Mr. Speaker, we all heard in the news over the last number of weeks about the in-depth study that’s going on in Aklavik, where they’re testing all the residents of Aklavik because of the stomach cancer concerns and the high number of people with stomach cancer in that community. We as a government are responsible for the infrastructure in a lot of our communities, and a lot of the concerns in regard to the findings of this study will let us know exactly what some of the causes of this stomach cancer are in the community. The community residents have always been concerned with the water process that’s being used in regard to the treatment of water, the distribution of water and also disposable water in our communities.
H. pylori is something that’s been around for some time. I’ve raised this even going all the way back to the 13th Assembly in regard to Fort McPherson, where we had a THM outbreak in regard to the water source in that community. We now have a new water source. Again, it all comes down to this government’s commitment to ensuring that the infrastructure in all our communities, especially in aboriginal communities, are meeting the public safety standards of healthy drinking water and making sure that our public is being safely served with the water we provide.
I think it’s important that we as government not only look at water delivery as simply taking water from a source, putting it to a treatment facility, delivering it to a community or home by way of a water truck, and then disposing of it into a lagoon or our rivers and lakes. I think it’s important that this government invests and upgrades the systems we have in our communities for the outdated and obsolete that are not meeting Northern and national standards.
I believe the government of the Northwest Territories is in negotiation with the federal government for a new fund called the Building Canada Fund. At the appropriate time I will be asking the Premier questions on exactly how communities can access this fund to improve the infrastructure in the communities, especially dealing with the importance of our water treatment facilities in our communities, to ensure that all people in the N.W.T. have safe drinking water.
