The motion is in order. To the motion?

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? Motion is carried.

---Carried

Consideration of Department of Justice, 2022-2023 Main Estimates, operating expenditures, total department, is deferred.

Thank you, Minister. And thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.

What is the wish of committee?

Thanks, Madam Chair. Committee wishes to continue with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Okay, thank you. We will take a short recess and then resume with MACA.

---SHORT RECESS

I now call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 561-19(2): Main Estimates 2022-2023. Does the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs have any opening remarks?

Yes, I do. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am pleased to present the 2022-2023 Main Estimates for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. Overall, the department's estimates propose an increase of $1.972 million or 1.6 percent over the 2021-2022 Main Estimates. These estimates support the mandate objectives for the department while continuing to meet the GNWT's fiscal objectives to prioritize reasonable and strategic spending.

Highlights of these proposed estimates include:

• Initiative funding increases of $922,000 for community governments and $507,000 for ten relief workers and associated salary and benefits for NWT 9-1-1 service;
• A forced growth increase of $331,000 in the proposed budget is to provide for grants in lieu of property tax for tax-based communities; and,
• Finally, there is a total increase of $212,000 in other adjustments, which is the net impact of an increase of $123,000 to provide for MACA's administration of federal investment in Canada Infrastructure Plan; an increase of $445,000 for the collective agreement increases with the Union of Northern Workers; and a decrease of $356,000 in travel budgets.

These estimates continue to support the priorities of the 19th Legislative Assembly and support the vision of the Budget 2022 by supporting the GNWT's mandate objective to reduce the municipal funding gap by $5 million. If approved, this mandate objective will be 83 percent fulfilled for a total investment to date of $4.167 million.

Of the total proposed estimates for MACA in 2022-2023, 82.8 percent, or $101.9 million, is intended to support community governments.

That concludes my opening remarks. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Does the Minister wish to bring witnesses into the Chamber?

Yes, I do.

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you. Minister, would you please introduce your witness.

With me today is deputy minister Laura Gareau. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Welcome, deputy minister Gareau. Committee has agreed to forego general comments. Does the committee agree to proceed to the detail contained in the tabled document?

Thank you. Committee, we will defer the departmental summary and review the estimates by activity summary beginning with community governance, starting on page 334 with information items on page 337. Questions? Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see there's an increase for assessment services and my understanding is that that's partly because we pay people to do some of the assessment work. And I've asked many questions before and, forgive me, I just fully do not understand the role of MACA verse Lands verse Finance in assessing how much people pay in property tax especially, you know, in not tax-based communities. So I'm going to try and ask a few more questions to help myself understand what's going on here.

And specifically I guess I want to ask, in the Ingraham Trail does it actually matter how much your property is worth for how much you're going to pay in the various taxes and lease fees, or are all of those properties essentially just not meeting the minimum threshold so they pay the same amount? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you. For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And then I guess my question is really who do I ask the question to? I know Lands has -- a big part of its lease fee is based on the value of the property, which I assume they get that information from MACA, but the vast majority of properties just pay a standardized lease rate because they don't actually get high enough threshold. Like, you know, they're not a mine as an example. And then, I believe, I just want to clarify, is it Finance who ultimately has the policy for how much tax is being paid in the hinterland and they get that information from MACA here? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. So my understanding is that we do the assessment. We then give it to Finance, and then Finance comes up with the calculation of what the taxes are. And there's a formula there and for the life of me, I would ask you to ask the finance minister to explain that because I'm still trying to learn it and I've been working with the department for 23 years and I've been an MLA for six. And it's a very interesting -- and I say interesting, it's a well thought out formula. And so -- but I'm not an accountant so I don't totally understand. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, yeah, I know many of my constituents have been receiving bills for years and they're still trying to figure it out because they're dealing with at least three departments, and it's also based on what type of lease you got at what time. I'm just wondering if perhaps -- and I know that you guys just do the assessments but I think far too much assessment is being done of what are essentially cabins that could probably just pay one fee to one department. We could probably even raise the fee and make some money and at least there would be one bill.

Is there some work being done between the various departments that deal with the kind of hinterland about whether there's just too much counting going on to collect what are pretty small tax bills? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. First, to his comment that, you know, let's just raise the rates there, I hate to say it, I've been dealing with this for a while in the Lands, and for four years before was when I was the MLA and the lands issue and the fees are something very, very difficult, and people get very excited about it. So you may get some emails from people saying that's not a good idea.

But in regards to how we work together, yes, we work with the Department of Lands; we work with Finance, to try to address it, try to come up with a formula that works for everybody. But as you've heard me talk about as Minister of Lands, we're in the process of looking at a number of regulations in that. So again, we have to work together and we can't go ahead of somebody else until the other one is there. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members under community governance?

