Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to say a few words to this motion. I want to thank Mr. Abernethy for making this motion on the floor here for discussion. I want to say that I will support the family’s request to look at this incident and ask the government here to strongly consider an internal investigation into what happened. The family does want to know the truth of this and they want to make sure that this type of incident doesn’t happen anymore or doesn’t occur anymore at Stanton Hospital. To prevent it, they want to make sure that no other family could go through this if they can prevent it. That’s what they’re looking for.
I want to ask the Minister and this government here to give serious consideration to help the family, help the brothers, help the mother. It’s a very difficult time for the family, especially for the mother. The mother wants answers. Nothing worse than not getting answers for the mother. There are thousands of questions out there. Give some peace to the family and know that no other family in the Northwest Territories will be going through what the mother’s going through or the family’s going through. There’s no brain here. I think they want the answers. They want the truth. They want to prevent further incidents like this happening at any health centre in the Northwest Territories.
I have not yet heard the reason why government is denying this. I do not know why there were no recommendations coming out from the internal review. Something serious happened at one of our facilities. It’s a publicly run facility for everybody. Surely the family has rights and the people have rights in the Northwest Territories. They need to know it must be very hard on the family.
We should do the right thing, as my colleague for Kam Lake has said, and help this family and get this government to look at the truth of it. Is it us afraid of the truth? Is it the incident the family may be able to deal with the truth? We need to look at it and make sure this will prevent, God forbid, other families to deal with this type of incident with our government.
I want to again thank the Member. I will be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve listened, with interest, to all the comments of my colleagues and I do appreciate Mr. Abernethy and the support that’s being shown here for the Leishman family. However, I will support the motion because this incident does deserve to be looked into and deserves to have a report provided to the family. But for Member after Member who has stood up and suggested that there has been something untruthful happen here, I resent that. That is pre-empting the results of an investigation. If the Members all on this side of the House already think that somebody has done something untruthful -- I keep hearing it. The truth, the truth. From what I understand from Mr. Abernethy’s statement is the truth, is the patient was brought into the hospital, was put into a room for assessment, the door was not locked, the patient left the room, the patient went into the kitchen, the patient took a knife and injured himself. I understand that is the truth.
Now, what the hospital could have done differently to prevent something like that from happening, I’m not sure we can afford enough guards on the kitchen or on the door of the patients when they come to the hospital to ensure that something like that never happened. How many guards would it take?
I think that the family is deserved respect. I think they deserve full disclosure of everything that happened that day. But I do resent the insinuation of Members on this side of the House who think that this is a cover-up and that something untruthful has happened.
As I have stood in this House and said before, this is not unfamiliar to me. As I just said a few weeks ago, my own sister took a bottle of sleeping pills, went out in a vehicle without a seatbelt on and ran her car into a concrete abutment and killed herself, essentially. It took her five days to die, but she killed herself. That’s a very unfortunate circumstance. I don’t know what could have changed that, but I’m not blaming the health care providers, the psychiatrists, the in-hospital outpatient program she was going into that it didn’t help her. It’s a tragic, tragic thing. It’s horrible that a family has to go through things like this and live with this.
I am going to support Mr. Abernethy’s motion because, as I said, the family deserves the respect and full disclosure on this incident. What we do about that as a government and as a hospital I assure you that people could have come into the hospital with a knife and brought it with them. We don’t have guards there. We don’t have metal detectors. They could have brought a gun into the hospital for all I know. Anybody can walk in the front door of Stanton any time of day or night and there’s nobody to check you or see what you have planned or what’s in mind.
Anyway, I don’t know what the solution’s going to be. I guess we’ll leave that up... I will support the motion but, like I said, I resent the constant reference on this side of the House to something being untruthful in this matter.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. With that, I will allow the mover of the motion closing comments. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have in front of me here today a letter from Margaret Leishman from Kakisa Lake to the Members of this Legislative Assembly regarding a request for a public, external, independent investigation regarding the incident that took place on November 4, 2009, to Allisdair “Azzie” Murray Leishman. I’m going to read it for you.
On November 4th -- and these are Margaret’s own words.
