COST OF LIVING

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, energy 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.

Background

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) will assist community governments to address energy management and improve energy efficiencies.  MACA serves on the Arctic Energy Alliance (AEA) Board and has developed a strong partnership with the organization in the area of community energy planning, energy audits, and representing the community government interests with energy management.

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. Content will include topics related to capital and asset management plans and funding of energy management initiatives.

In partnership with the Northwest Territories Association of Communities and guidance from community government representatives, MACA developed the NWT Asset Management Strategy, 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.

The NWT Asset Management Strategy was released in May 2016 (Milestone 1). MACA is working with 10 communities to pilot electronic asset management software called Web Work Azzier (Milestone 2). MACA compiled a series of preventative maintenance activities through the Asset Management program for community governments (Milestone 3).

The City of Yellowknife has proposed amendments be made to the Cities, Towns and Villages Act (CTV) to allow Local Improvement Charges to be used for energy projects. MACA completed research and conducted focus groups with elected officials and staff from each of the six MTA communities to inform the decision needed to enable legislation for energy retrofits  (Milestone 4).

Related Mandate Commitments:

• 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.
• 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.