Seeing none, Municipal and Community Affairs, community governance, operations expenditure summary, 2022-2023 Main Estimates, $2,146,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. We will now turn to community operations on 339 with information items on 340 and 41. Questions?

Seeing -- oh, Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just looking -- or have some questions around the asset management.

Now, maybe first I'll just start with is this reflective of the department's assets in communities or is this to help communities with maintaining and dealing with their own assets? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that's great. This is definitely an area where when, you know, you don't pay attention to it it gets out of control and then when you have to go ahead and buy $400,000 loaders, people are like why are we spending that money. So I think that's great.

Is there a way or is part of this work to train people in those communities in order to be more of, say, warehousers, inventory asset managers, the trades around those types of work? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

So my understanding through it is we have a program that we work on. We try to train the community on it. We've had some -- it was -- it used to be hands on but with the COVID situation, we've had some problems. But we are now ramping it up again to work with the communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate that, yeah, it was probably kind of difficult to do that. And I know that -- and when I speak to this, it's sort of the same as with the community financial services contributions, which I think is probably similar to just help them take care of their accounting according to the detail.

I guess where I'm going with this, and the Minister probably knows, is that I would like to see this becoming more a transition into the communities where they are more independent and it not being us coming in and doing that for them. So if there is a component -- a specific training component that's being rolled out or maybe perhaps plans for one rather than just sort of we're working -- and I guess I'm asking, is there formalized training around that? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

So -- and I'll turn it to the deputy minister but my understanding is yes, there is formal training. It is about training the community to be -- for about the program, how to utilize the program, how the program helps them move forward on it. So it's very not much about us doing it; it's us working with the community to give them the skills to do it. But for further detail, with your permission, Madam Chair, I would turn to the deputy minister for her to clarify anything that I may have said wrong or clarify if there's other stuff out there. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you for that. I appreciate that. And I'm sorry if it took me a bit to understand as it is a Friday and I don't feel like I can speak well today. But I think -- I guess my next question would be, then, we talked a lot about the silos and obviously there's a lot of asset management expertise within the Department of Infrastructure. So I'm curious to know a little bit more about would there be -- would this work and the assessment management strategy be being done in conjunction with the Department of Infrastructure, or at least with their expertise feeding into it, or even a review at the end? Thank you very much.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. We don't have a formal approach to it. In the past when we started doing asset management, we actually took it from NWT Housing Corporation. So they have an asset management program. And then as we developed, we looked at the asset management programs available across the country and how we could best utilize what's available. So we do that there. We do have some informal conversations that I know have happened in the past but nothing really formalized right now. So it's -- we've taken the tool, used it, and again I guess our -- it comes down to our client, which is our community government, and they're the ones that are able to tell us if we need to expand it, if we need more information, and if we need to, then we do have access to infrastructure available. So right now, no, but we do have it there available. Long answer, sorry.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you. So that gives me a bit of concern too, because it's my understanding that there wasn't, in the past, great collaboration between the Housing Corporation and Infrastructure and I may have some insider information on how that has played out, even in this Assembly. So, you know, it -- to me, it seems like quite a waste and a shame that we wouldn't be utilizing -- or at least having them reviewing these things. And I get that it's very much the communities driving it, that's all great, but, you know, to just flip that over at the end of if all and say hey, does this make sense? You have asset management people in Infrastructure that are then, you know, dealing with things in communities like -- you know, I know I'm aware that the hospital in Inuvik's pellet boiler had they been more smart about it wouldn't have made it so that it can only be loaded by super-Bs that can't then back into that space so there's an extra step now of offloading from super-B pellets to smaller vehicles to then fill up the hopper. So there's things like that where I just feel like that extra set of eyes. And I know I'm just reiterating what I just said, and I hear the Minister's commitment to doing that collaboration, but I think it really -- I just can't stress how key I think that is. And if we talk about breaking down silos, why -- why would we go elsewhere before we look internally to see if we have help? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

I'll start, and then I'll turn to the deputy minister.

So first and foremost, when we -- this is -- and again, this is dating me. So I've been around for a while. With the asset management program, it was a Housing program that they had and we worked with Housing to -- and then we worked with the community to adapt it. We've now gone from there to another program better suited for the communities. But as in the relationship with Infrastructure and that there, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you, Madam Chair, with your permission.

Thank you. Deputy minister Ms. Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you for that. Yeah, and I appreciate the Minister clarifying that it's not still the same Housing Corporation program that it was to begin with, that there has been significant changes there.

I appreciate also what the deputy minister is saying and yes, it comes down to, yeah, if it is -- you know, I'm not thinking about the fact that it is their property versus us coming in and doing so and, of course, there would be more collaboration just in a small community because everybody -- everybody does know each other.

