Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, many of our communities in the North are very young compared to other jurisdictions. A lot of our communities are not even 60 years in existence, and we are struggling to meet the infrastructure requirements. We have just recently done an assessment of all our communities across the Territories. We recognize that there are a lot of infrastructure needs and we're not meeting them, especially in the small communities. It's good to hear that a representative from a tax-based-municipality would encourage us to spend more money in the smaller communities.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, active living has been a priority for this government for some time and we’ve increased the pressures on ourselves to commit more and more to stimulate that whole area. We have been focussing on the smaller communities. We have put in a multi-purpose hall in the community of Nahanni Butte. We have also been working with the community to put up a youth centre. So it’s not as if we have been ignoring the community. At this point, with our current standards and criteria, the community doesn’t have a population for a gymnasium. We want to be able to review...

Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure if I’m understanding the question correctly, but we are doing it already. We’re paying for all of what the Member has pointed out with our own sources. Right now, with the transfer of revenues from the property taxes, the communities will enjoy revenues that they don’t currently get and without the burden of the administration for the interim. At some point we’d like the communities to take it on and we will require additional resources, but at this point we are looking at doing it ourselves through the departments of Municipal and Community Affairs and Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is quite right; there are a number of different components to this whole initiative that we have to work out over the next while. The issue of property taxes being transferred or reverted to the communities in terms of a grant is something that we plan to do in this next fiscal year. We are not planning to change how we collect those fees at this point. The Department of Finance will continue to collect them and we will provide those monies to the communities that they’re collected in, in the form of a grant. So we’re planning to use our own forces, our own...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think we would have all our review completed before the end of this session. I would point out, however, to the honourable Member, that the village was operating in the capacity of a village for some time. It has only been in the last while that they have been experiencing some problems. There have been programs to provide subsidy to a number of communities. This community has been one of them. We want to take a good look at it. Let’s find out where the problem is. If there is a problem, is it how the village spends its money? Is it the formula? What...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the last little while, we have had very good success in negotiating new pools of money for the communities to deal with some of the infrastructure deficit that we are facing. We have had an agreement or we received assurance that the money for the gas taxes is going to be rolled out in a certain way. That formula has been shared with us. We know we are going to get $37.5 million over the next five years under that program. We also heard today the Finance Minister announce that we will be looking at a base funding for capital for communities of $25...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, Mr. Roland, Mr. Krutko and myself had the privilege of attending the Inuvik Regional Health and Social Services long service awards. With so much talk these days of trying to recruit and retain health care professionals, it was encouraging to see so many people honoured for the service that they have provided to the regions. Honoured for 10 years, Mr. Speaker, were Jacqueline Doucette, Lucy Geno-Heath, Julie Rivard, Agnes Allen, and Michelle Lennie. Honoured for 15 years' service, Mr. Speaker, were Jane Baryluk, Olive Binder, Pat Grandy, Clara Phillips and...

Mr. Speaker, I’m trying to figure out which community would turn down money. If the community does not want to take the grant that we provide, that we collected in terms of property taxes, they don’t have to. We’re not forcing it on anybody. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I said the new initiative was a good idea, I didn’t say it was going to solve all our problems.

Mr. Speaker, we do have a number of communities like Fort Resolution, Fort Liard and Fort Providence where we have concerns raised by the community regarding property taxes and aboriginal rights. A number of things are factored in there. We have offered to these communities to go in, do an assessment; have a team of people go in and do the assessment. Up to now we’ve been told by the community of Fort Providence not to bother doing that. They don’t want our property tax assessment team...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, Mr. Speaker, we are not resisting. We have entered into discussions. We have initiated a study to look at the pros and cons of hamlet versus village. We want to be able to assure the community that the funding formula is calculated fairly and also that the money is factored in. All of the components that have to be factored in are also fair. This year, 2005-06, we are reviewing our community government funding policy, and we will be looking at all of the different communities to see how this rolls out and see which communities are being affected negatively....