Okay, we're on page 76. Well, I think we can still go back to it.
Yes, thank you. I'm going to go to the -- we need unanimous consent from my Members on this so I'm going to put it out to the Members. Are you in agreement to go back to page 72 for the Member for Monfwi? To the Members, do we have your agreement on that? Okay, good.
Agreed.
All right, I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.
Okay, thank you. So can I get an answer for that? Large capital projects? And that's for the community operations and regional operations as well, $32 million for large capital projects. It doesn't say what it's, you know -- I mean, there's no detailed information. It's -- so I would like to know how much of this is going to be going to Tlicho region.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, so just so the Member's aware, again all these -- all the community funding goes out to the communities which they allocate through their funding -- or their capital planning, and we document it here as part of their -- as part of the large capital for the communities. But every community has their own large capital spending which we have broken up, but if we want to go by community or region for the Member at what she would like to know, yeah, we can share that. Although if you will recall, and I can do it again, but last year I sent out community fact sheets that had all that information on it with all their funds, and I can send them out again to all the Members so that they have available. But I'll actually just pass it off to deputy minister Gary Brennan here just to point out a couple things here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I remember the question correctly about communities in the region. But I do know that -- I have a listing here starting with detail. In 2026-2027, $943,000 would go to the community of Behchoko for three projects, and we had that broken down for each of the other communities, if you want me to read that there. But I think the question was for Behchoko, so. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Monfwi.
Okay. I represent four communities, so I would like to get information for all four of them. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I'll probably go to the deputy minister on that one.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. Sure, okay, so for Gameti -- and it might take me a while to talk through some of these numbers here. We have $200,000 for two different projects, 2026-2027. This is from ICIP money. These are projects that the communities applied for and were approved. I have to go through and look at the communities. Wekweeti, two projects, a total of $239,000. And Whati, two projects for $473,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.
Thank you. In Behchoko alone -- thank you for the information; I do appreciate that. In Behchoko, there's -- Behchoko Edzo, and Frank Channel, because people have been asking about that too as well that, you know, they need -- I know it's a separate. It's all considered as one community but it's still a distance. But that's up to the community government of Behchoko to determine. Another one too here is that I see on page 73 Canada housing infrastructure fund, and for Behchoko 29, 30, and Wekweeti, 27, 28. Can you explain to us what are these for? Canada housing infrastructure fund, investing Canada infrastructure program. But it has different dates on there for completion, estimate completion. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I could go through every community and give out every community's capital plan. This fund is divided up to the communities to fund their projects within the communities. So a lot of this -- like, the investing in Canada infrastructure program that she's speaking of is all distributed to the communities. We don't hold on to any of that. It's all part of their capital plan and all their developing within the communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Monfwi.
Thank you. I wasn't asking for a list; I don't want to know everything. But I just want to know what it is. That's all I asked you. Okay. So that information was good enough, okay.
And then another one too -- yeah, for sports, recreation, and youth for 2026-2027, it's a small capital projects because I know there's a cutback in that area. So what's this 51 represent, capital estimates for 2026-2027?
Okay, what I'll do is if we could, Member from Monfwi, could just maybe park that one for now because we'll come back to that question if we could. Is there any other questions on page 72 that you have? Thank you. No? Okay, mahsi.
Is there any other Members that have questions on page 72? I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member from Monfwi asking that we went back because we were moving so quick, I missed my questions. But the first question, in this capital plan how much is MACA budgeted to receive in ICIP funding, so the investing in Canada infrastructure program, just to start.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the deputy minister. Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So for this year, we're budgeted $16,650,000 for ICIP for 2026-2027, thanks.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Excellent. Thank you very much for the quick answer.
So just noting that in the 2023-2024 Public Accounts, the committee noted that MACA lapsed almost 30 percent of its budget during the last fiscal year, and that committee learned at the time that those lapses are largely related to carryovers from that fund, the federal investing in Canada infrastructure program. So with that in mind, I note -- the question I have is how will MACA ensure that funding is not lapsed and flows through efficiently to communities? So how can we ensure that the communities have the resources to spend the money that they're getting through this fund?
