Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this immediate time, since the Auditor General report was submitted, our Office of the Fire Marshal has been going into communities, working with each community, with their fire departments, to assess their fire departments and their needs to address fires at this time, and will continue right through until every community is done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, the assessment to land is taking into consideration not only the land, but all infrastructure that is on the land. I will use Yellowknife. If you buy a lot in Yellowknife, you might be looking at a couple of hundred thousand, but once you put a trailer onto that or a unit onto that, it does increase the market value of that property. That is taken into consideration.

All of the recommendations within the Auditor General's report are being implemented. We have said that many times through standing committee, in the House, whenever the questions have come up. We are committed to addressing all of the recommendations that were identified in that. We were actually working with the community of Norman Wells, prior to the Auditor General's report, on assessing their fire needs. Our Office of the Fire Marshal is working diligently at this time, going into the communities to assess their needs, to reassess their needs, to define what is needed, to support them in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member's question about why we have been assigned this task is a little bit confusing. I don't know the history on why Municipal and Community Affairs was assigned that. My guess would be that we are Municipal and Community Affairs and our job is to make sure that the communities have the supports that they need. Assessing them would be considered one of those supports. Again, though, I wasn't here back in the day when it was originally assigned to Municipal and Community Affairs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are standards for fire provision within the Northwest Territories. Our Office of the Fire Marshal works closely with the communities to develop safety plans in that regard. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The questions that were asked of me did not say that I wasn't working. I don't believe that I am failing at addressing the issue. I do know that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is actually working diligently on this issue at this time. We are supporting the community. We are assessing their needs and their situations. That I do know. Our job is to support the communities. When we hear there is an issue, we are in there to see what we can do for support.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must state that the Member looks very good today. The fire department in Norman Wells is something that I will have to look into. I will get back to her with that answer. It is a municipal issue; it is not a territorial issue. We provide support to the community governments. They are responsible for actually developing and maintaining their fire departments. We provide training and support for fire departments, but we don't actually look after the day-to-day operations of them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, the Member is right. We need to communicate better and we need to communicate with the communities when we are going into their communities. I know that there are some communities that listen adamantly to the question period within the House. I'm hoping that those who hear will spread the word that we are coming on March 27. I'm hoping that the MLA, when he returns to the community, will spread the word that we are coming on March 27. I do state that we will make sure that we have adequate communications going into the community to make sure that as many community members as possible...

That was another lesson that was learned actually. We still need to have diversity in our options for housing. There is still a cost savings for residents to be able to access module units versus stick-built units. There's a substantial savings with that.

We had some difficulty actually getting those units, completed or half-completed ones, onto the barges. So we did learn, and the expense was more than we expected because of the barging and the cost with that. What we have learned through that is that module units are easily done within the southern communities where we don't have to barge...

At this moment, we are working on updating the Fire Protection Act. We have identified five acts within this time that we will be working on: the Cities, Towns and Villages Act, the 911 Act, the Western Canada Lottery Act, the Fire Emergency Act, the Emergency Protection Act. It is one that we are actually working on at this moment.

Again, I didn't know that this question was going to come up. I do not know right now where we stand exactly with that, but I do know that we are working on it at this moment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.