Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to public safety beginning on page 362. Are there any other questions? Yes, I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, as I've spoken about in this sitting, there are a lot of folks in the territory who are struggling with extremely high property insurance renewals and, unfortunately, my inquiries to the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance have not proved very fruitful in that regard. We don't really have a lot of legislative levers under the Insurance Act. However, we do have, in this section, consumer affairs and MACA has this really fun brochure that says, hey, that's not fair - a Guide to Consumer Protection in the NWT. And I was reading through it, and I'm not really sure if when someone gets an extreme hike from an insurance company that that could be covered by this consumer affairs protection part of MACA, and I thought I'd let the Minister clarify. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is a good question. I think we'll have to take that back and get a response for you if that's okay, to get that clarified and see if we can get that for you. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Well, thank the Minister for that, and I hope that there is some levity that he might be able to offer residents of the Northwest Territories. I recognize many of our insurance companies do not operate in the Northwest Territories so it might be -- prove very difficult for the department but any information he can share, greatly appreciated. More a comment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to continue on. I'm going -- is there any other Members that have questions? Okay. Seeing none, no further questions, please turn to page 363.
Municipal and Community Affairs, public safety, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $3,208,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to the regional operation -- operations, beginning on page 366. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 367.
Municipal and Community Affairs, regional operation, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $105,543,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to sport and recreation and youth beginning on page 370. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 371.
Municipal and Community Affairs, sport and recreation and youth, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $7,199,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. There are additional information items on page 375 to 377. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam -- or oh, my gosh, I'm used to a different Member. Mr. Chair. My apologies.
Can the Minister please explain the difference -- how they go about estimating revenue from the lottery revenue on page 375? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
I'll ask Gary to respond to this, the deputy minister, please.
Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the lottery fund revenues, I mean, a lot of it is based on historical information of what we've seen and also trends in Western Canada, so we're part of the Government of Western Canada Lottery Act, and essentially, you know, our sales tend to stay fairly static in the North. We see marginal increases when there's significant jackpots. So you see a lot more jackpots at 50, 60, $70 million, and that brings more money into the coffers. However, we're also seeing increase costs related to delivery of the program, similar to other areas that we've heard of. Transportation has gone up, and we're mailing stuff all over the North, so we do see our expenditures go up as well. And even in the rent costs that we're seeing an increase. So the numbers have stayed fairly static. You'll see that in 2023-2024 there was a significant decrease which is directly related to the evacuation of Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, three of the biggest users. So other than that, we do use basically historical type information for estimating the revenue going forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's a lot of information and great, that explains everything I wanted to know.
I do have one further question. I note that the clean water and wastewater fund on page 377 has been deleted, similar to other departments that have participated in this work. I know HSS has found money to continue and is looking for continued funding around that work. My question to the Minister is will MACA still be participating in assisting HSS with this work? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are, yes.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
That's great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Next on my list I have got the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am keenly interested in gaming in the Northwest Territories and how we can expand our gaming revenues in particular because there is unregulated gambling going on in -- online right now as we speak, which is unprotected, the consumers are not safe from potentially bad actors who are offering those services online. Many of these are offshore operators using dark money, etcetera. It's a very -- it's a very shady space, and we could be in the business of regulating this stuff that's already going on in our communities and bringing in some additional revenues to be used to, you know, fund our addictions programs, for example, or our youth and sport programs or arts programs or whatever have you. Is there any desire from the department to pursue taxing and regulating gaming in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I hit the bonus question here. I'm happy to continue to work with the Member on this initiative. I mean, this is a -- this is something that has been brought up already and having gone through a couple little information sessions, it really opens your eyes at what's actually happening out there. So the department is working with -- sorry, the department has reviewed the information, and we're continuing to investigate it, if you will, so we're going to see what's next steps and where to take it. And I believe the department has -- is it Ms. Barber? I'm trying to remember -- yes, Ms. Barber, to reach out and work with -- or get more information from her or talk to her about the next steps kind of thing. So looking forward to more discussions on that topic. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you to the Minister for that. I am appreciating the collaboration on this.
Now just so that the public's aware, this could be worth as much as 7 to $8 million of additional revenue for basically turning on a switch, a regulatory or legislative switch, with no cost to the taxpayer. And that's revenue, again, that could be used to deal with any matter of things. Of course, there are some social issues related to gambling in any jurisdiction, and these revenues could be used to address some of that in addition to providing much needed supports to other programs. In the Minister's correspondence, which I appreciate that the Minister maintains, Mr. Chair, an open mind to this and wants to continue to work, there is some concern around resourcing and potential costs in developing this initiative and consultations. Is there sufficient resources in the department to conduct this in an expedient manner? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comments and, you know, to be honest, no, we don't have the resources within the department. But that being said, if -- I mean, if it shows that we have the opportunity to take in some, you know, good revenue, I'm sure we can find a way to stand up a position. But that's something we'd have to bring forward after investigating more of this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. Is there a timeline that the Minister can provide when they expect to be in a position to make that decision? I'm just -- it doesn't have to be exacting but just a range of, you know, six months, a year. I'm just getting a sense because I've been working on this with my own kind of independent researcher, including Ms. Barber, for about a fyear fbnow, and -- or less than a year, but, you know, a period of time, and we've made a lot of good connections. We've done a lot of good work in pulling options together. So if I get a sense of that, again, I'm happy to continue to work with the Minister, but I'm just wondering what timeline I could expect, and our friends we've engaged with can expect, so we can continue to support the department in this work. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I don't have any timing, and I can't give any timing. I think right now with the department, you know, we're prioritizing what we're doing, and with the anticipated release of the afteraction review, I think we kind of have to watch where we're setting ourselves or putting ourselves thin and staff, so there is no timeline right now. Thank you, Mr. Chair
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. No, I appreciate the honesty there. And as I said previously, that's exactly where I want the department's focus to be, so I'll just continue to encourage the Minister to reach out, and we'll continue to work on this. There's other ways to move public policy forward in our system, including working with Regular Members. I'm happy to provide whatever support to the department to make this initiative a success and, again, to tax and regulate what's already going on, keep people safe, fund the fight against addictions, and bring some much-needed revenue into government coffers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll take that as a comment. I'm going to continue on. Are there any further questions?
Seeing none, Members, please return to -- return now to the department summary found on page 399 with information items on page 340 to 342. Are there any questions?
Seeing no further questions, committee, I will now call the department summary on Municipal and Community Affairs, operations expenditure total, total department, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $128,520,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move the chair rise and report progress.
Thank you, committee. Committee, do you agree that we concluded the summary for Municipal and Community Affairs? Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move the chair rise and report progress.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witness from the chambers. Committee, we will now move to the -- or sorry, that's it.
---Carried
Report of Committee of the Whole. Member from the Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