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A lot of it relates to reporting from the communities and capacity and the timing of projects. Like, sometimes communities may not be able to get them started right away. So these funds are all allocated. It's just a matter of reporting to transfer the funds to the communities and being able to -- yeah, essentially being able to get them reported in order to get the funds out. It's not that the funds go away. They're spoken for, and they'll get transferred to the communities once everything's in line. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay, thank you. I appreciate that answer, and I guess I would just ask back, based on that answer, I mean, what are we doing to support the communities in streamlining whatever reporting process we need to. Just because I think the bottom line here, I think we can all agree, we want this money to get spent, this is money that's coming in from the feds, it's in the communities. We absolutely want those projects getting done. So it's really just a reporting issue. I have a feeling there's a bit more to it than that. But can the Minister just discuss how the department is providing support to communities to get this funding out the door. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Yeah, thanks. I'll ask the deputy minister to answer that for me. Thank you.
I'll go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, so a couple things to add to what the Minister previously said. So we do have capital planners that work with the community governments on a regular basis, and we do every year meet with them to formalize the capital planning process. But we do also try and provide support throughout the year for smaller communities in particular. We help them with project management. We help them with the, you know, competitive procurement process type things, which can be tricky for some smaller governments for sure. And we have staff -- like, our financial staff that do work with the communities to try to help them get the reporting done as well. One of the challenges that we do have in communities is, you know, basically capacity as we offer financial training to try and help them be able to enter things properly into the system so they can do the reporting. So we have a financial workshop annually. We also have online training for finance folks, and we will also go to communities that are struggling to get their money spent -- or money -- their reporting done -- sorry, to help them try to determine what the gap is and how do we address that gap. So we do that on a regular basis with whichever communities need the assistance.
There was a question as well about what are we doing to try to reduce the carryovers. One of the things that MACA used to do was front load the budgets. So we could get a budget for, let's just say, $5 million for a project. We put it in one year, then the community has the flexibility to spend that money as they need to, but that dries up carryovers, so now we're working with communities to try to do a better job of budgeting when they plan on delivering that project so that we -- our carryovers go down, and they can spend the money, have the money budgeted for when they need it. If in the wonderful event that they spent over the annual allotment, then we would return to the House to get more appropriation for that amount if necessary, so. We've never seen that happen before, but would love to see that happen, so. That's just a few of the things that we do as a regular part of business though. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, the only question I would have following that, then, is just whether the department has a set of priorities for which -- I guess projects that are delayed by a certain amount of time and kind of ensuring that the ones that have been sitting on the list for the longest amount of time are being worked on as a priority. So does the department prioritize depending on how long a project's been sitting waiting to go, and just to ensure that we're kind of moving things off the list in an orderly manner? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With all this funding that flows through, the communities establish their priorities, and the department just supports them. So the department has the staff that support the communities with all the, yeah, infrastructure challenges they may have and capacity challenges. Thank you. Oh and deputy.
Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.
Yeah, exactly, the communities do establish priorities, but what we try to do as well is, you know, recognize and work with communities as the timelines for the end of the agreement gets near, right. So we want them to build a project. So if we do see a particular project that is staggered or can't get going for some reason, we obviously work with them on finding the rationale, but we don't prioritize it for the communities. It's their decision when to do the work. But if there are challenges with contracting, local capacity, whatever the case may be, we will step in and help it as best we can. And the only time we would try to help them make it a priority -- again, because they establish their own priorities -- is when the funding is going to run out. In the ICIP agreement, that's 2033, so we're a ways away from that. But we want to make sure they get the projects delivered at some point in time, yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay, thank you. And that's really what I meant was not so much that the department would be setting priorities on behalf of communities, but the department would be setting priorities for itself on where it's going to, you know, put its resources in terms of helping communities.
And my next question was going to be if there's any communities that are currently at risk of their funding lapsing. And it sounds like we got some time, so I take some comfort there. And those are all my questions for now, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Before I continue, is there any further questions on page 72? I'm going to go to Member from Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one question in regards to a number on page 73. I can see two of my communities in my riding there, but I don't see the community of Tsiigehtchic in this investing in Canada infrastructure program. Can you give me some details as to why Tsiigehtchic is not in this program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A lot of this stuff, again, is related to the type of funding that they've applied for, the type of projects they have going on and what funding can be applied for it -- or applied to it. And this particular funding, there is no project in the community that the community's applied for to allocate it in this pot. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. Was there any follow-up questions from the Member from Mackenzie Delta?
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you give me some examples of what kind of programs would be under this program here so I can look at -- reach out to the leadership of Tsiigehtchic and see if in the future that they do have programs that they would like to apply for. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. And just so the Member's aware, so the community already had two projects that were completed also and this particular funding is fully subscribed. And this funding pot is related to a lot of the roads, the solid waste facilities, yeah, water treatment plants, and all that stuff. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Mackenzie Delta. Is there another question? Thank you.
