Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Thank you.

For the record, Mr. McLeod, would you like to introduce your witness, please?

Mr. Chair, I have with me Mr. Tom Williams, deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Williams, welcome to the Chamber again. Committee has indicated we are on municipal and corporate affairs. According to our protocol, we are going to forego opening comments and be going directly into general comments. Mr. Blake.

Mr. Chair, I have a couple of questions for the Minister referring to Fort McPherson as it is under public administration now which is basically under the Minister’s department. I’d like to ask the Minister what the plans are. I know there are some issues with the arena. That is why the hours have been cut back. There is a little trouble with the foundation. Is the department looking to fix this problem in the next month or two? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chair, we have, I believe, an engineer going into Fort McPherson next week. We will work with the community, identify some of the issues that might be taking place with the hockey rink, not only the hockey rink but the curling rink. Once we receive that report, we will work with the community to see if there are ways that we can deal with that and if there are ways so these facilities can be kept open. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, just on the same topic, I know the community, when it was under the hamlet, we were planning to start the planning process towards a new arena. What stage are we at now with those plans for a new arena? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, the planning work can still be undertaken even while they are under municipal administration. We will work with them, obviously, to make sure that they have financing or the finances to help deal with it. As far as the planning goes, that doesn’t stop because they are under municipal administration. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I mentioned they are under the public administrator. Is the administrator starting those plans as we speak? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, not at the present time. He is spending a lot of his time dealing with the deficit and trying to find ways to alleviate some of the pressures. As things settle down a bit, then we can have a discussion with him as to getting someone in there and working with the community to start the plans for a new facility.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. General comments. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one comment to make with this expenditure. It’s that this dollar amount has stayed the same for too long. I’ve mentioned this before. The needs of

communities are constantly increasing. I know the needs of this government are increasing, as well, but I would urge the Minister to do what he can to get this amount for capital infrastructure in our communities increased.

We have devolved a lot of buildings to our communities through the New Deal over the years. Many of them were not new buildings; they were the older buildings. Therefore, they either need operations and maintenance upkeep or some of them will need replacing.

Expenditures increase every year. Nothing gets cheaper; it always gets more expensive. I would like to suggest that this number needs to be increased. It’s not going to happen in this budget year, but I would hope for 2016-17 that we would see an increase in the amount of capital expenditures for our communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chair, that is a fair comment. It is one that we have heard in our dealings with the communities. With the funding review committee that we had, that is one of the areas that they have identified. Once we have the findings of that, the final findings, we may have to consider how we go forward.

The Member is absolutely correct; I think it has been $28.002 million for the last four or five years. On top of that, we still try and access any federal funding we can that we can pass on to the communities to help with that. It is something that is on our radar. We will have to see where it goes once we get the final funding. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. General comments. Since I don’t see any more general comments, does committee agree to proceed in detail?

Thank you, committee. Again, page 53 in your capital estimates. We will be deferring page 53 until consideration of activity detail is complete. With that, I will ask you to turn to page 55. Municipal and Community Affairs, regional operations, infrastructure investments, $28.002 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Again, if you can return back to page 53 for total infrastructure. Municipal and Community Affairs, total infrastructure investments, $28.002 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that we have

concluded consideration of the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs?

Mr. Chair, I do.