On November 4, 2009, an incident took place in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Stanton Regional Hospital that changed the life of my son Allisdair Murray Leishman. This incident left him severely brain damaged and disabled for life. It is my understanding that the following occurred:
On the day that this took place he was seen shovelling snow in his driveway. It was very cold; at least minus 25 degrees Celsius. Later that day he was seen by another person inadequately dressed for the weather and acting strange. This person knew him and immediately called the RCMP. He later arrived at his cousin’s house. Upon arrival he was inadequately dressed for the weather and in an evident mental state of confusion. His feet appeared frozen and, in the absence of any smell of alcohol, his cousin immediately called an ambulance and then me to inform me to come as she knew instinctively that something was severely wrong.
When he was picked up by the ambulance attendants he was coherent and cooperative when he left with them. He was then taken to the hospital and left in the emergency room receiving area. Next he was put in a room without supervision and, because a door was left ajar, he left. He ran out of the hospital and the hospital staff called the RCMP. They were already looking for him because of an earlier call from another relative who had seen him and were concerned about his safety.
Azzie then returned to where he was on his own and asked for a glass of water. I don’t know which desk they were referring to. When the nurse went to get the water, Azzie apparently left again. He was gone when she returned. The nurse said he was running through the hospital. It is my understanding a few minutes later a Code White and a Code Blue were made over the intercom. He had made his way down the hall and into the kitchen part of the hospital through an unlocked door where they prepare food. There, in front of staff, he was able to obtain a knife and stabbed himself in the chest.
I was told that the hospital medical team was not hasty coming to the aid of my son, who was lying in a pool of blood on the floor in the kitchen. From what I was told and understand, apparently those who could have helped my son that day were in a meeting and did not hear the pages. The person that did answer the page was not part of the medical team. He was a maintenance man. This man took upon himself to get help that was being requested by the kitchen staff. It was also mentioned to me that, unfortunately, there were no security personnel in place that day. Again, this is my understanding and without a public external investigation I will never know, nor will my family know, exactly what took place on the day of November 4, 2009.
Twenty-five minutes after receiving the first call in Kakisa Lake, Margaret’s home community, a second call came. It was the call no family ever wants to hear. I was told my son was on an operating table fighting for his life. And she lives five hours away. He was later medevaced to Edmonton Royal Alexandra Hospital to be stabilized. He was there from the 4th of November to the 9th of December, and was transferred back to Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife and put on the third floor medicine ward where they treat communicable illnesses.
This was of great concern to me as he was in a very fragile and vulnerable condition. It is my belief that many felt he would not live. Regardless of this, he lived because of his strong desire and will to live. The hospital staff on the medicine ward were plagued with lack of equipment such as proper mattresses to prevent bed sores, broken lifts, no proper wheelchairs to hold his head or to prevent pressure sores on his arms. Also, there was a lack of much needed services on a daily basis that were necessary for a better recovery and they were unable to provide. With the rotation of doctors, lack of service and equipment and the need of consistent care was lacking, his care was sporadic and not consistent. To me it was totally unacceptable. He especially needed specialized care during those first months and he should have been receiving intensive rehabilitation and physical therapy several times a day to maximize his physical mobility. This did not happen.
He was kept here at Stanton Regional Hospital and only when I pleaded to the doctors and made waves was he given one doctor to oversee his care. Further pleading resulted in Allisdair being sent to a rehabilitation centre, the Halvar Jonson Brain Injury Centre in Ponoka, Alberta, where his needs were met. As a result, he made positive progress in a small way and was also in a positive and sound environment. His overall health improved greatly, but only for four months. Much to our dismay, unexpectedly, without consultation with me, he was shipped back to Yellowknife. Sadly, we questioned if this move was more about money than the immediate needs of Allisdair.
When he was transferred back, some of the medications were overlooked and, as a result of a mistake, he almost died. He had some very rough days due to the move. The transfer back to the North was a huge adjustment and impacted him in a negative way. The North, to date, does not have the equipment or services to make his life comfortable or meaningful. His health is not as good as it was when he was in Alberta. On his return he was placed in medicine ward and when they had a room, they transferred him to extended care. I chose this for my son as a temporary placement to get away from communicable illness being treated on medicine as I thought this would be safer for him with a fragile immune system. I was told by hospital staff his needs would be better met there because there were fewer patients. However, I did not understand that the majority of patients there were in palliative care and often have some sort of dementia. To date, things are not a lot better there and my son often seems fearful of others around him.
