N.W.T. releases plan to improve support to communities in wake of auditor general's report

The Northwest Territories' department of municipal and community affairs has released an action plan aimed at improving its support to community governments in the territory, following a scathing fall 2016 report from the Auditor General of Canada's office.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson spoke to territorial government representatives and the public Tuesday morning in Yellowknife as part of a public review of his office's report, which stated that the territorial government does not have a good handle on the state of essential services in many communities and is not doing enough to assist those falling behind.

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The report cited fire protection, waste management and emergency preparedness planning as particular areas of concern. One of the more startling findings was that MACA was unable to tell the auditors which communities had operating fire departments. 

In his remarks Tuesday morning, Ferguson also pointed out shortcomings in the territory's School of Community Government, a MACA program designed to help build capacity for governance in the territory's communities.

"Some of the school's courses were not kept up to date, nor periodically reviewed to ensure they met the needs of the community governments they were intended to serve," said Ferguson.

'We're willing to make changes'

In response to the report, MACA announced Tuesday afternoon it has completed an action plan aimed at addressing the 13 recommendations made by the auditor general's office.

The territorial government had already agreed to implement all of the recommendations made in the report. 

"We went into this audit with an open mind wanting to take the exercises and take the recommendations to heart. We wanted to take an authentic approach to addressing the areas the AG identified," said Eleanor Young, the deputy minister for MACA.

"We're willing to make changes to the action plan to reflect your feedback or from other stakeholders as we move through the process." 

The action plan identifies several specific initiatives, including developing a web-based fire training resource centre, delivering annual solid waste management training and doing an assessment of community emergency response training needs with an eye towards future training.

Eventually, the territory's contribution agreements will be amended to define who is responsible for delivering core services, though those changes will not come until 2019/2020, according to the plan.

Young explained that the audit came 10 years after communities first became responsible for delivering the services identified by the auditor general to their residents. During that time, the relationship between MACA and the communities changed, she said.

"There's been a real evolution of community governance over a short period of time," said Young. "This has changed capacity for community governments, it has increased the demands for programming despite some limited core funding from the [Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]."