Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct. We have looked at our O and M funding in the water and sewer and as a result of forced growth, and working with communities on some of the water and sewer, funding was increased. The O and M funding is one that we still need to work on a bit, because with all the capital money and capital projects that are going into communities, the concern we’re hearing from communities is that the O and M funding is not keeping up to the amount of capital that they’ve got. Considering our fiscal situation, I think there’s only so much we can put into increasing the O and M funding every year. It’s an ongoing review. We’re trying to get our communities up closer to keep up with the amount of infrastructure that’s getting on the ground. It’s a work in progress and I commit to keeping Members updated on the work we’re doing as we go along. We work closely with the NWT Association of Communities and the Local Government Administrators of the NWT. We rely quite heavily on their advice and input into how we design our programs.

As far as the capital goes, I think I said last year that one of the concerns we got from our partners is that the capital funding is okay the way it is, the O and M funding is the one that needs some more work to keep up with the capital. We’re continuing to do that again. I will provide Members with an update on these formulas as we’re going along.

Thanks to the Minister for the info. I think I heard the Minister say that the water and sewer funding formula has been changed to provide more money for communities. Is that every community that got an increase in water and sewer funding?

This year all of them have seen an increase.

So does that mean I can tell the mayor of the City of Yellowknife that he’s getting an increase in water and sewer funding?

…(inaudible)…a MACA update every year for community governments to plan their budgets for this upcoming year, so they’re all aware of any changes.

The Minister mentioned in his opening remarks that, I think in the 2013-2014 budget year, the government is going to implement an accountability framework. I think the Minister did a statement on this earlier in session. I’ve always had some difficulty in understanding just sort of what the makeup of the accountability framework is, what it is we are trying to measure, what we are holding municipalities accountable for. Can I get a bit of an explanation, I guess, of what the framework includes and what it is intended to do?

I’d like to have Ms. Young respond to that.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Ms. Young.

Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Bisaro.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Schauerte.

Thank you, Mr. Schauerte. Ms. Bisaro, your time is up but I have no one else on the list. Would you like to continue?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to follow up. First of all, thank you to Mr. Schauerte for the info. I wanted to follow up on the hotel levy, and I’m struggling to understand why the department is moving towards consultation. If we have at least one community that has the capabilities, has the desire and wants to use that revenue for marketing and promotion, I’m not too sure why there needs to be broader support. Why can we not provide the authority in legislation and if a community chooses to take advantage of the option, then they can do so. If they don’t want to take advantage of that option, then they don’t do so. Most municipalities, if they look at it seriously, will realize that it’s going to benefit their municipality by having the excess revenue and putting it into marketing, tourism and promotion.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Member is wanting us to enable the communities, if they choose to do so, to put in a hotel levy. I’m correct, I think, in saying that. That would require changes to possibly four pieces of legislation. I think we’ve committed to doing some work on this and I will have discussions with staff and see what this would entail, and looking at costs

and stuff like that. If there is an opportunity where we give them the choice, now they can’t do it because of the legislation. I will commit to the Member that I will work closely with the department and we’ll see how soon, if possible, we can roll this out, or at least start the work to get it going.

Thank to the Minister. I appreciate that commitment. From what I understand from the constituents in Yellowknife that talk to me, that’s the desire, I think of the Yellowknife hotel operators, is that a community can choose… We need to give the authority to the municipalities so they can choose to implement the levy or choose not to. I appreciate the difficulty with four pieces of legislation having to be amended. I mean, it takes a long time for us to get any legislation anywhere to be amended, so I appreciate the Minister’s commitment to try and bring it forward as soon as possible.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I’ll take that as a comment. The Minister has already replied to that. Moving on with questions I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m glad Ms. Bisaro brought this up. I, too, am a champion of enabling our communities on the hotel levy. I’m just trying to get a sense. I thought the NWTAC actually supported this and, if so, what was Municipal and Community Affairs’ position on NWTAC having a position saying they wanted this?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct. The NWTAC did pass a motion on this and that came to us. We had some concerns expressed to us from the Hotel Association. We actually have just been notified. They have requested a meeting here within the next couple of weeks, so we’re committed to meeting with them and getting their views on this. I agree with the Member. The Members over there have said, you know, we talked about enabling the communities to have the authority and make the decisions, and I think that’s the direction that MACA has been going for a while, and this is just another one of those. After we have a meeting with the Hotel Association, I think we’ll be in a better position to update Members on what some of the options might be and what some of their recommendations might be, so I commit to doing that.

The Minister had mentioned, I think he had said it in his words were, the hotel association expressed concerns. Perhaps he could elaborate on that, or did he refer to some communities that were expressing concerns? He did say there was expression of concerns of some sort, so let’s narrow it down to who he was referring to and what were those concerns.