Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. MACA has a good working relationship with the NWTAC and LGANT, and we tried to have as many meetings as possible with them, so I guess this is just a minimum amount of a meeting that we're dedicating to have these meetings with NWTAC. So, I mean, this isn't just three and that's it; this is we're going to continually meet with them and continue our mutual relationship with NWTAC and LGANT.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I don't mean to pick on the Minister of MACA precisely on this, it's just I don't see how a quantitative measure -- it doesn't matter how many times you meet with these organizations it doesn't really demonstrate the depth of the partnership. It doesn't really demonstrate if -- you know, if people feel heard. And so it's just a comment to maybe improve that metric in the business plan however you might see fit. And if the Minister has comments, I'd love to hear them.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
I guess just to reply to her comment, I mean, our continued relationship is that MACA works closely with NWTAC on numerous programs and funding agreements and so on. So, like, the three meetings that are showing here are essentially a minimum at least but to the point of that sometimes hard to get together, and that's our goal, is to make sure that we maintain that. And then, like I said, we're always going to meet with them at some point, right. Like, it's not something that we're not going to do, being that we have a good relationship with them. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, yeah, I suppose the real question -- and thank you to my colleague who just shoved a note in my face -- is what outcome are you seeking? The number of meetings doesn't really matter, right. What is the outcome that you want from these meetings, and I guess that's my question to the Minister. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you. I'm going to pass this off to Jennifer here.
Thank you. I'll go to the director.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are cognisant that it just seems like an output number when we're looking at three meetings per year. The actuality is that we have made this commitment to them to do this back in 2002, but we haven't actually been able to meet the three times a year given events that we've had with wildfires and COVID. So as a result of that, we are putting this in place in the business plan to show our commitment to work towards this three times a year more meaningfully.
And in terms of the outcomes that we're trying to achieve, it's to work with each other to assure that we're continuing to have that ongoing dialogue about our shared interests with regard to community governments and what they're planning and doing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for clarifying that a bit more, to the Minister. And what I will say, and I'll leave it at this, is just, you know, we all heard from NWTAC when we were all new Members in this Assembly, and they are definitely vocal about everything that they are wanting from this government, and I really hope that the partnership deepens and becomes even more close over the next three meetings. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Any further questions on this page item, 354? No further questions, please turn to page 352.
Municipal and Community Affairs, directorate, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $4,157,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to emergency management, beginning on page 355 with information on pages 357. Are there any questions? Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So what we've heard from communities is that there's a huge gap in the kinds of funding that's available for emergency preparation and sort of avoidance and management. So I know that MACA provides some supports at the very earliest stage of, you know, theoretically coming up with sort of frameworks and very sort of broad plans, but then there's really no funding available between that very early stage and then once -- the next time funding is available is if widespread damage has already occurred. You know, you can get money after the fact if disaster has befallen your community, although not always in that case either. But we are not really incentivising people to do the work necessary to prepare community infrastructure, to make sure that there's people in the community that are properly trained to actually implement these theoretical plans that, you know, are discussed at the very early stages.
So to give one example, if there's a community that is living -- that's next to the Mackenzie River and they know that there could be, you know, ice jams and flooding each year, they might have a theoretical plan but if what we need to do is find funding to actually move buildings further away from the river or, you know, even if water were rising and, as a precautionary measure, they needed to move people out and evacuate people just in case disaster befell them, I'm not aware that there's actually any funding available for them to go ahead and do that. So there's every incentive in place just to wait until the disaster already happens and, you know, houses are already damaged and people are already hurt, because that's the only time you're going to get funding. So this seems to me totally backwards in terms of how we're creating incentives for people to actually avoid disaster in the first place.
