Vince McKay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document: Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 186-20(1): Addressing Erosion in Aklavik. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I have. And currently, as I stated, they are being housed through the disaster assistance program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the thing to remember here is the disaster assistance program is a federal program. And just to be clear, it clearly states in the policy, for the disaster assistance policy, that it is not an insurance program. Residents who have no insurance that have been affected by the wildfire are being taken care of. They are being housed by the program. So they are being housed until -- I believe right now until the end of August pending some more communication with the DFAA.

I will add, though, Mr. Speaker, that we have to remember that the wildfire -- fire insurance is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The pathfinders are the GNWT resources people on the ground to assist residents who may be involved in an emergency like flooding and fires. Their goal is to help the residents navigate the GNWT system and assist them in finding resources to help them during the time in need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've had lots of discussion with the department. MACA had lots of communications with the department and the public safety staff. I've personally spoke to the public safety Minister. And I think we've exhausted all avenues in regards to assisting uninsured properties in Enterprise. Just keep in mind that they are being housed through disaster assistance support. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to congratulate Hay River residents and a couple from my riding. They are newlyweds, after 47 years of living together, two children, four grandchildren, one great grandchild - David Gauthier and Sheryl Maurice decided to tie the knot yesterday, and I would like to wish them all the best as the newlywed married couple. And for their honeymoon, they spent it at the ballpark involved in a slowpitch game.

I'd also like to take the time to wish all the Members here in the House, all the Legislative Assembly staff, all the staff that we don't normally see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The ICS program is a nationally and internationally recognized program. It's a common one that's used for these types of incidents. I'm interested in looking at this and seeing what we can do to develop it; however, I don't know what our grounds are on fully dictating to the communities what their EMO structures may look like. But at the end of the day, the department does work with the communities to establish these guidelines and assist them in developing them, which also includes recommending the type of training and offering some free training to the communities so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, with the Act and the regulations, we don't have detail to that level; however, I am looking forward after the afteraction review is complete to reviewing all these documents to see what changes need to or may need to be changed. Currently, MACA does offer the incident command system training, the ICS100, to all community levels, but we do not mandate it at that time. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we pretty much already do a lot of that stuff. We do offer the communities support with the development of the emergency plans and also provide the training. So yes, I will consider what the Member's requesting. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I'm aware of is nothing has been fully done or looked at yet until the afteraction review is complete that we're currently doing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.