Statements in Debates
I’m assuming that the Member means by interim measure that we provide the service until full service is available. Am I correct?
I’ll go to Ms. Young, Madam Chair.
Thank you, and we appreciate the Member’s comments. These are good courses and opportunity to bring folks from across the NWT together and talk about all the issues that face their community and try to find some solutions. So I appreciate the comments. Thank you.
As I’ve said, we’ve taken the money up every year. The Member talked about federal money. I’ll tell you one thing with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Not this Assembly, but Assemblies past, any time there’s free money from the federal government, we are at their door getting our fair share. It’s just something that we’ve always done and the government’s become quite good at.
I’ll provide the Member with the information. We’ll put something together to give him some comfort that we’ve done our work since 1980 when all this money was available and taken our fair share. We’ve used it...
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is correct.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the Member’s big concern here is to ensure that the communities are ready for future development and I’ve assured the Member that with the assistant superintendent is a decentralized effort by MACA to get more people into the regions. So we’re looking forward to some of the good work that they’re going to be doing.
Again, we will work very closely with the communities to support them in their efforts to get ready for all the work that’s coming their way. If there’s a role that MACA can play, we will support them, and I’ll make that commitment.
The Member was...
Who is responsible for a vehicle that’s on fire? I really don’t know. It would depend which jurisdiction they’re in if there’s someone in the community that responds to a fire. That’s a difficult question to answer. It may sound like a simple question, but it’s a shared responsibility, and people will react as they react when they can. If there’s a firefighting service close by, then they will respond, because nobody in the NWT is not going to respond to any kind of an emergency whether it’s their responsibility or not. If they’re available, they will respond.
Again, the purpose of the working...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to welcome a former resident of Inuvik, Mr. Dez Loreen. Welcome to the gallery, Dez.
Mr. Chair, was there a question or was that just a comment? I don’t believe I heard a question.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct. We have looked at our O and M funding in the water and sewer and as a result of forced growth, and working with communities on some of the water and sewer, funding was increased. The O and M funding is one that we still need to work on a bit, because with all the capital money and capital projects that are going into communities, the concern we’re hearing from communities is that the O and M funding is not keeping up to the amount of capital that they’ve got. Considering our fiscal situation, I think there’s only so much we can put into...