Page 4-43, information item; Sport, Recreation and Youth; Active Positions.

Department of Municipal and Community

Affairs, Activity Summary; Sport, Recreation and Youth; Active Positions; information item, approved.

Moving on to page 4-45, Regional Operations, Activity Summary, Operations Expenditure Summary: $95.015 million. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. With

respect to regional operations, the Minister and the ministry are well aware that I tendered many, many motions at this particular sitting. I’d had a huge outcry from my riding and all my communities about the importance of the regional operations, the community development worker, the recreation and the sports, recreation and youth operations in the Deh Cho region. I have received many, many petitions and e-mails, which I’ve forwarded to the department. I was told that because of this work we’re able to save all the recreation workers in all the regions.

I also believe that the intent — the intent of my communities, the leadership, the youth that filed those petitions with me and I with the House — was to save our sports, recreation and youth regional cap.

While we’re very happy to have the recreation coordinator positions kept, there’s still one more important worker that does important work in our community, in our Deh Cho region, in the Nahendeh riding. That was the youth worker, the youth program officer position.

With that, Mr.

Chair, I’ve been doing some

research. Because it is a deletion, I would like to move a motion with regard to that position in this line item, Mr. Chair. With that, I’ve got a committee motion.

The motion is in order. The motion is being circulated. To the motion, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In the preamble of this section I indicated the reason for the motion, and I’ll just speak to it again.

Part of our consensus-style government is that we’re reflective of our population, their needs and their demands. I believe that I began this process doing just that, Mr. Chair. I got my phone calls; I got the leadership contacting me. There were petitions filed with me, and I consequently filed them with the House and with the Minister’s office. I sent him numerous memos and e-mails about the fact that recreation, sport and youth delivery is very, very important.

I, as the MLA for Nahendeh, could not support any centralization of any of our activities. In fact, it should be devolution we should be striving for. I’m really happy to see there was some movement in that. But once again, the people’s intent was to save all the workers in the region. I believe that this motion will speak to that, to reinstate that position.

I

utilized our full tools and the full resources

available to me. I

made Member’s statements,

I questioned the Minister in the House, I brought it to our committee. I worked with it in our in-camera briefings with our very important Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure, working with the Chair, and utilized that time to state our concerns and bring it forward.

Once again, Mr.

Chair, it’s here before us in

Committee of the Whole. I’m moving this motion to reinstate this position, because the people have spoken. Mahsi.

To the motion, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We talk about youth being a priority, and here’s a good opportunity for us to show that.

I know MACA contributes money to youth, but when you start to make reductions and you target youth and sport specifically, then you’re obviously going to get an outcry, because youth and sport are important in the communities.

MACA still does what they have to do in the communities, as far as that goes, but this one here is another one where a youth worker, not being paid a huge amount of money, is being affected while there are others sitting in senior management, higher paying jobs, who really don’t contribute as much. I’m not questioning what they do, but these people contribute on the front line, and I think that’s got to be recognized.

With that, I will be supporting this motion that my colleague from Deh Cho put forward.

To the motion.

Mr. Menicoche, do you want to wrap it up?

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to say one further thing. The department classified this position as an anomaly, but I think these youth worker program officer positions should be more of the common, more of the regular and more of the normal for delivery of programs in all our regions.

With that, Mr. Chair, I’d like to request a recorded vote.

To the motion. I’ll allow the Minister to respond to the motion before we put it to a vote. Mr. McLeod.

Yes, Mr. Chairman; just a couple of quick points. First of all, somebody referenced that the motion was brought forward by the Member for Deh Cho. The Member for Nahendeh is the one who raised the motion.

The point I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, is that this is an anomaly position. It was a position that was in the region, titled Community Government Advisor. The money was intended to be utilized for a position to work with land claims in the region. There was not a lot of movement in that area, so the dollars were rolled into a youth position, and that’s how this region ended up with one position.

To the motion. Question is being called. A Member has requested a recorded vote. So with that, all those in favour, please rise.

All those against the motion, please rise. All those abstaining from the motion, please rise.

The result of the vote is nine in favour of the motion, none against, five abstentions. The motion is carried.

Motion carried.

