Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I have had some discussions with the assistant fire marshal and he’s aware of some of the community demands. He’s more than willing to meet with the communities, identifying some of their equipment, their priorities, what needs to be improved. They’re also planning on having regional workshops, where they bring the firefighters in from the communities and have a regional workshop in Inuvik. I think that’s a great idea instead of sending them a long way. I think we’d be able to accommodate more people by having it in the region. These are initiatives that he’s got on the go and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have an assistant fire marshal in the Inuvik region that would be more than willing to go and visit the communities and work with them to do an inventory of the type of equipment they have and some of the training that they need. He’d be willing to do that and that would help the community identify some of their priorities. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will communicate to the assistant fire marshal in the Inuvik region the member’s desire to have him go into his communities. I’m sure that he will be well aware, after our discussion today, that he is needed in Nunakput. But I will communicate to him the Member’s desire and we’ll make sure that he gets up and works with the communities in identifying their firefighting equipment. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the allocation of money, we give all our money to the communities now and the communities will then do their capital plan and do their priority list. We’re having more and more communities now identifying some firefighting equipment, and their fire halls, they’re identifying those as part of their capital plans. So the Member’s communities up in Nunakput, I’m sure, once they work with the assistant fire marshal and realize what their priorities are and what equipment they need, I’m sure that they’ll take it upon themselves to identify those and start putting some money towards...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not aware of any policies that are out there, but there are some policies within the Housing Corporation where a one-year warranty usually comes for those that are constructing units for the corporation. The best advice that I can give is if the homeowner is entering into a contract with a builder, first of all make sure they are a legitimate builder and do the research on that and always make sure that you have a warranty built into the contract. If they refuse to put one in, then I would have to seriously consider signing on with that particular builder. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 11, An Act to Amend the Workers’ Compensation Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Workers’ Compensation Act to provide for a presumption in respect of certain diseases that occur more frequently among firefighters than any other workers or the general population. These diseases are slow in development and are disabling and often terminal. They appear to arise from exposure of conditions at the scene of fires. This bill identifies those diseases as listed diseases and the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had a lot of things that I wanted to say on this particular motion, but listening to all the Members talk, I think most of the things that I wanted to say are pretty well covered.

I had heard some comments about survival of our people and destroying a way of life, and talk about a traditional way of life, which is all true. I talked with some of the old-timers and they say we know nothing about the traditional way of life and how they had to go and harvest and how they had to go to look after the caribou. I always remember, in 1998, I was driving the Dempster Highway...

We’re always developing plans on how we’re going to deliver houses into the community. I think part of that plan is the process that we’re going through right now with the budget process. The Housing Corporation’s infrastructure is still a part of this particular budget, so once we review that, we’ll be able to see some of the investments that we’re making into the communities and which communities they are going into. As well, we have a table of all the money that we have through federal money that is going to the communities through major MNIs and improving the public housing stock. We have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re always looking for ways to improve the delivery of houses and especially in the communities, because that is where the greatest demand is that we’ve seen from the needs survey that was just completed on some of the demands in some of the communities. We’re always working to meet the need there. We also have concerns, as the Member has pointed out, with the number of units that are built and left vacant. We’re taking steps to address that. We are working with the communities, who are coming up with some good solutions as to how best we can use those units. We’re...

Mr. Speaker, first of all, the folks of Alberta and B.C. are covered under CMHC. The number of people that they capture is in the hundreds of thousands and we are a very small jurisdiction. It would be quite an expensive process to enact legislation to bring it forward. Do we have the resources to do that right now? There is obviously a demand for the resources, so we would have to seriously consider that before we proceed to go ahead for such a small jurisdiction. Thank you.