Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is just one section, the infrastructure contributions to communities here in this department and I have to state, I think I stated in my opening remarks to the budget, as well, and I have stated here in this department, that communities have been funded for their capital infrastructure at the same level for far too many years. If I look at the background information that we are provided, the government is proposing to keep communities at the same infrastructure funding level for the next two or three or four years to come. That is a real concern for me.
Our communities, under the New Deal, which started quite a few years ago now, have been taking on more and more infrastructure. They have accepted what used to be government infrastructure and it has now become community infrastructure and as they grow, as communities grow, they build their own infrastructure. Yet, they are funded at the same level for their capital projects as they have been for quite some years. I don’t know how far back it goes but it goes back a long way.
There have been discussions about doing a review. There certainly has been a review done on operational funding and I am very glad for that and there were some changes made, but there needs to be, and there should have been, the same review on capital infrastructure funding for communities. I don’t think that’s finished. I hope that it is in the works. I would ask the Minister to confirm that it is happening. If it is not happening, it certainly had better be one of the first things that are done in the 18th Assembly. It’s
really important that the government recognizes that our communities are doing more and more on less and less and we cannot expect them to be
subsistent. We can’t expect them to protect our residents, to provide services for our residents if we don’t give them the capital dollars to keep their infrastructure up to snuff.
So, it’s just a comment, Mr.
Chair.
I do have a question. Where are we at in terms of a review of the funding? Other than t
hat, that’s all I
have. Thank you.