The whole matter has been devastating. It is a tragedy we feel could have, and should have, been avoided. There are no words that can express to those here in the Legislative Assembly and in this community or country as to the tremendous impact this has had on his daughter, our immediate family and extended family and friends. Nor does it reflect the impact of the fact that this situation has potential on our whole community for the future care of those going to the Stanton Regional Hospital if not corrected.
We are grieving not only for ourselves but for Allisdair’s daughter, known dearly as Boo, who will not know her father as we all have, nor will she have the comfort of being provided for in her lifetime by her father if he remains as he is today. We grieve for this government who has turned a blind eye to the lack of services that should be in place to protect all of us when ill and in need. We grieve the Members of this government who only think in terms of finances. We grieve for the Members of this government who make decisions on incidents while hiding behind closed doors and boards, with no accountability to those they serve.
It is my opinion that there has been no compassion in all of this. The actions around us seem to be made out of fear and about the need to save money. No one here can begin to understand the excruciating pain that this has brought to my heart nor can they know the financial burden it has put before us as a family presently and for the future. I am not a young mother; I am an elder. I may not live long enough to care for my son. Who will do that when I am gone? Who can I count on?
I believe a grave injustice took place at Stanton Regional Hospital the day my son was injured. Further to all of this, I am frustrated by the perpetuation of lack of services and what motivates that. My main and utmost concern is for adequate care and rehabilitation for my son’s brain injury and for care of his physical, spiritual, mental and emotional needs. It is my opinion it is not appropriate that my son is cared for on the extended care unit with dementia patients or palliative care patients. He shows fear there and is unable to protect himself. He is only 37 years old. He is unable to speak or eat but he is very alert and is aware of what is being said and what is going on around him. He is locked in his body. In short, he knows what is going on and his facial expressions tell it all.
I am the first to understand that full recovery may not be possible, but I do understand proper care and money is a factor in all of this. It is the opinion as his mother and legal guardian and that of those who support him, that my son is entitled to the best possible care for his condition. This government and this community owe it to my son to give him that. It is my opinion that the government, without compassion, is not doing justice for the people that they serve. We believe he deserves a chance to develop to his fullest potential. It is in the best interests of this government, monetarily speaking, for him to recover as much as possible. However, I know that this will not happen here at the extended care unit where he is presently placed.
Although I’ve been told an investigation was done by Stanton Regional Hospital’s internal review board, the Morbidity and Mortality Committee, due to legislation passed by the House of legislation, they do not have to reveal to myself, to the public what happened that day. Surprisingly, in light of these committee meetings in regard to the incident with my son, not one recommendation was revealed to me as to how things could have been prevented in an internal review. Personally, I am forced to question this lack of cooperation to prevent it from ever happening again. How is it that even upon request to the ATIPP NWT Information and Privacy Commissioner requesting details I am denied this necessary information to enable me to understand what exactly happened and how. I question what this hospital has to hide and what they fear in releasing information to me. What interest to the public necessitates this kind of hidden information? How can the Stanton Regional Hospital justifiably hide behind legislation from this Assembly? When this Legislative Assembly’s duty is to serve and protect the people of the Northwest Territories, why are they given a place to hide behind an internal secret review board? A public review of a situation like this should, in my opinion, be in the best interests of this country and its citizens. Why shouldn’t the hospital be subject to the full scrutiny of an independent, external public review board just like other organizations that serve the public? I adamantly feel it should be done to help prevent this from ever happening again to anyone.
If my son had died I would have been entitled to more information. However, to make it very clear, his life had been altered forever that day. In fact, his life as we know it did end that day. To date, every avenue that we have tried has fallen on deaf ears or they have either replied with placations or noncompliance. In one way or another, including the Department of Justice, the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board and the Stanton Regional Hospital have not provided any comfort as to how this will never have the possibility of ever happening again.
As his mother and legal guardian, our family demands that we be given answers as well as accountability to the public. We further demand that his care be of the utmost importance and be met. I assure that his family and supporters will not cease to stop asking until we receive full explanation about what happened and how he can receive the best possible care. I am requesting that all information including the release of all files, video tapes, security reports and any other information be opened and provided an external public investigation.
