Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to provide my colleagues with an update on the status of the joint work being undertaken by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and the Department of Health and Social Services on ground ambulance and highway rescue services.

Over the past several years, community governments and other stakeholders have raised concerns about the lack of a comprehensive, coordinated system of ground ambulance and highway rescue services in the Northwest Territories, and about the need for clarity with regard to service levels, responsibility for service...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of different funding sources that we provide to the communities for assistance that they could use in the area of water facilities and infrastructure. That is the gas tax, the municipal rural infrastructure fund and the new capital dollars that we have provided. Mr. Speaker, we also have our staff work with communities to leverage any federal funding that might be available. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as part of the New Deal, we transferred our capital dollars over to the community to decide and prioritize their projects. I’ve not seen the proposal for the Tlicho. However, as I indicated, I’d need to see what the business case is for this project and where the dollars were planned to be allocated from and what we can do for them. I’d gladly have our staff sit down and review that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, education is one of the most important issues we deal with in the Northwest Territories. Education is the key to our future. It is the key to the future of a lot of people across the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, earlier in the summer, I had the opportunity, as we do most summers at the end of the school year, to attend the graduation ceremony of Grade 12s. We also get to attend the Aurora College convocation ceremonies. It always gives us a great deal of pride to attend these and see a lot of people going through the program.

One of the most...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, will be voting in favour of this motion we put forward. I commend the Minister and his department for bringing this forward. I believe they want to do the right thing. We want them to do the right thing. The whole of the Northwest Territories wants us to do the right thing. The right thing is to get these people off the streets and, as the bill says, make the neighbourhood safer. But at the same time, our committee was given this bill and we were asked to bring it out and listen to what people had to stay. I thought we did that.

It has been a tough couple...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that answer. It is encouraging to hear that we are hoping to make some changes within the next year, but we have been hearing from the people across the Territories that are going to school here for a few years now, so we should base our decision on what they are saying and not what we are hearing from somewhere else. I would like to ask the Minister if this is a decision that has to be made through legislation or is it a policy decision that he can just sign off before his term is up? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we would sit down and evaluate the ask. Mr. Speaker, we have had some discussion on this. There are still a number of options out there. However, if there is infrastructure investment required and it is something that the community can’t handle, we would certainly want to work with them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it was demonstrated that the need was an emergency, we would certainly consider it. In this instance, there may be other options. There may be treatment options. The municipality has also indicated that they may have to look at settling ponds. So we would really have to be convinced that this is an emergency. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d gladly meet with the chief. In fact, I had a discussion with him this morning. I guess it would be providing that we can match our schedules over the next while and I’d be glad to work with the Member to try to set that up, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we’d be glad to sit down with the community of Behchoko to review the options to do more work on this piece of infrastructure. However, I’d like to remind the Member that the community capacity fund was indicated to be one-time funding only and with no ongoing support. There is some other programs that we may be able to target or maybe allow for some of the shifting of their infrastructure funding or lever some federal funding. I would have to sit down with the community and see what’s available and what the plans are. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.