Can the Minister speak to what steps are being taken to actually assist communities and find funding for them for all of the stages in between, you know, creating this theoretical framework and disaster having already happened? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess for the main part -- I think there's a few little steps in there, but I guess for the main part, some of the PREP emergency preparedness stuff, there's a lot of it that's not funded, unfortunately. However, communities can use some of their O and M for basic emergency preparedness, but I mean it doesn't cover off everything, obviously. Municipal and Community Affairs has programs to assist in, you know, developing emergency plans and being -- you know, getting prepared for an emergency; however, when it comes down to, like as she was stating, moving a building, I don't believe there's any full funds out there to assist in that type of preparedness. And depending on what kind of building it might be, you might not even be able to move it, so. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. What about funding or supports for people to do precautionary, say, evacuations or even just moving of people from one part of the community to another if there's an imminent threat of something like a flood? Is there any funding available to that, or is the Minister interested in advocated for that kind of funding? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm looking to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're constantly advocated for funding for preparedness, and I think all the provinces and territories are doing the same. So when it comes down to, like, a full-fledged evacuation of a community based on an emergency, DFA would probably quick in at that point and then there would be the opportunity to utilize some of the funds in regards to evacuation hosting and stuff like that that is in the evacuation policy. Yeah, that's it. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is the Minister advocating internally to his own Cabinet to allocate more resources to communities in the territory for the funding the work on the ground that needs to be done to prepare for emergencies beyond just, you know, the theoretical frameworks? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department continually works with municipalities who are, I guess, the knowledge-keepers for the area or for the region who would know what hazards might be upon them, and the department continually works with the municipalities to help develop their emergency plans and be prepared for any kind of emergency that might be coming on, whether it be fire, flood, or weather, or power outages or anything like that. So the emergency preparedness part is there with supports for the communities, and the department will be there to support them through that. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to reiterate once again that there's a difference between putting something on a piece of paper and then the funding that's required to actually implement the things that are on the paper in terms of, okay, well, we need to actually do these things and expend resources to actually do the preparations that might be laid out on the piece of paper in the plan to actually help prevent an emergency or prevent the severity of it. So I'll leave it there for now, but I think it's important that we think through all the stages of emergency management and make sure that each one is actually funded appropriately. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments. I'm going to continue on now to the Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question on this activity is, is the department working with the Sahtu communities, and all communities for that matter, on having sessions with the local governments here for your awareness to the emergency response plans per each community? Has that dialogue been started with the local governments there? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the department is working with the Sahtu community governments. So some of the governments have community plans that are going far back as, let's say, November 2011, so there is work that obviously needs to be done and the department is working with and communicating with those communities to develop updated community plans. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member for the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to the Minister for that response there. Safety is paramount in all operations, whether you're working in private sector or industry. Having worked in a number of sectors here, it was quite common that we have a fire drill in our camp. So this is just a process to bring awareness on our response plans for the job sites were in place, so everybody's familiar with the practices and where to go and where the muster points are. So this will all be similar in getting our community governments ready, having that dialogue, the regional office go to Tulita or Coville or Deline, and have these discussions here on emergency response plans and if it does happen, well, you're fully aware. So I just share that as a comment. Thank you there, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member for the Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one question for the Minister. Do all the communities that are outside of Yellowknife have a community siren to alert people in the community if there's an emergency? That's one way of doing it. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only time I heard those in Hay River was for a curfew. So the community's responsibility is to have these sirens, the air raid sirens. I'm not sure if we have a list of communities that have them or not, but it's something we can try to figure out with our other stats that we carry for communities and get back to the Member with that.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member for the Deh Cho.
Thank you. So this would be support and response to community governments in preparing for or responding to emergencies? So that would be one of their -- if they choose to do that and if communities choose to do that, that would be included in one of their budget items, would it? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's correct.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from the Deh Cho.
That's what I have for the questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there any further questions? Member from Monfwi.
Yeah, it says here program management, it went down from -- well, this was because of the forest fire, responding to the forest fire and the flooding, for 2023-2024 from 166 to this current fiscal year 29,000 -- I mean $29 million. Sorry about that, $29 million. So I just wanted to ask the department how are they budgeting for the natural disaster, like, for this coming spring, summer?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to pass that to the deputy minister. Thank you.
