Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We respect the intent of this motion. However, we have made a number of changes over the last number of years, I think, that made it a lot easier for those that are struggling to maintain their residence.

Somebody talked about making life easier. I think we’ve done that. Somebody mentioned a single mother and we use the example of a single mother who’s working, under the old system she was paying close to $900. Under the new system she’s paying just over $300, so that’s a significant savings that she could apply back to putting food on the table for her family. So we...

The bantam hockey and female hockey will be held in Iqaluit. That was an agreement that the host society had made with Iqaluit. One of the suggestions that we made during our meeting with the TSOs is if we were to have hockey as part of our satellite games, then we would like to see all divisions of hockey, whether it be in Iqaluit or any other jurisdiction, but we would like to see all divisions of hockey be held at the same time as the other sports that have been excluded. They’re very receptive to that, and that would be their preference also.

We had the opportunity to meet with the presidents of the affected sports organizations. It was a very productive meeting. They had expressed their concerns on the sports that were excluded from the games. We had committed to them that we were going to have a meeting again with the Arctic Winter Games International Committee again this spring to look at the options that the Arctic Winter Games International Committee has come up with, and compare them to our options to see if we can find some common ground. It was a very productive meeting, and they had many good suggestions from the...

One of the concerns we heard from the TSOs was the fact that they’d be losing almost six years of development as far as our young athletes go. This may affect some of their funding also. We have to recognize that and we have to ensure that we don’t lose this group of athletes.

As far as the hockey goes, they have an agreement with Iqaluit to host those two events. We would like to have all hockey events in the same location if we do have a satellite game. We are in regular contact with our counterparts in Nunavut and the Yukon. They have the same concerns we have. Alaska and Northern Alberta...

Due to the lack of facilities in the host community in 2016, the six sports that were dropped, some of the options that we came up with – and it’s a discussion we had with the Arctic Winter Games International Committee – is possibly having a satellite location where these six affected sports would have an opportunity to compete as Arctic Winter Games athletes, and flying the Arctic Winter Games colours and using the Arctic Winter Games uniforms. The TSOs had suggested that would be their main priority, is to ensure our kids have the Arctic Winter Games experience and that’s one that we will...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a great honour to recognize my wife of 33 years, Judy, who is with us in the gallery today. It’s nice to have you here.

It is our goals, and I think we’re starting to see the effects of different types of emergency today that some communities may have not seen in the past. As I pointed out before, we have 12 communities that have updated plans and we have to work very closely with those 18 communities to update their plans. They do have plans, but we just need to update them. The three without, I mean, we’ll have to basically get on their case to make sure that they ask us to come in and help them work out their emergency plans.

It would be our desire by this time next year to have all 33 communities with a...

As part of working with the communities on their emergency preparedness plan, hazards would be identified and we’d work closely with those communities to try and see how we can work around those and have them best prepared to handle any emergencies that might come about. We’ve got about 12 communities that have fully updated their emergency plans. We have 18 that need a little bit of updating, we’re working with them. We still have three communities that are without emergency plans and we have to work very closely with them to ensure that they get plans put into place.

The fire assessments are done by our assistant fire marshals that are out in every region. They go into the communities and work with the communities to identify their needs and training opportunities. As far as emergency planning goes, we go in and work with communities to assist them in putting together their emergency plans. As far as the emergency plan goes, the community usually is the lead on that and MACA is support.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of September 21st we’ve had 28 of the 33 communities that have updated their fire assessment plans and we’re trying to work with the other five to have their assessment done as quickly as possible.