Thank you, Minister. Mr. Schauerte.
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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Schauerte
Thank you, Madam Chair. This funding goes to community governments to help support the delivery of water and sewer services, including water treatment plants and sewage lagoons. More recently, we are looking at expanding this envelope of funding to also include solid-waste facilities. That would be part of that. The funding that is provided to community governments goes into a restricted water and sewer fund, so the money can only be used for the purposes of delivering those services. Municipalities will also collect rates off of residents to help offset the cost of delivery of that service, so in effect, the money that the government is providing helps to reduce the cost of the rate on the ratepayer or on the residents. This does not include capital. Capital is included in the community public infrastructure budget, and that is where that funding would come for the replacement cost of any of those facilities, be it a water treatment plant, a sewage lagoon, or a solid-waste facility. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I am really glad to hear that. Good luck with getting the solid-waste facilities in there. I think it's a good move. I look at the numbers for this item, and it is a constant number so far in the last couple of years. Does the department anticipate having to increase any of this funding in the next while? Is there an aging infrastructure issue at all with the water and sewer services that would sort of fall under this line item? Thank you.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. I will have Ms. Eleanor Young answer the question. Thank you.
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Young
Thank you, Madam Chair. As Mr. Schauerte has represented, this is operating and maintenance funding. As Members may remember, on the community funding gap, there is a gap in all three of our funding areas, so there is a gap currently in the water-sewer funding envelope. As we work on closing the gap, we do expect that there would be an increase to this program as part of those efforts. When you see the community mandate funding up in the line up above, there is funding planned for 2021-2022 for an increase to the water-sewer budget as part of the upcoming year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. Does this fund apply to all of the 33 communities, or does it have a tax base, regional-centre-type distribution? Thank you.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just sort of back to my question one before, I know that there has been a lot of replacement of the water treatment plants over the last while. I know there has been an issue with training workers and at times communities have stayed on boil-water advisories, not so much that the water is actually bad; it's more that the testing in order to prove that the water is good does not get done. I know maybe a little bit out of this, but is there a need to increase, maybe, this budget line item in order to do more training or to increase or to deal with any aging infrastructure? I cannot imagine all of them got switched out. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. I will have Ms. Eleanor Young answer the question. Thank you.
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Young
Thank you, Madam Chair. This budget is the operating cost for communities, and they may choose to use it for training if they wish, but the department also provides training through the School of Community Government as well as what we call a circuit-rider program where we do hands-on training in the community appropriate to the type of plant that the community operates. We try to keep the burden of the training costs as minimal as possible on the community and do that through other means. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh
Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just looking at the line item, just to follow up, just to continue on with the Member for Great Slave, for water and sewer services. I know water is such an important issue. A lot of First Nations communities across the country and stuff and I know in my hometown, in Deninu Kue, that was an issue for quite some time, and they finally started to come around and get their water filtration and using UV to get the water where it's drinkable and to get rid of some of the bad stuff, like to prevent E. coli, that sort of stuff. It was passed on to me by some of the staff, that, yes, they got all that stuff in. In terms of O and M, there are still some issues there with coating pipes and whatnot, so I am just wondering. My question for the Minister is: in communities like Deninu Kue, how are we doing for the O and M side of things? Are we going to be continuing? Once you get that capital in there, it can continue on with helping to maintain the equipment regularly, to make sure it's up to standard. Thank you.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. I hear the Member's comments. MACA does support the training for the operation and maintenance of the water facilities, but also, I just want to make the Member aware that we do not build the facilities and have the communities plan, submit this ask through their capital plan. We support them for the operation and the maintenance and making sure that the training is current and up to date. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh
Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Even for sewer services and stuff, that's all done through the community. Places like small communities, like Deninu Kue, we do not have a lot of mains, water mains, like waste water like we do in a lot of the larger centres. A lot of this stuff is all trucked in. Even in places like Ndilo, water is trucked in. I am not sure how that is going to go, but I think it's important to know that that is how our communities work. We need to understand that it's not like here in Yellowknife where you can just turn on a tap. You have to worry about your water; you have to worry about your sewer. It gets even worse in colder weather. That's more of a comment. I just thought I'd say that. I also want to change my questions here for the senior citizens and disabled person's property tax relief. This is an issue here I deal with quite a bit in Deninu Kue, as well. I wanted to get an update from the Minister where this program is and which direction it's going, and give us a brief update, and I do have a couple of questions about that? Thank you.
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