Do we have a fire – oh, I forget the name – officer representative in every community, if the Minister knows what I’m asking.
We have the fire marshal and the assistant fire marshals that cover each region.
Thanks for that information. Fire marshal’s office. That’s what I was looking for. Senior’s moment. With respect to the other aspects of buildings that are built, I know in general we, I think, require all buildings in the Northwest Territories to adhere to the National Building Code. Does that include the Model National Energy Code for buildings?
I’ll go to Ms. Young, Madam Chair.
I’ll recognize Ms. Young.
My understanding is the upcoming 2015 update to the National Building Code will include energy components. At this point, my understanding is it does not.
Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Bromley.
Thanks to Ms. Young for that information. That’s 2015, I believe Ms. Young said. That’s good to know that that’s coming down the pipe. We know that every jurisdiction except the Northwest Territories has a building standards act, and that ensures that all buildings get inspected and so on. We are trying to achieve the same without a building standards act. The difficulty is that there are a lot of codes that are out there that are not necessarily in the National Building Code and a lot of updates and so on, so it’s a complex, sort of, situation for the public. But just given the current situation, how do we ensure that buildings are meeting the National Building Code standard for safety?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m assuming the Member’s talking about the buildings that the community governments put up? Residences too? Well, as far as the residences go, I mean, if they’re built by the NWT Housing Corp, obviously we would inspect each one of the buildings that we put up. As far as the community buildings go, I believe the assistant fire marshal would check to make sure all the codes are met, and again, depending on who designed the building, I think there are times when there are site visits made by the building designer. The architects that design the building, I think they would make site visits to ensure that what they spec’d were adhered do.
As far as private residences go, again, in communities where they have building inspectors, they obviously have to file a plan, but we have a lot of communities that don’t have building inspectors, and if they’re building a private residence, well, obviously, first of all, it would be to their benefit to build it to code, and if it were bank financing, I think the bank would want to have the comfort that it was built to code.
There was some discussion a number of years ago, and I think it’s something we may have gotten out of NWTAC, too, about building inspectors in the regions. I mean, we would have to have a look at that and see if there are partnerships that we can form with some of the community governments to bring something like that on board. I think, for the most part, most of the buildings that are built in the Territories are inspected, one way or another, to make sure that they adhere to all the applicable codes.
I think the Minister has defined the problem. We think that most of them are somehow caught, and I would agree with that statement. I’m trying to speak for those that aren’t caught that this sort of haphazard approach leaves vulnerable to being built and put in place without inspection. Yes, indeed, the NWT Association of Communities has raised this with the Minister a number of times, as has the Association of Architects and so on. And I know the Minister is aware of this situation.
Given that we are not able to say confidently that all of them do get inspected, and I think the Minister touched on a number of the issues, what’s the plan? Are we going to take responsibility as every jurisdiction in Canada has? Are we going to leave it to federal legislation with the hope that we’ll somehow muddle through?
Recently, we had a meeting with the NWT Construction Association, the Architects Association, and the Association of Communities and the Consulting Engineers of the NWT to obtain their views. One of the recommendations that came out of that is we are all committed to do a gap analysis to see what is currently being updated, so we have had that discussion with them. We’re looking forward to sitting down with them, and going through some of the recommendations and see where we can improve on the services that are offered to a lot of the small communities.
Again, I mean, I have to keep stressing the point. I think Mr. Bromley has heard me say it on a number of occasions before, that I have the utmost confidence in our communities’ ability, and anybody that’s putting this piece of structure up, to build it to code, if not over and above code, because it’s an investment to them and there’s a payback. I think in this day and age when we’re taught the importance of energy efficiency, I think people are taking that to heart and they’re building buildings that would be energy efficient. I just had to put that on the record, again, my confidence in the people of the Northwest Territories to do quality products.
I appreciate the Minister’s hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, it’s not always the people of the Northwest Territories, to start with, that are building these buildings. It’s often people that are not residents of the Northwest Territories and, unfortunately, there is good reason – I’m sure the Minister is aware – that every jurisdiction in Canada has a Building Standards Act with an inspection function that’s filled. I’m not saying the Minister doesn’t have lots of points on this. I want to express appreciation that the gap analysis is being done. That’s exactly what I’m looking for, and I will look forward to seeing the results of that, if the Minister is willing to share it, and how we will be going about filling those gaps. Just a comment, and that’s all I have.
We appreciate the Member pointing out some of the shortcomings of the communities across the Northwest Territories, and how we’re the only jurisdiction in the country that doesn’t have one. We’re a more stable jurisdiction with a lot of the people that are not moving about so often. In the bigger jurisdictions they all have the ability to just go down the street and, for the most part, find somebody to inspect.
