Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next on my list is Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a lot of questions. I want to express a concern and perhaps hear from the department what they are doing about it, but my concern has to do with, again, the infrastructure that communities are receiving from GNWT and the need, then, for communities to look after those buildings and to fund the operation and maintenance of those buildings. Tied in with that is the fact that as buildings need to be replaced, communities need the extra funding to do those capital building, capital replacements, capital cost replacements.

But I am more concerned about what seems to be a trend anyway, at least for several years, from what I am aware of, that the infrastructure contribution to communities is steady at a certain dollar amount, but, at the same time, the communities are more and more acquiring buildings that require them to provide for the O and M for those particular buildings.

I guess my question really goes to the future. How long is the department going to maintain the same infrastructure dollars for our communities that we currently have? How are they planning to assist communities in taking on these extra costs, which basically are the result of extra O and M? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Aumond.

Thanks for the answer. I appreciate a lot that this is recognized, that the concern of the communities is recognized and that the department is looking at doing something about it. If there is a review of either the formula funding or just the total funding for communities, is there any idea from the Minister or the deputy minister when that review might be done? If there is any change, and I presume upward, would it be for the next capital estimates year or is it conceivable that it might be done midway through this next fiscal year so there is time for some back and forth and feedback and discussion? Thank you.

I have just one last comment. That is good to hear. I imagine most communities are reasonably happy with the amount of capital funding they get with the gas tax money and Building Canada money. They probably have almost more than they need at this point, although nobody would ever say that out loud, except me, I think. I just want to express my appreciation to the department that they have recognized this need and that it is going to be dealt with. That is all I have.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Robert C. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comment. We are constantly, when we do meet with our federal counterparts, we are always mentioning the fact that they do flow a lot of money into the Territories. We need to start looking at the O and M, because there are a lot of projects going on the ground, so we need to increase the O and M funding. I think we all know that there has been an increase in the O and M for the last couple of years, recognizing the fact that they are getting a lot of new infrastructure on the ground. We will continue to work with the communities and will continue to speak to the folks in Ottawa on our need for more O and M money for a lot of the infrastructure dollars that they have given us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next on my list is Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments I have for the Minister are in terms of the empowerment of the communities to take over the facilities and some of the assets that are going to have some decision-making authorities. I would like to talk about the water and waste treatment plants in our communities and our ability to meet these new standards in Canada now. I want to ask the Minister, over time, how are we going to support our communities to meet these new national standards in our water and in sewer and in wastewater treatment plants and also the regulatory requirements that will be attached to these facilities?

I know in one community that our water plant is being an issue, because of the high cost of maintaining it. Sometimes lack of resources depletes that budget item for looking after that water plant, so the community is quite hesitant to see if they want to take that water treatment plant over. I just want to ask the Minister in terms of some going forward plans in terms of these water national standards.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Robert C. McLeod.

I think the first part of the Member’s question, if I understood it correctly,

was wastewater and the new standards. Obviously that is a concern, because if they were to impose a new standard on us, I think that we all realize that it would be a multimillion dollar investment. We could never expect the communities to try and fund that. Even as a territorial government it would be awfully difficult for us. So they would obviously have to pony up some money for us to impose these new standards on the communities, especially with the possibility of that changing.

As far as water treatment plants go, we have come a long ways in the last little while to standardize a lot of the design so water treatment plants between communities have interchangeable parts. I am not sure if the one the Member is referring to is in a community where they have to order filters from England. Those were issues that we dealt with in the early part of this. We will still continue to see what we can do to improve situations like that and see what we can do to help them standardize a lot of the equipment that they have, because it is an issue with a couple of communities that have water treatment plants that were built before we started bundling. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, certainly the Minister pretty well knows which water treatment plant I was talking about and it’s certainly an issue here. Now, I guess, the other one is up in Colville Lake regarding the new water treatment plant and the ability for them to have proper O and M budget to maintain that new highly technical water treatment plant there and meeting the new national standard.

The Minister is correct, you know, if we do want to come up to the new standards of waste and water treatment plants, this money’s got to be attached to it by the federal government to us to pass it on. I mean, we just can’t give it to the communities. So he’s certainly correct there. So is there anything that this side can do to support the Minister in terms of asking the feds for these types of dollars if we are to meet the national standards? Otherwise, we’re not doing any services to our communities and we try to allow them to take over these facilities here. So I guess I want to ask the Minister, in terms of the regulatory requirements, how stringent or how flexible is the appropriate federal agencies or the government here in having these regulatory requirements set for our communities’ water treatment plants and wastewater treatment facilities?

Obviously, all our water treatment plants meet the Canadian standards for drinking water. Then we’ll have to, I think, deal with the wastewater potential being imposed on us when we come to it. I’m not quite sure where that’s at right now. So we’re monitoring that quite closely to see if they decide to impose that on us, then I think we’d have to have a serious discussion as the

Legislative Assembly and with the federal government as to the funding for these new sewage treatment plants. It’s going to be awfully expensive for one of our smallest communities like Kakisa with 42 people to be expected to put in a multimillion dollar wastewater plant. So we’ll have to have that discussion and I’m not quite sure where those regulations and standards are at right now.

