Thank you, Minister Miltenberger.

Madam Chair, may I also ask the Minister of MACA to elaborate further on that particular point, please?

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The numbers have been staying pretty consistent for the last number of years. A review had been completed. Part of the review was having some dialogue with the NWTAC and LGANT, Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories. They’re more concerned with the O and M funding and their big concern was the O and M funding. So we’re trying to address that. But as far as the infrastructure funding, they didn’t have too much concern with the amount of money that’s been going in there. I mean, understanding that there’s been a huge investment in infrastructure in the last number of years and our O and M funding needs to catch up. So that was their big concern as far as the infrastructure money goes. They were comfortable with that figure for now. Again, it’s one that was reviewed we have out there.

Mr. Dolynny raised a point about going to base-plus formula, and with population moving around, I think we’re going to have to probably dig into this a little further and see. If one community has a huge migration of population and they move to another community, then we’re going to have to look at that because we do fund on a base-plus.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Bouchard.

…(inaudible)…I understand that the infrastructure money and the O and M money are closely linked in the fact of demand and stuff. One of the questions I have is the formula, as far as my understanding, is it’s a base-plus and base given to each community plus their per capita plus some other factors. I understand that the department consults with the Association of Municipalities; however, that association has two

sides. It has small communities and the larger centres. Some issues they separate the discussion; some issues they continue discussion together. They’re an organization that works together, so it’s very difficult for one group to say we think the base is too high for smaller centres and the smaller centres will say the opposite. They’ll say it’s more difficult to do infrastructure in larger centres. I’m just wondering in the review what the department is doing to alleviate some of those concerns from those two fundamental ideologies, I guess.

As I said before, part of the discussion we have is with LGANT. I mean, they represent – or NWT Association of Communities – all 33 communities. All 33 communities will normally meet in a room and they’re just one big organization. Their big concern was the O and M funding, not so much that we have to be fair and go to a base-plus.

One of the arguments I continue to have with Canada when we meet with them is as the Northwest Territories, if you fund us on a per capita basis, being such a small jurisdiction we’re immediately behind the eight ball. We try to treat all our communities the same by giving them the same base and then the per capita will make up. Some of the larger communities will obviously get more money because of the population.

Again, LGANT and NWTAC were quite comfortable with the numbers and asked us if we were going to look more at the O and M funding to catch up with the huge investment in infrastructure we’ve had with some of the money we got from Canada over the last few years. That’s what we continue to do.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Bouchard. Next on the list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister of Finance and the Minister of MACA have talked about the New Deal. I just want to get a little bit less confused. The Minister of Finance said it’s under review and the Minister of MACA said they had the review. Can I get some clarification? Is the New Deal under review, done, analyzed, or is it still under review? …(inaudible)…

Sorry. Mr. Yakeleya I guess was still speaking, so we’ll go back to Mr. Yakeleya.

Just to ask the Minister, this New Deal, I mean, on the review, is it a review for under ourselves as the government, or is it something that we’re going to use to make some arguments to the federal government? I understand from the Finance Minister that this is a process that’s under review, and then I’m hearing from the Minister of MACA that the review is done. I just need some clarification, that’s all.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I take responsibility for that. I should have passed the information on to the Finance Minister. The New Deal review was completed and it’s a review that was taken on by Municipal and Community Affairs to assess how well these programs have been working in the community and some of the potential changes that might come about. The review of the New Deal is completed and was done by MACA.

Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Minister. I appreciate that. Now with the emphasis maybe being looked at with the operations and maintenance funding, that is a real concern. I’m glad that the issue’s been picked up on. I’ve seen and talked to many of the Sahtu communities and that seems to be an issue, now that these infrastructure assets are being transferred to the community. One of the things that they lack any type of support right off the bat is that the O and M is killing them, killing their budget. Talk to Tulita, to Colville Lake, Deline, even Norman Wells. Thank you, Mr. Dolynny, for raising the issue of the impacts of the possible potential of the Sahtu shale oil play and how that could explode into an increase into their operations and maintenance in the community of Norman Wells and even Tulita. Now we have Good Hope who has high interest from Shell Canada to put some exploration projects in that community with the amount of activity happening in the Sahtu.

Now I want to ask, the Minister of Finance talked about the monitoring of the upcoming years but we’re already starting to see some of the activity increase in the winter months in Norman Wells and Tulita on the oil and gas exploration side of it. Has MACA been able to respond to even some of the short increase of the impacts that will happen either on the roads, dumps, contaminated waste sites, or any other area that the communities could be coming to this government saying this is causing an impact on our budget, our infrastructure is not enough and we need to look at this again? Do we have some support within this winter or the next winter seasons to look at some of these types of supports that we’re giving them?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We will work closely with the communities. We have our regional folks out there that will work closely with the communities. We do know that there could be a potential impact on the community of Norman Wells. They’re funded based on what they have right now. In the future when the community expands – and I still think it will – then we would have to review the whole funding as far

as Norman Wells goes. If their population goes up, then adjustments will have to be made as to some of their funding. As far as the impact on some of their infrastructure, I mean, that’s a decision that the community would make and we would be there to support the community.

