Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the story of the outmigration of people from the small communities into large centres, it kind of reminded me of an old western movie that I used to watch, where there are abandoned buildings and there are tumbleweeds and there are dust bowls. My questions today is for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. With that image in mind, what is the GNWT doing to help small communities survive as small towns and grow? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will take my colleague's comment and say there are no tumbleweeds in the territory. What is the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs doing to help small community governments? The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs really works with community governments to basically deal with their infrastructure. We provide funding so that they can have clean water, so that they can have waste facilities, so that they can have emergency planning, fire services. We also provide a component so that they can build capital planning and programs that actually support people to deal with sports, because we recognize that sports are key to keeping people engaged and to keeping children healthy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Recently in the work of the Auditor General's report it highlighted this department does indeed work with small communities. My question is: how will MACA's response to the Auditor General's recent recommendations improve the outlook for small communities?
The Auditor General's report actually gave us 13 recommendations. A lot of them were talking about things like waste management, fire safety, and emergency planning. Some of it that pertains, maybe, to the honourable Members' question are around our accountability framework so that we can actually provide questions so that we make sure that community governments are providing the services they need within their communities, and we have some way of verifying them as well.
The other thing that might be applicable is for the designated authorities, of which there are nine within the territories. The recommendations were around working with the federal government, Indigenous and Northern Affairs I believe they are called, to actually work in partnership so we can better support the communities. We take their suggestions very seriously, and we actually have met with Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada in December. We are looking at strengthening that partnership so that the provision of services to designated authorities will be stronger.
The Minister is in very good spirits today in terms of working together. We ask, on this side of the House, if the Minister could help us to work with the Department of ECE in terms of job creation. How is MACA working with other departments on initiatives to improve the opportunities for people living in our small communities such as education, job creation, and programs for youth? Would the Minister work with her colleague from ECE and ensure there is a clear focus in terms of a job creation initiative to save our small communities?
The Government of the Northwest Territories recognizes that we can't work in silos. We have two forms of committees. We have the deputy ministers who meet regularly for various committees, economic development, social causes, etc. We also have Ministers' committees, that we meet for the same economic development, social programs. I see jobs as economic development, but also taking care of people, which is a social program. We are trying to work really closely together across departments to provide the best services for people within the Northwest Territories. and specifically to help not only the bigger centres but the small communities.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I applaud the Minister for taking their leadership initiative and trying to engage other departments and trying to step away from working in silos. Has MACA considered ways it can help make life easier for people living in small communities so that they don't have to move away for jobs and also for educational reasons? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Municipal and Community Affairs does try to work with smaller communities as much as possible so that we can keep people in their communities. That is why we have a focus on sports and recreation. We also provide a lot of training so that people can operate their own, for example, water treatment centres. We offer training so that people can actually maintain them in their communities.
We do a circuit rider program that will go into the communities and actually provide one-on-one support to those people as well. We are looking at our training mechanism so that we can provide, not only face-to-face, but online training so that people can access more support. We are always open to any suggestions from the Members on how we can better provide support services.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