We are also requesting that the Legislative Assembly will recognize and make concerted effort to meet Allisdair’s needs and to be placed where he can receive proper rehabilitation care. Proper care is necessary to enable Allisdair to reach his fullest potential. We request this in order to know exactly what did happen on November 4, 2009, and to prevent it from ever happening again. Mahsi cho. Margaret Leishman.
This is also cc’d to anyone and everyone who has an interest in justice being served.
Mr. Clerk. A recorded vote. All those in favour, please rise.
Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Menicoche, Mr. Ramsay, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Jacobson, Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Bromley.
All those opposed to the motion, please rise. All those abstaining from the motion, please rise.
Mr. Lafferty; Ms. Lee; Mr. Miltenberger; Mr. McLeod, Deh Cho; Mr. McLeod, Inuvik Twin Lakes; Mr. McLeod, Yellowknife South.
Results of the vote: 10 for the motion, six abstentions. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters. Tabled Document 4-16(5), Executive Summary of the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project; Tabled Document 30-16(5), 2010 Review of Members’ Compensation and Benefits; Tabled Document 38-16(5), Supplementary Health Benefits – What We Heard; Tabled Document 62-16(5), Northwest Territories Water Stewardship Strategy; Tabled Document 75-16(5), Response to the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project on the Federal and Territorial Governments’ Interim Response to “Foundation for a Sustainable Northern Future”; Tabled Document 103-16(5), GNWT Contracts Over $5,000 Report, Year Ending March 31, 2010; Tabled Document 135-16(5), Response to the Standing Committee on Social Programs Report on the Review of the Child and Family Services Act; Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Social Assistance Act; Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Dog Act; Minister’s Statement 65-16(5), Devolution Agreement-in-Principle, Impact on Land Claims and Protection of Aboriginal Rights; Minister’s Statement 88-16(5), Sessional Statement; and Committee Report 7-16(5), Report on the Review of Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Dog Act, with Mr. Abernethy in the chair.
I would like to call the Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee today? Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to consider Committee Report 7-16(5), Report on Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Dog Act, and also Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Dog Act. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
With that, we will take a short break.
---SHORT RECESS
I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Prior to going on break we had agreed to review Committee Report 7-16(5), which is a report on Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Dog Act. Once we are done that review, then we will move along to Bill 16, which is the Act to Amend the Dog Act. The first thing we will do is Committee Report 7-16(5). Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Are there any general comments on Committee Report 7-16(5)? Detail? We will go to Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to provide a few comments if I could. I know, along with my colleague Mr. Bromley, we have read the report into the House the other day, but I just want to again thank the committee for the work it did on Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Dog Act, as well as I want to commend the Minister of MACA, R.C. McLeod, for his work on the development of the amendments to Bill 16 and appreciate his work on that as well as the staff at MACA that brought this to us. We appreciate that.
Of course, the important thing is what the public had to say. I can’t believe the amount of traffic that we received on Bill 16 and the amendments during the public hearing process. There were just some big crowds in Inuvik, Hay River, Fort Smith and here in Yellowknife. There was a lot of interest in the amendments. A lot of people are watching the progress of the amendments to the Dog Act, Bill 16, not only in the Northwest Territories but around the country and around the world, for that matter. I’ve received e-mails from countries around the world that they’re interested to see what we’re doing in trying to prevent cruelty, neglect and abuse of dogs in our Territory.
So, again, I just wanted to say I really appreciate all of the comments we receive from the public. Everybody that made presentations to the committee while we were in the various communities, and maybe a couple of special mentions to a couple of people; Ms. Bonnie Dawson in Hay River. She’s worked tirelessly at promoting animals and protection of dogs in particular in the community of Hay River and around the Northwest Territories and she’s to be commended. She’s a great champion for the protection of dogs and animals and I want to thank her publicly for that devotion. Also Nicole Spencer, president of the SPCA in the Northwest Territories and also Linda Eccles with the SPCA in Inuvik as well, I wanted to just make special mention to those folks for all that they’ve done in getting the amendments to where they were. I think those folks had a lot to do with the turnout at the public hearings that we saw when we were in the various communities.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I’ll conclude my comments. Before I do that I just again wanted to thank the staff, Ms. Knowlan, Ms. Tumchewics and Ms. Langlois, as well as our Law Clerk, Ms. MacPherson, for their help in getting this to where we’re at today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next on my list is Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As Mr. Ramsay indicated, this bill certainly caused a lot of discussion to some of the clauses that we’ve worked on. It was quite a task for Members to come together and move it to this level here. I do want to say that this act is outdated and that we’re bringing it forward where it’s a somewhat controversial matter.
