Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs in regard to the new deal that has been put out there over the last couple of years. There are concerns raised by the communities as to what happens over a five-year term we put on it. Is there going to be a suspension to this program? Exactly what is going to happen after five years?
Mr. Speaker, the new deal is here to stay. We expect the communities to be more independent through this program. We expect the communities would become municipal taxation authorities. That is the goal we set when we worked with the communities. They have been asking for that for many years, and that is the goal we have worked towards.
Mr. Speaker, in regard to the new deal, it is a new initiative. I know that it does have some hiccups in the way it will be implemented, but I would like to ask the Minister: will there be a period of time, say within the next year or so, where we can do an evaluation or assessment to see what is working and what is not and adjust it so we can make this program successful?
Mr. Speaker, the program was designed with checks and balances so communities can continue to have input on areas of concern. We have already heard some early promise of that capacity. I think overall in the area of O&M and capital, we have stabilized the investment in the communities that communities are comfortable with. We have spent a lot of work in the area of building capacity and staffing problems. We have developed an evaluation framework, and we will be bringing that forward for discussion and having the communities adopt it so we can do the review in the next little while.
Mr. Speaker, in regard to the new deal, I know the government still has some ownership or some control over certain things such as infrastructure, water treatment plants, and also maintaining and managing water treatment plants. Does the government have a plan in place as to exactly how they would allow the community to build capacity, take on those program responsibilities and also ensure that they have the resources to maintain and run the infrastructure in the future?
Mr. Speaker, most of the capital has been turned over to the communities. There have been some areas where we haven’t turned over some of the capital items or facilities — more in the case of the facility not being up to standards the community would accept. We still have some carry-overs that were on our infrastructure plan that we intend to move forward on. Those are some of the water plants; I believe we have eight that we have still to deliver. However, for the most part, the communities have accepted the infrastructure. We still need to work on and develop some capacity in some of the communities, but for the most part, that’s already been transferred.
Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
In regard to capacity in communities, one of the biggest challenges we’re facing in our communities is finding professionals to run and maintain our communities: the SCOs, the financial officers, even bylaw officers in some cases. I know we had the Community Capacity Program where we used to train people through MACA, Housing and whatnot.
I’d like to ask the Minister: will we continue with such a program so we can have homegrown individuals who can take on these jobs in their home communities?
The whole area of capacity building has been one that has been brought forward as a concern. There are concerns regarding the number of available qualified SCOs. There is also the concern that was raised yesterday or the other day by the Member for Tu Nedhe about qualified recreation workers in the communities. We also need to have people who are qualified and certified in the area of finance.
We are working with LGANT, or Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories, to see what we can do. There have been a number of suggestions. One of them is to develop a pool of qualified people from which we can draw in times of emergency or when somebody leaves without giving adequate notice.
There is also the School of Community Government, where we have done a lot of training over the years. We offer, on average, about 80 programs a year to all the communities. We have had great success in that area.
We recognize this as a problem area, and we will continue working with the communities so they’re given some comfort that we have qualified people.
