Yes, I do, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Debates of March 2nd, 2015
This is page numbers 5871 – 5908 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going.
Topics
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Thank you.
Mr. McLeod, if you could introduce your witnesses to the House, please.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have, to my left, Mr. Tom Williams, deputy minister, Municipal and Community Affairs. To my right I have Mr. Gary Schauerte, who is our director of corporate services, Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Williams, Mr. Schauerte, welcome back to the Chamber.
Committee, we last left this activity on page 355, Municipal and Community Affairs, community operations, operations expenditure summary, $2.093 million. Does committee agree?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you, committee. Committee, page 356, Municipal and Community Affairs, community operations, grants, contributions and transfers, total contributions, $135,000. Does committee agree?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you, committee. Page 357, Municipal and Community Affairs, community operations, active positions, 12. Any questions?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you, committee. Committee, page 359, Municipal and Community Affairs, community governance, operations expenditure summary, $2.303 million. Mr. Menicoche.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I see a large increase here in material and supplies in the second category, so maybe I can get an explanation of that increase up to $16,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Schauerte
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In ‘14-15, as a result of devolution, MACA sought and received permission to reorganize the department with the creation of the community governance unit. So what you see is a reflection here, is the creation of a new unit within the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs that combines the governance area, the property assessment area and the community-based planning area. So, that’s what the increase is attributed to. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering how complete our community governments are in terms of administrators. Obviously, I think the senior administration officer is a keystone position in all the communities. I’m also wondering: I think there’s been a program put in place recently to try and be more responsive to communities with some of their needs. I can’t remember the name of that program, but if I can get an update on that and whether we’re missing SAOs in many communities and how we’re doing at sort of reducing the turnover and keeping people in place there.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to the deputy minister, Mr. Williams.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Williams
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, in the whole area of governance we rely on the Accountability Framework. It assists the community governments on identifying where the pressures are and identifies pressures to us as a department that we can react to. That is our key, I guess, activity in that area in terms of community governance. We identify training needs. Certainly, the Member is correct; there has been a lot of turnover at the senior ranks with community governments over the past year where we lost a number of SAOs. We work closely with the School of Community Government in identifying training needs, trying to recruit new people to fill those vacancies and trying to train a local workforce that can work in conjunction with the community governments.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thanks for that response. The Accountability Framework was what I was thinking of. We’re sort of working on two fronts here. Just on the SAOs, are we complete now? Do we have our SAO positions filled in every community that would have one?
On the Accountability Framework side, when did we implement that and when can we expect an early evaluation of that program?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Williams
Just recently we’ve seen a couple of communities that have lost SAOs, so they’re in the recruitment phase. I think Fort Smith just recently recruited a new SAO, so they’re fine. We had resignations in a couple of other communities throughout the Northwest Territories. We continue to work on implementing our SAO training through the LGANT program through the School of Community Government to build capacity in this area. Certainly, it’s something that we work closely with our partners to assist with this with LGANT and NWTAC.
On the second part of the question, implementation of the Accountability Framework, I think we’re well into the implementation. Actually, we’re looking at new tools that we’ll be introducing in the near future of using an electronic mechanism to report for communities to give easy access to report on accountability areas, so it’s going to make it a little easier for them to participate in the program. As far as evaluations, until we get some baseline data, I think after this year we should be able to do a report of the health and status of community governments that we’ll be able to share with Members. It will identify the areas of need and the areas of successes. I think that’s going to be important to have that. I think once we get through the cycle, maybe within this year, I think we probably could look at an evaluation of the program. It’s something that we’re interested in how can we make it better and make it more useful as a tool for community governments.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thanks again for that information. I wonder, as my last point here, if I could ask the Minister if he could commit to providing an update of where the communities are missing an SAO.
Also, I appreciate the comments on training local people for community government jobs. It would be great to know how many SAOs are from the NWT now and how that’s coming along. I’ll look forward to the evaluation report. That sounds great. Thank you. That’s all I had.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters