Yes, thank you. President Kelly will provide you some information, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. These are nine buildings that Housing NWT owns, and we lease -- we lease out to others. So we get the revenue from those owned buildings, and we're supporting government operations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Yeah, it's been a long day too. Thank you. I'll -- any further questions from the Yellowknife Member? Thank you. Any further questions from Members? Okay, moving on. Seeing no further questions, we will move on to the rent subsidy program starting on page 398. Are there any questions?
Seeing no further questions, we will move on to unilateral CMHC and other programs starting on page 400. Any questions? Seeing no further questions.
Moving on, we'll move on to the lease commitments on page 403. Are there any questions?
Seeing none. Committee, please return to the Housing Northwest Territories summary page on 383. Are there any further questions?
Nothing, I see nothing. No further questions. Does the committee agree that consideration of Housing Northwest Territories is now complete?
Agreed.
Okay, thank you, Minister, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the chamber.
Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 275-20(1), Main Estimates 2025-2026. We will now consider the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. Does the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs wish to bring witnesses into the House?
Yes, I do. Thank you.
Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber.
Would the Minister please introduce his witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right, I have deputy minister Gary Brennan. And to my left, I have Catherine Boyd, director of corporate affairs.
Okay, thank you. Does the committee agree to forego general comments on the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs?
Agreed.
Thank you. Does the committee agree to proceed to the detail contained in the tabled document?
Agreed.
Committee, we will defer the department summary and review of the estimates by activity beginning with community governance starting on page 343. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 344.
Municipal and Community Affairs, community governance, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $3,104,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to the community governance, learning and development, beginning on page 347. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 348.
Municipal and Community Affairs, community government learning and development, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $1,697,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to the community operations beginning on page 351. Are there any questions? No further questions -- oh, sorry, my apologies. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So under community operations, I'm just noting under active positions, all 14 of the positions for community operations are located in headquarters in Yellowknife, I assume. Can the Minister explain why all of the positions related to community operations are located in Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A lot of these positions are, like, the deputy minister and stuff like that, so they're the positions that are related to servicing the regional centres. But I'll also ask the deputy minister to add to that, please.
Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, so those 14 positions are mostly technical positions consisting of designated accountants, engineers, and the like, and because they're technical positions they're difficult to staff outside the region, and they tend to work closely together on a daily basis in Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, overall, looking at all the active positions in MACA, it seems that this year we have 69 out of the 113 in total which are based out of headquarters; however, I am noticing that from last year, there's two that seem to have been transferred from headquarters to the regional offices, if I'm interpreting that correctly. Can the Minister explain what they managed to do to transfer at least two positions to regional offices out of Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of them is a training position at the school community governments. That's moved out to -- from Yellowknife. And the other one, I believe, is the one in Inuvik which is the climate change initiative position.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay. I mean, just to follow up on that line of questioning. I wonder is the Minister considering any other possible strategies or ways to try to recruit or find qualified people who either currently live or willing to live in some of the communities outside Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So we're always looking at ways to get positions into the communities. You know, some of the most recent positions were the emergency management coordinators to assist with the regions for the position -- or for emergencies and stuff. So we have currently those two positions that are one in the South Slave and then one in the Beaufort Delta that are relatively new, and we're constantly looking at ways to getting more positions in the smaller communities through training initiatives or anything like that. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, I'll leave it there for now, that's fine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister explain a little bit more about the school of community governments. How is that -- is it a department or a division of the organization? If so, how many people work there, and what are the duties of this group?
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you. I'm going to pass this off to the deputy minister to answer that question. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, so the community government learning and development division is basically a division that organizes and supports training for communities. I think there's about four to five people located in Yellowknife, and four regional TDAs, or training and development advisers. So what they do is develop and deliver training programs. So, for example, water treatment plant. We do firefighting training. We organize public works type training, teaching people how to operate arenas, pools, offer finance governance,aa and a whole host of other community training. So thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I know, it was just a little more explanation of -- on that division of services. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any further questions? I'm going to go to the Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you. Further to my colleague's question here, the school of community governments, you do training for the people that run the arenas, organize staff, they organize community -- well, I guess they would need training for all of that. Are there qualifications that they need to have specific to this job? Like, the qualifications for the job, to do the job when they get hired on? Because you're training them how do use all this other equipment, but is there training they need for this? Like, schooling for -- to apply for a job in this area? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. For those positions, you know, being the technical part that they are, they would need certain qualifications in order to train, like facility maintainers or, you know, the firefighter training, stuff like that. So those -- the trainers would need the training, and also the people on the ground would need the training to operate the water treatment plants, the facility maintainers, and the other programs that are offered. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Deh Cho.
I was just wondering about, like, even recreation coordinators. Like, if you hire a recreation coordinator, what is their -- what do they do? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
