Mr. Speaker, I have a return to written question asked by Ms. Bisaro on March 4, 2010, on water and sewer infrastructure funding.
Specifically, the Member asked for a summary of emergency funds available from the GNWT to assist residents with costs related to an extensive infrastructure failure, and information on the redistribution of GNWT water and sewer funding to NWT communities, including funds for the City of Yellowknife for future fiscal years 2011-2012 through 2014-2015.
Municipal and Community Affairs does not offer emergency funding to residents. The department provides annual funding to community governments for infrastructure repair and replacement through the Community Public Infrastructure Funding Policy. Community governments may also utilize federal infrastructure allocations, such as gas tax funding, to replace water and sewer infrastructure on lands owned by the municipal government.
Funding is available to community governments under the department’s Extraordinary Funding Policy which provides assistance for events beyond what a reasonable and prudent community government would plan for. Such funding will only be considered in situations where assistance is required to maintain a minimum level of community government services or to address regulatory requirements on an emergency basis.
The department is not aware of any other GNWT emergency funding that may be available to help residents respond to infrastructure failures on privately held lands.
The Member asked for information on the redistribution of GNWT water and sewer funding to NWT communities, including funds for the City of Yellowknife, for future fiscal years 2011-2012 through 2014-2015. The department has not undertaken a redistribution of water and sewer
funding. Later, at the appropriate time, I will table an excerpt from MACA Update 2009 that shows the projected community-by-community distribution of water and sewer funding for the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 fiscal years.
Funding currently provided to communities through MACA’s Water and Sewer Funding Policy is limited to the ongoing operations and maintenance of providing water and sewer services. As the Member is aware, Yellowknife does not receive water and sewer funding because the city has a sufficient volume of users to raise adequate revenues to cover the cost of operating its water and sewer program. Other community governments in the NWT do not have a sufficient population base to raise the revenue required to fully cover the operational costs of providing water and sewer services to residents. The funding provided by MACA is to provide for the gap between what community governments can raise through own-source revenue and the cost of water and sewer operations.
All NWT communities receive community public infrastructure funding which may be used to address the capital replacement costs associated with water and sewer systems. Annually, the City of Yellowknife receives $2.2 million in capital infrastructure funding from the GNWT.
The department is committed to working with the City of Yellowknife to explore all available funding sources that may help Northland Trailer Park address their infrastructure deficiencies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.