Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Association of Municipalities became aware of this yesterday evening because of the discussion in this House. They are definitely surprised with this. The fact that the interim appropriation was meant to stand pat.
As I was speaking to the mayor of Inuvik, the financial review the deputy minister referred to was something they were focusing on as well. They have been very concerned. Block funding has been in for a while. They found on a regular basis that those block funds are reduced with little input from the municipalities.
Coming from a tax-based municipality where we have two back to back tax increases to try to make up for the difference of lack of funding from other sources, mainly this government, I am very concerned. We will have to see something happen here because in communities, especially tax-based, any infrastructure that is received you have to pay a large portion of that through your tax base. That is a concern.
For the record, the NWTAM board was informed that there would be some level of reduction. There is a bit of stick handling here between a major amount of reductions or a small amount of reductions. The understanding they had at that meeting was there were to be no reductions in the interim. They were made aware that during the business planning process, some reductions could possibly come around at that point.
Now we have communities reeling because as of April 1, 2000, they are going to have less to spend on municipal infrastructure and operations and maintenance.
Could you confirm for the record that at the board meeting of the NWTAM held on February 25th and 26th, 2000, they were made aware that even during the interim appropriation, there were possible reductions? Thank you.