We’re well aware of some of the challenges that the community might be facing with the exploration and all the work that’s going to be going on there. We monitor that very closely.

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. I’d like to also ask if, once the review has been sort of put together by your department and packaged up, the review will be shared with the Ministers within the sitting of this House here that we could see the review of the report that’s been completed.

I’ll have discussion with the officials and when we’re able to, we’ll be more than happy to sit down with committee and share some of the information, all of the information, not some of it, that we have gathered with committee and get some feedback from committee as to how we can best move forward.

I’m glad the Minister said all of the report there. I’d also like to see if we know if it’s possible before we leave. I’m not too sure what the officials would, but he’s the Minister and he could make it happen. So I look forward to his leadership on having this report come to this side so we can see it in the near future. I want to thank the Minister on that process we’re going to be going through.

I want to also ask the Minister, in regard to the infrastructure, I’m glad that we’re talking about the $28 million. The price of doing business in the communities further north and in the smaller, isolated communities has gone up, even in Yellowknife, where we still have the $28 million that we had five years ago. The gas, the oil, infrastructure, maintenance and all that have gone up and $28 million hasn’t. We haven’t seen an increase on a yearly basis. That’s an area of concern that I’m not too sure what the Minister could do to seek support from the federal government or somehow that if this is an area that we could see an increase.

As I’ve said before, the operation and maintenance funding is a real concern for my communities, especially with the type of infrastructure on the water plants or even operations in the sewage area, the costs are going up. The costs are going up quite extensively and it’s hitting their pocketbooks, so then the communities are left with some very challenging questions as five important projects, because of the funding and because of the maintenance, we can only do two or three projects and we can’t do the other ones. That becomes a concern.

It’s been raised by members in the Sahtu communities to me. Fort Good Hope is even looking at a new water treatment source because they do not trust the Mackenzie River. They have seen a lot of contamination in that water and they’re very, very scared and they want some safety for themselves. Some of this very basic infrastructure such as water, contaminated areas need to be cleaned up. The communities are left with some very challenging decisions.

Mind you, they deal with what they have to work with and that’s the money that’s given to them by the communities by the Minister of MACA and they do their best. They’re always looking at other areas where they could serve the people as much as possible.

I’m not too sure if there is a question in there, Madam Chair, but I just wanted him to know about this funding here and will we see some increase.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I didn’t really hear a question there, but I’ll go to Minister McLeod, if he wishes to comment.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The number has been fairly consistent for a number of years. We have been fortunate that we’ve had huge federal government investment in our infrastructure and our O and M needs to catch up with that. We need to look at that. As well, every year they get the gas tax money which allows them to do water treatment plants. They have the ability to finance a lot of the projects. We’ve had some communities that have stepped up to the plate, showed some real leadership and went out, financed and managed their whole project, and they’ve come in probably a lot cheaper than we would have been able to do it.

As well, we’ve been having discussions with Canada in the last little while. We’re not quite sure what kind of new program they might come out with. We’ve had some discussions with Minister Lebel and Minister Fletcher, and they’ve spoken to… They’re looking at trying to find another funding source to replace some of the money they’ve been giving us over the last… We’re looking forward to hearing what comes out of that, and maybe we’ll have an indication in the upcoming budget. We don’t know. But they went across country and we laid out some of our concerns as far as some of our challenges go and they took note of all that. We’re looking forward to see what they roll out next.

But as far as our numbers go, $28 million is the figure that we give to the communities from the Government of the Northwest Territories as well. They’ve had access to a number of federal government funding pots over the last number of years, which has really helped the communities go a long way as far as their infrastructure goes. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Next on the list, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to commend this government for continuing to operate through the formula funding agreement. Through my past experience, I know how fortunate the communities are to have this funding available to the communities to make their own decisions on how they want to spend this money and I hope we can continue to do this.

That said, a few concerns that I do have are along the lines of the water treatment plants. Over the next number of years we’re going to see development up on the Peel River watershed possibly, and Aklavik is downstream on the Peel River from the Peel River watershed. I’m very concerned about some of the chemicals that may be used, if that is their way of taking the minerals out of the ground up there. I think we need to start planning ahead and possibly look at a water treatment plant from one of the lakes up in the mountains possibly near Willow River.

Also, the same thing in Inuvik. I’m very surprised for the size of a community like Inuvik that they’re drawing water from Hidden Lake. I’ve seen that lake firsthand and that lake is very small in comparison to the community, and it really surprises me. They do draw their water from the river in the winter, and also during the spring, I believe, pump water into Hidden Lake. I think we need to start planning of drawing water from a lake like Campbell Lake. You know, that’s very good drinking water with a gravel bottom.

The same thing in Fort McPherson. They are drawing water from a deep water lake, and I know a lot of residents are concerned the water level on that lake is dropping at a rapid pace. I think we may need to look at the other lakes that draw into the deep water lake to ensure that we have good water flow.

The other thing was our schools, as I mentioned.

With that said, I would just like the department to keep going with the formula funding. With that said, thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. I didn’t really hear a question there, but I’ll go to the Minister for comments.