If I could ask the Minister if he could maybe forward where some of the regulation requirements, if he could forward it over to us in terms of seeing where things are at with the federal government and the Minister, I would certainly appreciate that. So we could possibly give a heads up to our communities that this may be coming down and somebody should look at it when we’re looking at planning or constructing or whatever through the New Deal and what’s required of them, possibly, in the future. So then we know what’s coming down the tube from the federal government.

I want to also ask the Minister about the land issue. I know it’s a big issue here and there are a lot of things that need to happen in the communities in terms of making sure that land is made available for project infrastructure. We did have an issue, and I’m not too sure...It’s cleared up right now in my community of Tulita, and there are other issues in the Sahtu in terms of building housing projects. However, because of the land issue dispute between MACA and the Housing Corporation and the community, it kind of got lost somewhere. For example, one of the leaders in Tulita reminded me that we lost some houses because we couldn’t get our land issue in place there. So I hope that this is something that the Minister can help with by talking to the Minister of the Housing Corporation to see if they can work together on how to get the land issues settled so we can have houses on the ground in Tulita or in the Sahtu. Thank you.

In response to the Member’s first concern, we will forward all the information that we have to the Member so they can see where this particular initiative is at with the federal government.

On the second point, we continue to work with the communities to identify lands that are available. I’m not quite aware of the situation in Tulita, but I will have a chat with the Minister of Housing and see if we can come up with a plan for dealing with that. But I will find out about it and I’ll get back to the Member, and maybe he’d be able to let me know the exact issue there.

Just in closing, I want to say, Mr. Chair, that after being in Tulita for a bit there, I noticed some of the young employees of the hamlet in terms of the water treatment plant operators that...The young guy that I met at the airport in Tulita talked about going to Norman Wells and getting some training to be a certified water plant

operator and this type of initiative has really been appreciated by me. This person was very proud to say that he has been certified as a plant operator. It does go a long way with our young people in terms of training them. So I wanted to let the Minister know, and his staff, that there are some challenges and, certainly, some agree to disagree on some of the issues, but when this young man talked to me about his certification and him being a plant operator, you certainly see the pride in him in terms of his ability to do services to the people. So I just wanted to let the Minister know that. There are other issues we need to talk about; however, we’ll do them at some other time. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate the Member’s comments. He’s absolutely correct with the infrastructure that we’re putting in the community. I think the department has taken the lead in trying to get as many community people trained as possible. It’s an initiative that we’re quite proud of and I think we’re seeing a lot of positive results come out of this. So I thank the Member again for his comments.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, getting back to my questions, I don’t want to leave the impression with the public that’s out there that we don’t care for our municipalities and the Minister is the only one that does. I don’t think that’s an appropriate comment. I’ve been here for 14 years raising issues on behalf of my constituents, and I’m still raising issues that haven’t been resolved for 14 years.

Regardless if you transfer that authority to municipalities or whatever...In the past there was a funding source called extraordinary funding which was there to assist communities whenever there was some sort of an unforeseen expenditure that had to be covered, which was a budget item in the budget of the government. I’m wondering why is there not such a fund today in this budgetary process that allows for extraordinary funding so that when communities do get in trouble, that they are able to get some assistance from this government, unforeseen or not. There has to be such a fund in place to assist them in regard to disasters or whatever. I’d just like to ask exactly why is that something that is not part and parcel of this budgetary process and is that something that can be considered.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Robert C. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member wanted to make something quite clear and so do I. I never made the comment that Members didn’t care about the communities. I don’t think I’m that stupid, to be quite honest with you. What I said, and the Member talks about the 14

years that he’s been here, and he’s been able to see the devolution of authority to the communities and he’s able to see the past history where a lot of the small community projects got into the corporate plan and they were basically just bumped and bumped and bumped each year when other emergencies come up. So I just wanted to make sure we clarified that. I’m still very confident in the communities’ ability and I think that was my point to deliver the product.

I’m not quite sure about the extraordinary funding. I’m really not sure how to respond to that. I mean, the bulk of MACA’s money, infrastructure money, pretty well all of it goes to the communities. If things happen in the communities where they need help, if something happens, a flood, a disaster, then we will assist those communities any way we possibly can. If it means coming to this Legislative Assembly for extraordinary funding, that’s something we’d consider as the need arises. If it means going after the federal government to see what pots of money they have there to assist the communities to deal with the situation, then we’ll do that too. As far as a pot of extraordinary funding, I don’t think that it’s in the budgetary process right now. I suppose if it was the will of this Assembly, then we would have to consider that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe I can refer that question to the Minister of Finance. Since he’s the banker here, he might have the answer to that one.