And I think -- I'd just add that I -- I think that MACA is a department that I know really nothing about in my prior life to coming into this House and so, like, I wouldn't know who the engineers are from MACA which, you know, I know all the engineers in Infrastructure and other departments. So I mean, I guess for me, I would ask that maybe at some point I can just come meet some of your engineers and maybe get a better feel for what's going on there. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any further questions for community operations? Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. On page 339, in the program detail, program management, it's going up $130,000, and I would like to know why. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. Sorry, which line?

It's on our -- on page 339, the program management.

I'd turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Okay, thanks, Madam Chair. So the cost of this audit, does that come out of the money that the federal government gives us, or are we paying for the audit ourselves? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. From the federal government. Thank you.

Member for Frame Lake.

Okay, thanks for that. On page 340 is contributions, and I see that we have something called community financial services contributions, and can I just get some more information about how communities actually access that? And obviously it was fully used last year so maybe some understanding of who -- who can access it and what it's used for. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member -- or Minister of MACA.

Thank you. For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Deputy minister.

Thank you, Ms. Gareau. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, no, thanks. No, that sounds like a -- good to have that kind of contingency there and available to communities. We want to avoid communities going into administration under MACA. So no, it sounds good.

Madam Chair, I don't have any further questions on this section. Thank you.

Are there any further questions under this section?

Seeing none, Municipal and Community Affairs, community operations, operations expenditure summary, 2022-2023 Main Estimates, $2,383,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Directorate, beginning on page 342 with information item on page 345. Open up for questions. Ms. Cleveland.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my questions are in regards to the policy and planning division. I note that in 2021-2022, the actuals were at $866,000. I'm wondering why for this year's mains, they've come down to 606. Thank you.

Mahsi. Minister.

For that detail, I'll go to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Deputy minister.

Mahsi. Ms. Cleveland.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my concern with this is that I see even from the year before there that the number was still much lower and that we're not seeing an increase either to staff cohort; there is no increase to staff in directorate. And one of the things that this Assembly continues to talk about, and especially Regular Members on this side, is concerns over the backlog, the legislative backlog rather, with the Department of MACA. And so I'm wondering how they intend to accomplish their legislative commitments without increasing their staff cohort? Thank you.

Mahsi, Ms. Cleveland. Minister.

Thank you. I'll start, and then I'll turn to the deputy minister. But we are looking at trying to address this with -- I think it's interns and staff, the alignment or whatever -- however you want to call it, to address this. I think we've got a new director in -- a director in place, and this individual has developed a really good plan that we feel that will help us achieve what we need to do during this Assembly and moving forward. But for further detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister with your permission, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Minister. Deputy minister.

Mahsi, deputy minister. Ms. Cleveland.

Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I guess I just -- I don't understand how this happens where, you know, hiring interns is absolutely excellent; it still costs money. Finance doesn't pay for the entire bill and so there still needs to be a budget allocated to that. And if -- you know, if they're bringing in short-term employees, then those positions still need funding, and that's not reflected here.

In addition to that, if the plan is to use some contract services to get this work done, which I'm fully in support of, the 2021-2022 Main Estimates is the same as the 2022-2023 Main Estimates under contract services. And so this is one of those situations where I guess I'm just not seeing how MACA is setting themselves up to bring in the staff needs in order to do this work that has been committed to. And I know that this work, too, has kind of been passed from multiple different deputy ministers. And so I acknowledge that this deputy minister is receiving this -- this backlog but it still is a commitment of what the Assembly would like to see done.

In addition to that, there's been a lot of talk about the municipal funding formula and reviewing that with NWTAC and so is that work also expected to come out of this division as well? Thank you.

Mahsi, Ms. Cleveland. Minister.

Thank you. I hear the Member's concerns, and I have to say with the new deputy minister and new director, we've come up with a very good plan and I think we're going to be able to achieve this.

We also, should people be aware, is that we are looking at the funding, the three different funding programs, and we were looking at to complete this in 2023-2024. We've made a commitment now that it will be done in 2022-2023. So it will be done the upcoming fiscal year. So we have a very good plan. It's very -- I think it's very solid. But for further detail, I'll ask the deputy minister to provide some clarity on if I missed anything or anything we need to add. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Minister. Deputy minister.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, it -- I guess my biggest concern is getting to kind of the 11th hour of this Assembly and then realizing that we needed to give MACA more resources to get this substantial legislative work done.

And so does the Minister of MACA intend to report to this House on the status of these legislative agenda items and will MACA bring forward a SUP to the House if they need additional resources to get this work done in this Assembly? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Yeah, we will report to committee. We'll give updates. It will probably be not quarterly but probably biannually we'll give you updates on that, because I want to get the department to focus on the work that we need to get done. We will provide that information to committee. I think that's just smart business and help committee understand where we're going.