Once we get some research done, I will commit to sharing it with the Members and, again, if there is input that the Members want to put into this, then we’d welcome that also.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The issue of public safety was of grave concern for the Minister of Transportation, and I when we drove the winter road last weekend there were some near misses. There are big trucks and the roads are quite narrow, so that’s what the Minister and I talked about.
The issue that I want to talk about is some of these vehicles have been struck. I just came back from the Sahtu and the Sahtu Dene Council annual general meeting, and people have come up and said some of their vehicles were hit and some clear misses. Some of them actually come out of the road. I mean, stop their vehicles on the roads and trying to wave down a big truck because of the ruts. I want to ask the Minister, in regard to the public safety, we’re close to about maybe 1,500, 1,600 trucks so far, and these are semi-trucks. Some of these drivers do not quite understand the Sahtu winter roads, and these are not flat ground. These are foothill mountains, and these are hills that are quite treacherous and quite steep up here, and some of these roads are very narrow. If you pull on to the side, it gives you maybe about three to four inches. We had that experience already with the Minister. We talked about some of the creeks and some of the hills that we’ve got to look after.
Public safety is number one for our people on the roads, so I want to ask the Minister if there’s something in his plans to look at emergency types of response. Right now, we rely on the goodness of the people just from the heart. If there’s an accident they’ll go out. You know, nurses or… We don’t know which community is going to respond. The Norman Wells town also raises concern here for emergency vehicles, because the RCMP go out, a nurse, or just the goodness of the heart of the people who will do that. We actually did have an accident on the winter road from Tulita to Wrigley where a fuel truck rolled over the bank there.
We have a group of really good people who are involved with the Canadian Rangers that could be considered. If there are some type of supplies or equipment in the community that whoever the responders are can grab stretchers, oxygen tanks and all the stuff that you need. Would the Minister look at something like that that would ensure our people, ensure the people in the Sahtu, people who are coming up, that there is an emergency response plan in place for our winter roads? Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have an interdepartmental working group that are looking at a number of different things – because this question comes up quite a bit and it is one that I think is going to come up a bit more – made up of Health and Social Services, Transportation, Department of Justice and MACA. One of the things the Member raised is what we are looking at. Remote medical rescue is one of the items the working group is looking at. We get the question all the time, who is going to respond? Those are questions that this working group is looking at as well as equipment, administration and training. I think what we realize in the past is that some of the communities went out, and one in particular had bought a piece of emergency equipment and realized they didn’t have the proper training to be first responders and there was a bit of a liability issue. They understood that quite quickly and they got out of that. I think they actually sold the piece of equipment that they bought.
We are looking at also probably piloting a couple of projects in a couple of the communities that are served by the road and see how that works. We recognize that this is a huge issue. I can assure the Member that the working group is looking at all these particular types of issues and incidents. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, the Minister and I have some little thing going there. The Minister talked about a remote medical rescue initiative interdepartmental working group, and they’re putting in training and looking at piloting a couple of projects. I would hope that now that the winter roads are closing, there are another 25 or so more days that it will be open. I know the oil companies are going to use that opportunity to get their equipment out, and people are going to come back on the winter road from holidays and people are steadily using that road. Is it something that I could look for to, say, in the early summer or late fall that we can have a well-designed medical rescue response action plan even for the Sahtu for the next winter that we could take and start training or start notifying people that we have something in place?
Next year if the oil and gas exploration continues, and just sitting down with Conoco yesterday, they are very encouraged – the words they used – to continue working in the Sahtu. They smiled with the word encouraging, also with Husky. We are going to look at something that’s more stable, hopefully, in the future, because companies are spending millions and millions of dollars in our region. They go right past all of our small communities along the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Those big trucks are coming up from the Alberta border. There are 1,500 or 1,600 of them right now, and you’re going to see more next year. They come up to the Sahtu. We want to get ready and get prepared.
I encourage the Minister to work with his officials and put a plan in place so that we in the Sahtu can feel supportive and feel some safety that this government here is looking after our roads and that we have a place that we could call ours. We know people in our communities would respond. We have been very lucky, knock on wood, cross our fingers, that no serious accidents have happened. We wouldn’t want to talk about it.
This is very important to our people in the Sahtu. I have to work with the Minister on the other areas of transportation, but this one here is key for us. We can work with the oil companies. They have medics out there. There are a lot of ways.
Anyhow, I am encouraged by what the Minister is saying. I would be really happy if I can see some plan and dollars spent so that we have a medical response team on the Mackenzie Valley winter roads. Thank you.
Madam Chair, the public safety division is purchasing supplies and we’re assisting DOT in delivering basic first responder training during some of the airport live exercises. We have a few communities that are partaking in this. The working group’s first priority, I think, would be to ensure that we have people that are trained to be first responders.
