ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Commitment 1.4.4 – We commit to assisting community governments as they innovate to address climate change, by supporting the development of community government capital plans and asset planning, and ensuring that training recognizes the challenges of climate change.

Background:

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) will assist community governments to address climate change issues. MACA provides training to elected officials and community government staff in a variety of community government operations both online and in traditional classroom delivery newly designed courses in climate change. The Department has expanded its training content in a number of courses to include information on climate change and energy management and efficiencies (Milestone 1).

As part of the Gas Tax Agreement, and in partnership with the Northwest Territories Association of Communities and guidance from community government representatives, MACA developed the NWT Asset Management Strategy. The Strategy is designed to be flexible and adaptable so that all community governments can make progress and move forward at their own pace to ensure successful implementation of asset management practices. The Strategy will work towards communities having the necessary support to meet basic maintenance requirements and extend the useful life of their infrastructure, as well as taking into account new building technologies, energy efficiencies and conservation and climate change. MACA compiled a series of preventative maintenance activities through the Asset Management program (Milestone 2).

The NWT Asset Management Strategy was released in May 2016 and MACA is currently working with 10 community governments to pilot electronic asset management software. MACA will begin implementing changes to the municipal capital planning process to highlight climate change adaptation best practices for community governments (Milestone 3).

Federal Funding is also available through the National Disaster Mitigation Program (NDMP) to help reduce potential damage to municipal infrastructure from reoccurring flood events. MACA provides community governments with information and support to access NDMP to address rising flood risks and costs (Milestone 4). In addition to the NDMP, MACA will provide support and prepare tools for community governments to update their emergency plans to address risks associated with climate change. (Milestone 5 & 6).

Related Mandate Commitments:

• Commitment 3.3.3 – We will assist community governments to improve energy efficiency and conservation, to reduce the impact of climate change by supporting development of community governments’ capital and asset plans, to ensure training includes challenges related to climate change, and enable community governments to use local improvement charges for the purpose of assisting residents and/or businesses in implementing energy efficiency retrofits and/or renewable energy technologies.
• Commitment 5.4.4 – We will continue to pursue and assist communities in accessing new federal funding for the enhancement of community government infrastructure, including implementing the asset management framework through the Gas Tax Agreement to ensure that all communities have asset management plans.
• Commitment 5.4.9 – We will assist community governments with technical assistance in identifying energy efficiency improvements for community government buildings and taking action to improve energy efficiency.