We did not have the opportunity as committee to go to the smaller communities and to listen to the Aboriginal people in the smaller communities. We took the onus, and it was our decision, to go into the larger centres. However, we missed the opportunity to go into small places such as Kakisa or Colville Lake or Tsiigehtchic or Ulukhaktok. We didn’t hear from the First Nations people, the Aboriginal people and we didn’t hear them in their own language where they can express themselves more clearly and better. We missed that opportunity to get their perspective on the Dog Act. We heard mostly from the larger centres where we went in and that was, for myself, a missed opportunity to have input from the communities, because there were some issues that we certainly needed to hear from our Aboriginal partners.
The smaller communities prefer you to sit across the table and talk to you in that manner, rather than send us letters or e-mails. It’s not really that way of communicating with us from our communities on such important issues as this one. There were a lot of good suggestions and a lot of things that we were talking about outside our committee meetings, to a point where people were saying that there’s something mixed up here because we’re now talking about...And there are many reasons that we heard for the protection of dogs. It’s a Dog Act here so we’re protecting. Usually dogs are to protect people. Somewhere we got turned around and we’re now protecting the dogs for a lot of reasons that we heard. A lot of reasons. Now that we’re spending a lot of time on this one here we have other issues that people talk to me about in terms of this Dog Act.
This Dog Act I didn’t think was going to get so much play time until I witnessed the large crowd that turned out here in Yellowknife. I heard it in Smith, and on the radio, and in Inuvik and, of course, in Hay River. A lot of people feel very passionately about the Dog Act. So I want to say that we never got the whole picture. We’re missing half of our population on this important legislation. I didn’t think that was fair or right. I do want to say we had some very important things to say about this legislation.
However, we’re at this point here, the juncture that we have to continue moving on. I want to make it for the record that we missed our Aboriginal partnerships on this piece of legislation. This government here represents all people. I want to say that, for the record, hopefully when we look at further legislation that it will encompass all communities such as this one here. The Aboriginal people believe that dogs are for protection for us and there are strong cultural and traditional beliefs on that. We never really got the meaning of those beliefs or traditions. We made assumptions. We thought we could understand it, but we needed to hear from the older people and people in our communities what they talk about this specific issue here and what we mean by traditional use or cultural use. The meaning behind what they’re trying to get across to us, I think we did capture it in some of our new wording and it’s a good compromise.
I do want to say to all the Members on the committee that we heard a lot of discussion on this and we had some good discussion in the committee meetings. We came to a compromise; I hope we can bring this through. I do want to say that I’d like to thank the chairman for your leadership and the Members for bringing it this far here. Those are my comments.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on my list is Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to start by thanking the chair of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure for guiding us through consultations on this proposed act. It’s been a huge one, as my colleague Mr. Yakeleya has mentioned. Much bigger than we had expected. I’ve appreciated his guidance and the assistance of our staff. As I believe our chair said, I was very impressed and thankful to all the people of the NWT who took time to participate in those consultations.
We had tremendous turnouts, tremendous and enthusiastic turnouts, passionate presentations, both at our public consultations and through written submissions and comments. We had people from, you know, long-term dog mushers to representatives of various societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. A huge diversity of people. We had a lot of Aboriginals speak, a lot of lifelong Northerners, right down to people relatively new to the North. A lot of these are busy people, not necessarily comfortable in these sorts of settings. They came out and spoke frankly to us.
We decided in our consultations not to go into small communities but to centre our consultations on the large or regional centres with the option to bring people from small communities into those regional centres if they wish to present. Sort of a standard practice for many of our consultations.
