Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should ask this question to the Minister of ENR, but I'll address it to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Yesterday the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs did a Minister's statement about the Federal Infrastructure Funding Program for the NWT community governments. It was great to hear the department was able to access the small community funds which is part of the New Building Canada Plan: Provincial- Territorial Infrastructure Component. Mr. Speaker, thank God, lots of words, can the Minister please provide this House on what the definition of a small community is according to the New Building Canada Plan: Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know there are seven of us over here, right? Mr. Speaker, the definition of a small community, as defined by the federal government under the Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component and Small Communities Fund, is communities with a population of under $100,000… or 100,000 people. Thank you.
I was getting excited, there. $100,000, I don't think we could afford to use this program at all. I thank the Minister for that answer. As a federal program, there is a cost-sharing component to access them. Can the Minister provide the House with: what is the cost-share for this program in the communities and/or GNWT?
I will just clarify it's 100,000 people, not dollars, and the federal portion cannot exceed 75 per cent. Thank you.
The federal component, 75 per cent, I would like to ask the Minister, what is the communities' share and/or the GNWT's share?
My apologies. The federal portion cannot exceed 75 per cent. The communities' share would obviously then be 25 per cent, but what a lot of communities will use is the money that we give them to leverage a lot of the federal funding. We give out $28 million to communities to help with their infrastructure, so they are able to use that to leverage. That's their 25 per cent to leverage the other 75 per cent from the federal government.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Mr. Speaker, I know that he's my favourite Minister. It seems this week I seem to be asking him a lot of the questions. Next week, I'll find another one, maybe. Well, finance is next week, too. Sorry, he'll be back.
---Laughter
In the Minister's statement, he spoke about how Municipal and Community Affairs will issue a call for the funding applications in the coming weeks and will support community governance through the Canada application and approval process. Can the Minister please explain what the department means by supporting community governance with this process? Thank you.
We provide support to the communities in a number of different ways. We help them with completing applications for the small community funding from co-ordinated work between our regional staff and headquarters staff. For larger projects, on a case-by-case basis, MACA can provide advice through helping communities hire project managers, reviewing designs with them, and RFPs, and then the regional managers of capital planning will also help communities complete their quarterly reports and claim forms. We provide a lot of assistance to the communities, and they are very appreciative of that. I always like to say, at the end of the day, the final decision, the ultimate decision, is the communities to make, and we will support them in any way that we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
