, not previously authorized, $1,200,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed
Thank you. Supplementary Estimates, (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 20212022, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, total department not previously authorized, $1,200,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