I think I’ll leave it at that because our standing committee report basically covered things well. I just want to be sure to express my appreciation again to the people of the NWT who have participated in this, as well as my colleagues. I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The amendments to the Dog Act, I did have a constituency meeting in Fort Simpson and raised the issue. My constituency felt that the power was best left to the municipality. Now it’s before committee and introduced by government, the amendments.
It’s a very passionate subject, as I saw when I was very happy to attend the Fort Smith public hearing. Lots of people came out and shared their views and passion about it. They cited many, many examples of possible dog cruelty. It depends on your perspective too.
Our small communities, I travelled to them often, just like Norman does, and talked to the people and see how as an Aboriginal person we… I think the feeling is that in the small communities that the standards of larger communities and even national, I know that the committee got international comments there as well. To me, I always feel that they’re dictating to how small the communities and how Aboriginal cultures should dictate themselves. I always feel that’s something that’s fundamentally wrong.
However, I think the Dog Act came up for review because there was a loophole in there that was very difficult to convict somebody if there was an act of cruelty, because our dog legislation really didn’t speak about that. I think that the amendments, the difficulty with the amended Dog Act as it is, is that we try to make it animal protection legislation and we cannot. That’s what people, I really felt that’s what people are looking for. I’m with them and I believe that and it’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to do animal protection legislation in this term. I’m hopeful that our government will certainly see to that in the next government because that’s something that we have to do.
With the new upgraded amendments it will dedicate lots of our government resources. I’m not too sure how the regulations are going to roll out because there’s enough of a change now. We have RCMP involved, possibly our ENR officers chasing dogs as well. I don’t know if that’s the best use of a GNWT resource when we have many, many other issues and concerns out there. To me it does do the job. It’s a good step towards animal protection legislation. To me it might be a little bit of overkill, because I feel, like my constituents, that it’s best left to the municipalities. All we have to do is make a few changes to make sure that people who do contravene the act, the ability is there for them to charge them and up to and including conviction. Yes, some of the fines were low but we didn’t have to go so high. Now I see that there’s a bit of a balance in there. I’m comfortable with that.
In general, I’m supportive of the Dog Act. We had three significant high-profile cases in the North and the incident that happened at Whistler just kind of heightens the need for us to amend the Dog Act and to have convictions with that. With that, I’ll conclude my opening remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. I have nobody else on my list. Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, my colleagues, I’d like to thank our chair, Mr. Ramsay, with regard to all the meetings that we had attended. There’s been a lot of heated debate in some of our meetings in regard to wording in the legislation from our Aboriginal to non-Aboriginal members. We worked together. We got through this with the amendments. With the hamlet bylaws in the communities that I know, we never hit all the communities with the act, but all of the hamlet bylaws are still in effect with the communities as well. This is just something that’s going to support it.
We have the public meetings, we had good public meetings in Fort Smith. Unfortunately I missed the one in Inuvik due to the road closure and the ice road being closed. I wasn’t able to attend that one. My colleague said it was a good turnout and they heard a lot of good things in Inuvik. For myself, being a past dog musher, legislation like this is good for the dogs. I think if you just take care of your dogs, then you won’t have anything to worry about. This shouldn’t even affect anybody in the long run.
I’d like to thank the NWT Dogsledding Association and Grant Beck for all the help and guidance as he’s worked with me through this legislation. I’d just like to thank everybody who threw comments in throughout the Territory and for this legislation. That’s all I have to say.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. I have nobody else on my list. I believe we have some motions. The first motion, I believe, is Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs initiate discussions with stakeholders and veterinary colleges to explore options for expanding access to veterinary services, and in particular spay and neuter programs, throughout the Northwest Territories, and where necessary, facilitate the implementations of such options.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. A motion is on the floor. The motion is being distributed. It looks like the motion has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Second motion. Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the committee recommends that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs consult with the community governments to ensure they have adequate resources, including staff training, to implement the Act to Amend the Dog Act.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. A motion is on the floor. The motion is being distributed. The motion has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs initiate discussions with stakeholders on the development and delivery of a public education program on dogs, and as appropriate, assist with the development and the delivery of such programs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. A motion is on the floor. The motion is being distributed. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that the committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a comprehensive response to this report within 120 days. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. A motion is on the floor. The motion is being distributed. To the motion.
Question.