We’re on page 4-45, Activity Summary, Regional Operations, Operations Expenditure Summary: $95.015 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mentioned in my opening remarks that I would be asking about climate change adaptation plans. As we know, the Northwest Territories is extremely vulnerable to

climate change. We can easily be overwhelmed by the pace of the change, if the predictions are anywhere near true. So far, they’ve been underestimates of what’s occurring. It’s going to take a real organized adaptation effort in an attempt to minimize the social, environmental and financial losses.

In the North, as everybody knows — this department certainly — there are many agencies and governments and players at the table. Some are not at the table. Adapting to climate change will include a major coordination challenge. Given all these things, we need an early start and we need a regional start, a regional effort, because we have a jurisdiction the size of which is unequalled by anybody but Nunavut in North America, and we have many climates. But we need a regional component to this. The coordination is also important, because many agencies offer opportunities for various degrees of funding. For example, I know the Government of Canada announced $14 million for northern territories for climate change adaptation, so there are opportunities out there.

In a report in 2007 by the National Assessment of Climate Change, it was recognized that NWT communities can expect about $420,000 in costs to infrastructure due to damage from melting permafrost. It could be less if we go after it aggressively early on. But this figure did not even include damage to roads, water reservoirs, sewage overruns, or the need for all-season roads — which we are about to hear about soon — and the costs associated with that. Nor — I have to point out, unfortunately — did it include the current cost of fuel, which has gone up about 40 per cent since that report was written.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s started on regional planning climate adaptation plans. I know, from my earlier work in a non-government organization, that they have some work going in two regions, the Deh Cho and Akaitcho. But I’m wondering if MACA…. I see MACA is playing an essential coordinating role, so I’d appreciate any comments on that.

The Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, the answer to the question the Member is raising is yes; we are starting to enter the whole area of climate change and climate change adaptation.

Mr. Chair, I’d like to have a little bit more detail on how it shows up in the budget here.

We’re doing a number of things as a department. Some of the comments made by the Member, however, fall outside of our

responsibility. The $420 million anticipated to affect communities is not infrastructure that we’re in charge of. However, we do work with communities, and we’ve started to work with all the communities to start looking at energy and all issues around energy and energy change and climate change. We have hired an energy management coordinator to help the communities move forward on that issue, and we’ve identified dollars. One of the biggest things we can do at this point is to start to identify resources to have better planning done and better planning developed.

I’ve already indicated to the Member that we have identified some money through the Building Canada program that would work toward research. This would be developed along with the Department of Transportation. We’d look at different issues along the lines of adaptation and also research.

Roads are a big issue, both for Transportation and for us in the area of community roads. We do contribute $50,000 to the Arctic Energy Alliance, and we also contribute another $150,000 for the position I mentioned earlier.

We do a lot of initiatives together with other departments, especially the Department of Transportation, to pilot and test new ways to deal with climate change.

We are renegotiating the gas tax shortly. One of the areas we intend to include in part of our negotiations is the ability to use these resources in the area of climate change adaptation. There are quite a few things we’re working on and working toward bringing forward in the area of climate change and adaptation.

I appreciate those comments from the Minister, and I appreciate all those projects that are happening. Many of them — for example, the energy plans and the work with Arctic Energy Alliance — are of course mitigation, especially reducing the cost of living, I hope, but in the process, reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Unfortunately we’re in a situation where there is a certain amount of unavoidable climate change, which will happen only over the next four to six decades if we can get it stopped very soon. It’s that change that I’m talking about adapting to. Rather than preventing climate change, in this case I’m looking for sort of a comprehensive strategy, perhaps a format for community plans and a process for implementing them, dedicated funds and so on, that actually address things like how buildings should be built now given the uncertainty in climate, how roads should be built now given the uncertainty in climate, and all those sorts of issues — sewage lagoons that could, with excessive rain

storms, as we’ve heard, all of a sudden drain out and so on: pretty practical community plans that bring this sort of information to the table in a practical way. I’m not so much looking for research, although I’m very glad that research is happening, because that can always improve that.

I think the degree to which we can plan ahead in a methodical and municipal way is the degree to which we will avoid the need for emergency planning coordinators and so on. So yes, I’m looking for a comprehensive strategy. Does the department have one? Are they contemplating one that engages each community in developing a plan — ideally, a regional plan, because as I say, we have such different climates across our huge territory.