I appreciate that. I think the Minister kind of moved into the next question that I have. This funding that we’re providing here isn’t tied to any Build Canada. Can they use this funding as their equity for Build Canada applications and projects? Can I get that clarification? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Member is absolutely correct; they can use some of the money that they get to leverage the funding from the Building Canada Plan as well.

With that Building Canada, is it application-based or is the money being divvied up amongst communities per capita case-plus? Are we doing a case-by-case application-by-application base?

Mr. Chair, we allocated X amount of dollars to every community, but they have to come up through an application process to justify the amount of money that we’re giving them. So, say if they were getting $110,000

– we’ll use that

for an example

– they have to have some projects,

put an application in place for $110,000. If we just put it into one big pot and it was application-based then we’ve have competition from all 33 communities, so we thought doing it this way was probably one of the easiest ways to have some of the smaller communities that might be lacking some capacity to get their applications in with some assistance from our regional folks.

Like I said, using this funding they would be able to get into Build Canada. So my next question on Build Canada, would they be able to, if a community is not using it, would we be opening up that complete pool to the surplus towards the end of the year? Like, obviously communities, I would think the largest centres will have big demand. So, will they be able to apply later, once a community…or is there a cut-off where communities won’t be able to use the money, will we open that surplus let’s say?

I know in my experience at ITI, sometimes with the contribution funding it was allocated to regions, but after a certain period of time the money went into a territorial pot and everybody could use it just so that the funds were used. Is there a plan to do that or are we just going to let that money lapse or is it carrying forward to other communities?

Thank you. It’s a 10-year

program, so they can use those funds anytime within that 10 years. They have to find a project that matches the criteria and Canada has to also approve the project. So, they do have some time to make use of the funding that they do have. I think they’ve got up to 10 years.

No, it’s one allocation

over that 10 years. So if they were allocated $100,000, that’s what they would have to use. It’s not $100,000 a

year for 10 years. It’s just $100,000 that

is their portion of the Building Canada Plan.

So, in saying that, our communities, are we given a lump sum at the beginning of this Build Canada? I know in Transportation we’re doing it over a period of time, 10 years. Obviously, we’re not getting a lump sum

that we can hand it out to all the communities at the beginning, are we? Or are we getting a percentage over 10 years and I think it’s 15 percent? Are we getting 1.5 percent every year or are we getting the lump sum 15 percent and it’s going out to communities right away?

They would have to use the money to build a project and they would invoice us. Then we would be reimbursed from Canada, I think up to 75 percent of whatever their project costs.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. We’ll continue with general comments with Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just speaking to the funding allocated to the communities, I am somewhat disappointed we’re going back to a needs base just because I’ve seen firsthand the process that we first started with this for the communities, which was great. I know the Minister did mention that some communities weren’t spending that money, but I’ll use a small community like Tsiigehtchic, for example. To build whether it’s a garage, with the funding that’s given, you have to save up for a number of years to actually have enough to build that piece of infrastructure. That’s what many of the communities are doing. So, it has to do with planning. I know the department did provide some assistance in the planning stages, but it is a learning curve for the communities, but I’ve seen firsthand the benefits of the process we had in place when the New Deal first came out.

Also, we

’ll just use Tsiigehtchic as an example again.

Under the needs base process here, how would MACA identify what the community needs? I’ll use Tsiigehtchic for the prime example. All we have right now for a facility for our youth for sports is the gymnasium.

We don’t have an arena. We have a

skating rink that was blown over with a big storm we had a while back, but it’s a clear indicator that that community needs an arena. So, will that be a priority under this needs base formula? You compare that to a band o

ffice that we already have that’s functional,

it’s pretty clear that an arena would outweigh the band office.

Will the department identify that as something that the community needs? You know, we could have a skating rink. Children usually have to go skate on the lake. Those days are over and done with. I know the Minister probably skated on a few ponds, but in this day and age we have skating rinks and arenas that the children could now make use of. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What the community needs is not our decision to make and that was the beauty of the New Deal, is it gave the community responsibility to make the

decisions based in their priorities. So if an enclosed rink was one of their priorities then they would find ways to make it work. With the money that we give them through CPI and that, they can access bank financing and we’ve had communities do that where they’ve accessed bank financing, knowing they’re getting their CPI funding every year to help pay down the loan.

Again, the beauty of the New Deal is that the decision-making is within the community. So if we were still making the decision and they wanted to do a small little rink in a small little community like Tsiigehtchic, it would get into the overall corporate picture and it may be years and years before that ever came to see the light of day. But with the program we have now

…and I think we see as we

travel throughout the Northwest Territories some of the projects. In one community, a youth centre might be a priority, so they use their CPI money that we give them to build a youth centre, and another one might be a small community hall.

The decision is pretty well up to the community and I don’t think doing it in a needs base survey is penalizing the community. What we found was that there were some communities that had a lot of infrastructure money banked that they weren’t using because

there

really

wasn’t

much more

infrastructure or they might have been facing challenges with O and M. So we’ve tried to make it more of a needs base. It’s not needs based saying, well, we think you need this as opposed to this. It’s, again, a decision they have to make and we continue to work with them on that. Thank you.

The other thing, as I mentioned earlier, with the assistance that MACA provides to the communities. I’d like to ask the Minister, as we move forward, you know, a lot of planning needs to go in place and architects. Does the department provide that assistance or does the community have to go out and spend some of this money for architecture work and design or is it just design build? Thank you.

Thank you. We can provide technical advice, and as far as the actual project itself goes, the communities have all gone and found someone to do the design for them. They’ve actually led the contract themselves in most cases, hired their own project managers. They’ve actually been able to do it probably less expensively than we could have as a government, because every time you see the little polar bear there, prices seem to go up a little higher.

When the community goes looking for prices, it gives them a few options and I think we’ve found that they’ve been able to get some product on the ground, I wouldn’t say cheaper, but a lot less expensive than we would have. But, no, we’re willing to work with the community, provide them with some technical advice and maybe refer them to people or line them up with folks who do that. So, we provide

a lot of assistance, and at the end of the day, the decision is ultimately theirs to make. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It’s more of a comment. You know,

over the years I’ve seen a lot of benefits that this program provides and I hope that it does continue to go on through the years. For example, in Aklavik the drainage that the community has done has actually helped during the spring. We’ve noticed less floods because of drainage, the drainage plan that they did. We still need a little assistance with the riprap and building up the roads there, but that’s something the community is still working on.

The other thing was in Fort McPherson, the hamlet that they built and they’re also building a new garage. It’s great for the community; that’s what they need. As we move forward, we really appreciate this program continuing.

Mr. Blake, again, more of a comment, but I will allow the Minister a final word.

Thank you. We have capital planning folks and we actually have capital plans from all the communities for what they identified, some of their priorities for the future years. Our capital planning group will work with communities and help them with their capital plans, but as far as I know, I think we have a capital plan from pretty well every community for the next five years. So they’ve identified some of their priorities and we’ll work with them as to how they can see those hit the ground.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, general comments. Is committee prepared to go into detail?

Thank you, committee. We’re going to defer page 63 until we’ve considered all the activities. I would turn your attention to pages 65 and 66, regional operations, infrastructure investments, $28.002 million. Does committee agree?

Committee, if I could get you to return back to page 63, Municipal and Community Affairs, total infrastructure investments, $28.002 million. Does committee agree?