Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
That makes me very happy. Wow, I don't even I had a whole line of other questions.
Okay, I guess my next question is this is money provided for capital under the funding formula. I see it's $29 million here. If we were following if we had the money to commit what's in the formula, how much money would actually be here, aka, what's the deficit shortage? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
So my understanding the gap's about $20 million.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that we provide this money and then we're working with a number of communities to provide asset management plans, and they're all kind of in a different stage of doing that, or hopefully I think a few will have complete planning done. I'm just wondering if that's a requirement of the funding or whether we are, yeah, requiring all communities to have asset management plans done. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister.
Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.
Thank you. As a condition of the community public infrastructure funding that you see in today's capital estimates, MACA does require that all community governments develop a fiveyear capital plan, and we work with them on that development. As part of that, we also do require asset management plans, recognizing that community governments are in various stages of completion of those plans. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I'm glad to hear that, and I think asset management planning's important. I think it's a little ridiculous that we require our community governments to do it and we do not have an asset management plan. If you looked at GNWT, we'd be in about step negative 100 of asset management planning; step one being figuring out how much you actually own. But I'm glad we're requiring our communities to do that. Maybe one day we will do it.
I guess I want to go to another issue I have with the way we do our budgeting and see if MACA will comment.
I can go to well, I'm looking at the town of Inuvik's fiveyear capital plan, and it tells me what they're going to spend every five years. You know, I can see that they're spending $70,000 in 2023 on a motor control panel replacement. The GNWT doesn't provide this information because it says it affects procurement. Have we told the town of Inuvik or any other municipalities that they probably shouldn't publish this information because it's going to affect their tenders? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. So, again, the Member's got the town of Inuvik's plan. That's their plan, and that's how they're doing it and how they're providing that information. The information that we're going to give to the Members, it's for them. Like, it's for their it's not for public consumption. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
Sorry, perhaps I need to get a clarification there. Is the Minister willing to publicly provide how much each community is getting under the funding we are seeing here? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Okay, so the amount we're giving the communities, yes. The community plans, no. Those plans belong to the communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll sneak one more in here which is this is the capital funding we give communities. I know we also give them operations funding and water and sewer. Does this mean that we are now going to provide a breakdown by community for each of the three funding groups publicly? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of MACA.
I want to say no but yes, we will.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Well, while the Minister's on a roll here, so I, you know, on page 69, large capital projects, it was $31.5 million in 20212022 and it's gone down now to $29 million. And, of course, the cost of living's actually gone up. So can someone explain to me the decline in funding here to our communities? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of MACA.
For that type of detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Deputy minister.
MS. GAREAU:
Thank you, deputy minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks for that explanation. So, yeah, I get that. The last time I looked, I think the consumer price index for Yellowknife was about 7.8 percent or something. And I don't know what it is across the NWT. But, you know, I just don't see any allowance here for any kind of an increase for community governments in terms of inflation. No forced growth. How does the department ensure then that the communities are able to, you know, use or, you know, make up the provide the programs and services and do the infrastructure replacement if the money that they get from MACA's not increasing? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of MACA.
So we do have staff that works with the municipalities. We help them with the plan, see where their challenges are, and see how we can help them move forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Okay, so where are we at with calculating a new version or figure for the municipal funding gap and actually addressing that? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
So for that detail, I'll just turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So MACA is currently working with the NWT Association of Communities and the local government administrators of the NWT on updating the four main community government funding policies. As part of that process, MACA has committed to provide each community government with a breakdown for their individual department of the quantum of the municipal funding gap and where that gap is, if it's O and M, if it's water/sewer, if it's capital.
The reason we've committed to that is, as Minister Thompson was saying earlier, because it's a good planning tool and it's helpful for community governments to have that information so that they can plan and budget accordingly, and then MACA's able to support them in that process. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I agree that that would be really helpful for the communities to individually have it. It also would be helpful for MLAs to have in terms of making sure that we get as much money as we can into MACA to get it out to the communities again. So is that sort of information going to be available publicly? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of MACA.
So we can share it with committee. But, again, right now it's with the communities. It'll be with the communities. And how they share it, it's up to them. But we're willing to work with committee to get that information, and if the NWTAC says yeah, we want to make it public, then we're good with it. But, again, we need to work with our municipalities with this. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, okay, thanks. Yeah, I appreciate the commitment there from the Minister to share it with us, and then work with NWTAC. And I don't see any reason why this couldn't or shouldn't be made public. But I'm sort of thinking of some kind of a public dashboard that, you know, could get updated at least once a year. But, okay.
Lastly, I know my colleague asked about the asset plans. How many asset plans have actually been finished for community governments? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of MACA.
So we don't have that detail. I'll have to get back to committee. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks for that. I guess I'm trying to find a way to talk about this, because I know what the number is, but let's just say it's significantly less than the number of communities that are outlined on page 70, from what I understand. So if, you know, a significant number of communities don't have completed asset plans, and that's my understanding, how do we actually know what the municipal funding gap is and how do we, you know how do we get every community to have a community asset plan? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of MACA.
Yes, so yes, we're working with the communities to get their asset plan in place. But, again, we're working with them. And we had COVID. I can tell you that right now when I was working dealing with one of my communities they talked about their asset plan, the problem was is that we couldn't get staff in there to do the work. So our staff are starting to work with the municipalities to address this very concern, and we're willing to move forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
