Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is right. There is an agreement with the Government of Canada to support the Flood and Shoreline Erosion Mitigation Plan for the community of Tuktoyaktuk under the National Disaster Mitigation Program. We continue to work with the federal government and, as I mentioned, I was at an FTP meeting not too long ago where we were focusing on trying to get more support for some of these types of federal dollars. I do believe that it should be completed in March. Obviously, we just had a new election in Tuktoyaktuk not too long ago, and we are just getting their new...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2019-2020 Main Estimates for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. Overall, the department's main estimates propose an increase of $3,236,000 from the 2018-2019 Main Estimates, which is a 3 percent increase.

The 2019-2020 Main Estimates reflect:

an increase of $111,000 to support the need for increased grants in lieu of property taxes payments to community governments; and

an increase of $1,400,000 for community governments to support their operational needs and the delivery of water and sewer services, which continues our support to...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to inform the Member and all Members that we are strongly advocating for this asset management in all the communities, and all the other programs that we do provide. This weekend, I think, is going to be an opportunity to provide the services that MACA delivers to our partners. I just wanted to ensure the Member that we are on top of this and that it is something that is, I think, going to help us move forward in terms of the work and the support that we provide to our municipal governments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As previously said, we are still waiting for the bill to pass through and working with our municipal governments on an implementation plan. We've got to look at the resources. We've got to look at the types of training. We are going to be playing a pretty major role in this, and we want to make sure that we do it right, so we have been having those discussions, and concerns have been brought up by specifically the City of Yellowknife. At this moment, we don't have one right now, but we are going to be looking at creating an implementation plan for this act. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is something that we can really put some more work in. I'll just asked my deputy minister here, but what I can't provide Members is the amount of consumer affairs concerns that we have had, how they have been dealt with, and then also making sure that we can, I guess you could say, do more of an advocacy role on our websites and through our regional offices.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is correct in terms of the Small Communities Fund. What I can do and will commit to is I will share the information and the allocations of that funding with Members so that they know what their communities are getting in their ridings.

We have been working with our partners within the NWTAC. Since I have taken this role on, I have sat down with them, the executive, and have had these discussions. We continue to lobby the federal government. We are creating a strategy, a strategy that we have been working on for a number of years. As I mentioned, you know, I will be open. This government is not going to be able to, probably, close that funding gap. The next government might not be able to close the funding gap, or the government after that. I mean this is something that we've got to address, and some of these are long-term...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, we would facilitate a discussion. That is really up to the communities, in terms of when they work on their community plans. We would facilitate it, and we would work with the other departments that are associated to address those concerns. Obviously, that is something that we would like to work on in terms of addressing the economic development in our communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Same answer for the South Slave. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will continue to work with the Department of Justice to address some of these concerns and look at how we can offset some of the training costs. Thank you.