In regards to this -- asking for a SUP, right now we feel that the money we have in place and the ability for the deputy minister to be creative within the department, we're able to achieve what we need to do. There's other demands within this government that we need to look at, and so you'll hear later on -- I think you heard when we did our presentation with the COVID Secretariat and how we were doing it, while we realign five positions within the department. So we are looking at creative ways of being able to be successful to meet what we're needing, and we've already told you guys that there was one piece of legislation that we weren't able to get done. But we are working on it. So I just want to make sure people are aware it's not -- we're not stopping. It's just that we have other priorities that we need do. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Are there any other Members who wish to speak to the directorate? Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think I'll take a little bit of a cause for some of my other colleagues that maybe don't have an opportunity today to speak.

I'm just looking at the directorate and the fact that all of the positions are headquartered -- are listed -- sorry, located in headquarters in Yellowknife with the no increase that my colleague spoke to. While I understand why a directorate would need to be in one location, we have talked many times about the move to virtual work. And I guess one conversation we have a lot on this side of the House is the small-communities-versus-Yellowknife-versus-regional-centres conversation, which we even had this morning, so I would -- I guess I'm curious to know within this directorate, like, how does that break out? Do we have staff where they are solely focused on a small community, or is the directorate more structured in a manner where they're all sort of doing work that's for the entire area?

And I guess where I'm going with this and why I'm asking is that it seems to me this might be a place where we could sort of really start to tackle that divide between the three -- like, I'm often struck that we're talking to Yellowknife at the same time that we're talking to Aklavik. And when I used to go sit, even as an engineer on national groups, I would sit and laugh to myself as Ontario and Quebec talks about their problems and I'm sitting here with, you know, ten member firms instead of, like, 40,000, right. So it's quite -- and I'm sure all the Cabinet understands this from their FBT tables, right. So I'm wondering if there's some way within this directorate that we could start to address that issue considering that MACA is the community department. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. I'll start, and then I'll turn -- with your permission, turn to the deputy minister.

This is something that we've talked at the Cabinet table about. We've talked about it at the DM and the senior management committee at our table there. We've had these conversations. But for the detail of where I think the Member's looking for, I'll turn to the deputy minister for further information. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Yeah, and I guess what I'm hearing then, and not to minimize the work, so they're kind of the operations, like you said the accountants, that kind of thing. So I guess then, I understand why they wouldn't be involved with the communities directly. However, then what is sort of the effort made to ensure then those roles are actually being held maybe by community members or former community members? And the reason I say that is that in every aspect of our work, that lived experience, that, you know, any time anybody making decisions for the North has had more experience in a small community, they're going to make a better decision for the North. So I guess my question is what kind of recruitment or strategy is there to ensure that, you know, those types of positions are filled by community members even if they're not in communities? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. So I can tell you that, you know, what we encourage is community-regional experience. It really helps at headquarters. You know, unfortunately sometimes the positions that we have within this, the organization, when people apply they do not have that community or regional experience. So our priority has always been to try to get community and regional people into headquarters where possible, especially -- because I -- I agree with the Member, what better way to be able to do things and understand things if you understand it from the community-regional aspect of things. I know -- and I can just use my experience from the sport rec side, that's how it used to be all the time. You had to have community experience before you moved into regional or headquarters. So we've been able to do that. Some of the superintendents that have moved on to headquarters have had that community regional experience, and it does build to the capacity. So, yeah, very much so, we look at that. But we want to get the best person for the job and sometimes the best person for the job may or may not have that community-regional experience. But we've been very fortunate, I would say. Everybody that I've seen, the new hires recently, has been community or NGOs or regional experience moving forward. So hopefully that answers the question the Member's looking for. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I know that the Minister's constituents will remind him if he's not, you know, promoting and championing community people getting into these positions.

I guess that leads me to ask, then, about the department's involvement with the Indigenous Gateway Program and how much does the department really utilize that? Because I do see MACA as being a department that very much is one where the work could be trained, not so much -- like ENR, and your other hat, has some very specific, you know, scientific years of study type roles but MACA, you know, there are a lot that we could be training. And I'm worried, like we've said many times, that we're keeping good people just because they don't have that capacity or that training or that experience, that paper, right. And I know my colleague that's sitting in the chair right now has commented already this session that we need to be looking at the pool of candidates available and then, you know, working backwards from that to get them into these positions versus oh sorry, you don't meet our very specific criteria, so. And I do note that the department has one of the higher targets for Indigenous hiring of all of the -- it's ambitious. So maybe the Minister or the department can speak a little bit to are they one of the bigger departments using the Indigenous Gateway Program; is there a way that that could be more fostered, any comments around that? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.