Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I get an understanding, perhaps first a clarification? I believe these numbers might be slightly misleading in that there is a $19-million budget of last year and $18 million this year, but is that actually what was spent? Will that be the actuals, or can I just get a sense of this number? Is that what we are budgeting that then, if approved, we would hand out, become an actual, or have we actually been spending $20 million last year and expecting to next year? Sorry. I am trying to rephrase that properly. Are we going to spend $18 million this year on this fund? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2021
This is page numbers 2019 - 2082 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd 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 communities.
Topics
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Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North
Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I get a sense of how this affects the municipal funding formula? If there is essentially $18 million in our budget that is granted, that we are passing through from the federal government and then that expires in 2022, does that mean our funding formula will decrease by $18 million? Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Young
Thank you, Madam Chair. All of the programs that are listed in this section of the budget, this is strictly federal funding. It is separate from the capital budget approved through the Assembly for what we call community public infrastructure funding. Most of these programs, with the exception of the gas tax program, require a 75-25 cost share, so they use the CPI funding they get from the GNWT as the leveraging dollars for the federal component. The exception is gas tax, where they can use 100 percent federal funding to fund the project. With the exception of gas tax, each of the projects has to be approved by Canada before the funding can proceed, so these are all based on a federal cash flow of approved projects. That's how this is laid out in the budget. We have a total amount that we distribute over 10 years and lay out the budget that way, but this is just the federal component of that. It doesn't reflect the GNWT component, if that's clear as mud. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North
Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that, in our capital budget, there is a relatively fixed amount that goes to the communities every year and that's based on the funding formula, but from what I'm hearing, then, if $18 million disappears over a budget, it doesn't actually affect the funding formula, given that it's federal money. Can I just get a clarification if that's correct? Essentially, with the exception of the gas tax, federal infrastructure money does not then feed into the need assessment that we make for municipal infrastructure. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't want to confuse my colleague. Yes, that is correct. Thank you.
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The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Minister. Any further questions? Last quick question, Yellowknife North.
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Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North
Thank you, Madam Chair. As part of the work of reviewing the funding formula, are there any plans to factor in how federal government money works? To me, if the federal government decides to spend a bunch of money on giving communities infrastructure, that should affect the funding formula. Or if Yellowknife gets a bunch of money to build a new pool, that should probably adjust the funding formula. I get there is a bit of a debate of whether you adjust a needs-based formula on one-off projects, but is there any work intended to adjust the formula based on the role of the federal funding I see here, which is $42 million a year? Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Young
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we are trying to figure out how to best calculate that and accommodate it in, for many of the reasons the Member mentions, when we do our capital policy review in about two years' time, a year and a half's time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm looking at page 357, the multisport games. In 2020-2021, there was $650,000, and I presume that that was for Arctic Winter Games, which was cancelled. Does that money carry over, or what happens to it? Thanks, Madam Chair.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. With that $650,000 that was set aside, if that was for the Arctic Winter Games, I cannot find it on here very quickly, but then we did have to dismantle the games. We did have to send employees over there to take part in taking the games down and also returning people back to their home communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Madam Chair. Why would we expend the $650,000 in 2019-2020, which probably was the year, then, that Arctic Winter Games were held? Can someone explain to me why these figures are flat when, last year, the one in Whitehorse was cancelled? Thanks, Madam Chair.