Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated when I opened my questioning, that I wasn’t looking for anyone to blame, I was just looking for some answers so we can come up with some type of solution. In speaking to the family members of the lady that had the trouble, you know, they’re also looking for answers. So I’d like to ask the Minister, has he asked for an inquiry or an internal investigation into the incident to be sure that further incidents like this don’t happen again? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for the past few days I’ve been speaking on the travel with medical travel and I’ve paid particular interest to the case of a lady from Inuvik who had experienced some difficulty while being transported in a taxi. My intent, Mr. Speaker, is not to blame anybody. It’s to see if we can find the problem and find solutions. That’s why I’ve been questioning Mr. Miltenberger. Providing on-the-ground transportation should be an essential service. It should not be a business and a lot of people give him business then they will tend to cut a few corners so...

Mr. Speaker, each airport facility operates under federal legislation and is required to have an emergency plan. There are only four communities, I believe, that have backup generators and that’s Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik, and Norman Wells. In the case of the smaller communities, the flare pots are the acceptable process and fall within the legislation that we are required to follow and that’s what we use in the case of an emergency. We don’t have a plan to put in emergency generators in any of these communities. In fact, the communities that had the emergency generators, in the case of...

Mr. Speaker, in the case of the communities where they don’t have emergency backup generators for their airports, we expect the communities to use the flare pots that are available. In the event that there is a power outage or an emergency, that is the process that’s in place and that is acceptable for the federal legislation in the airports act. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the gravel revolving stockpile fund was wound down in 1999. Investment for gravel requirements have been built into the municipal community government budgets. In the case of Tuktoyaktuk, there are no specific projects that we can point to at this point. I don’t have any listed that require gravel. We don’t have any plans to bring any stockpile into that community either from the Department of Transportation or from MACA. Having said that, there is a need across the Territories for assistance to look at the issue of gravel. We are working with other departments to put...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been ongoing growth in private and commercial vehicle use due to resource development. The climate is warming and bringing more precipitation and more variable weather patterns. Our transportation infrastructure is aging. The severity of each of these factors is expected to increase into the future. These factors are forcing the department to increase the operation and maintenance efforts.

Mr. Speaker in the past, the department’s own maintenance forces worked a standard 40-hour week, Monday through Friday. Maintenance requirements occurring in...

Mr. Chair, I guess to answer the first question about whether this money is enough to clean up the site, no. The Finance Minister has indicated there is more to do. We are not exactly sure the extent of the contamination. The swimming pool was built on a fuel storage site that was owned by the government. We are not sure if it was our government or the federal government. We are looking into that at this point. It may be significant; we don’t know. The winter weather didn’t allow us to explore far enough to see how badly the contamination was, but it is a huge area.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our policy as per our agreement with the federal government allows us to recruit up to 85 percent of these expenditures. In the case of Good Hope, it was towards eight houses that were damaged by flood and there was severe contamination by sewer and other chemicals in that area. They were declared unfit for human habitation. We decided to pay for 100 percent of the repairs and allow the homeowners to go back to the houses. These people didn’t have HAP houses, so we will be paying for anything over and above 85 percent. Our policy only allows us to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have already heard from the Member; he sent us a letter. We have flagged this as an issue we'd like to discuss with the NWT Association of Communities, and I'd rather have that discussion before I make any decisions whether we're going to move forward on this issue or not. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for a little clearer answer. I agree with the Minister that coordination is a big part of it. I wasn't questioning sending the patients south to the city, my questions were based on sending people to Yellowknife and that seems to be where there's a real lack of communication, Mr. Speaker. Too many people are being left out in the cold when they get to Yellowknife. They're sitting at the airport for three hours. We can talk for hours on the stories we hear. So I'd like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services to demand his...