Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, today I’m going to be talking about something that obviously shocked the North. Unfortunately, this is a shocking event that happened in Whitehorse but nonetheless it’s our northern family. That is the Rusk family who unfortunately were involved in a tragedy dealing with a silent, tasteless and odourless killer called carbon monoxide. Again, on behalf of the Assembly, our hearts go out to the family.
With that in mind, carbon monoxide obviously takes on a new role when a tragedy does occur. Most recently we’ve heard of a recent tragedy even in Whati. It’s unfortunate that a tragedy has to come forward for us to create awareness of this silent killer.
I realize that National Building Codes are part of the standards of which the territorial government will endorse and I know that there has been some work in 2010 regarding updates to this code. That said, I have a question for the Minister of MACA, Mr. McLeod. We can’t do a lot with regard to a lot of the building codes in terms of residential housing and I won’t be addressing that in this question, but for public housing my question for the Minister is: Do we have a policy in place for carbon monoxide detectors, and if so, what is it?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, we feel badly for the events that took place in Whitehorse and we never want to see that in any units anyplace in the Northwest Territories. I have been giving the department direction to see about the policy to see what our standards are and see they can be enforced. I’m just in the process of gathering the information right now and until I have the information gathered, I’ll take the Member’s question as notice.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Minister has taken the question as notice. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