As far as the equipment goes, I think once they are trained to be first responders and the community, through some of the capital infrastructure money that they get from us, would be able to purchase the necessary equipment.
As far as the timeline the Member is asking about, I’m not quite sure of the timeline right now. The working group is still doing their work. However, as I committed before I think to Mr. Dolynny, I will keep committee up to date on the work we’re doing. Again, we recognize the importance more than ever of these emergency services. I think this is work that this group is going to undertake, and I’ll try to get it into the Assembly as quickly as possible and update all of the Members. Thank you.
Madam Chair, there is training going on in Alberta. It’s called First Responders Medical Training. I saw it in one of the newspapers. They have it in Alberta. I guess we need to look and see how we can start identifying people in our region to do first responders medical training. We can work with the federal government on this initiative.
The other one is the community infrastructure. If they want to sign on to this, they are looking at a type of purchasing equipment. I’m not too sure how healthy the infrastructure budget is with the communities. They have roads, dumps, other things to look at, water treatment plants, and sewer. That money can only go so far. I think we need to sit down with the oil companies, with Transportation, with our government, with the federal government and say this is what we need to do and this is what it looks like. We need to come together on that type of initiative to purchase equipment, things that they would need. I would be very interested in working with the Minister and support him.
In this issue here, it is something that I would like to see by at least next opening winter road that we have a first responders medical response team concept in the Sahtu. We need that. There’s no question about it. We need that. So I would like to see something that our people will know who to call. If not 911, we need to call somebody if something is happening.
I want to thank the Minister and his team for doing a good job in Norman Wells on the issue there that happened. Thank you very much. People are very appreciative. It is a type of initiative that could happen and we are ready for it. That is what I want to see in the Sahtu winter roads. Mahsi cho.
Madam Chair, this is one of the things that the working group is looking at, is the equipment and types of equipment that are going to be needed. As far as trying to get it implemented by next fall, again, the Member made a good point about working with a lot of the industry people that are out there. A lot of them would have their own medical personnel. There are opportunities there. Part of the working group’s mandate would to explore all of the opportunities that are available, take advantage of training available. It’s a good time for us to take advantage of the industry being in the region because they do have a lot of qualified people there. We saw that in the Beau-Del. We saw them respond to incidents in the Beau-Del. I think they do a pretty good job.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. I’m next going to go to Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve raised a consistent concern of mine, namely because the communities that I represent are situated down the Mackenzie Highway. Of course, the highway extends from the 60th parallel right to Yellowknife and at this point of the year we have a very high volume of traffic passing through, trying to beat the seasonal warming of springtime and transporting goods to the mine. This is the vital link of transportation of goods. It’s been long established, it’s heavily used and I would describe it as the artery or lifeline that brings goods from down south right to Yellowknife. I’ve raised this concern before in terms of public safety on the highway. Of course, that also extends to the department, in terms of its responsibilities and obligations, to provide a level of service to communities who, in turn, of course, look after the overall interests of its citizens.
In the public section there’s a section called ground ambulance and highway rescue and for this year it identifies, for 2013-14, $200,000. I want to understand what is the intended purpose for the $200,000 for ground ambulance and highway rescue. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The ground ambulance and the $200,000 was supposed to go on an application basis to some of the communities and some of the services that they’re providing. We found out quick enough that it wasn’t enough money. It was actually set to sunset, but committee, I think in the last budget session, had asked to reinstate this money. So we did, and we have, I think two, maybe three communities that take us up on the money, three so far that take us up on the money. So again, as I was mentioning to Member Yakeleya, we’re looking at the overall picture and this is kind of just a little bit of assistance until we can look at the overall picture of providing ground ambulance and highway rescue. Thank you.
Thank you. I do also realize for the last year that same amount was available. I just want to try to come to an understanding, again, in terms of this initiative being available to communities. How has that worked if, indeed, this amount was available, and how has that been accrued by communities that were in a position to use that $200,000? Mahsi.
Thank you. This is application-based funding, and it would support some training and some minor capital upgrade for ambulance and highway rescue services in communities. Some communities don’t have the equipment, but it would be able to support training in some small communities. Thank you.
Thank you. Have a lot of communities taken advantage of that amount of funding? This is not new funding; this was in place in the previous year. So I’m just trying to come to an understanding of whether communities know of this existing program, that it’s going to continue for this year and if communities did, indeed, apply and take advantage of this $200,000.
Thank you. This program was fully subscribed to at one point until a lot of the communities realized there was a liability issue with this. So right now in 2012-13 we had three communities that have each received $40,000. Thank you.
Thank you. This question is quite simple, and more likely this could be made in reference to other departments, but it’s a very simple question. The question is: Who is responsible for an individual in distress at home in the community that requires immediate medical assistance and need of transportation to the health centre?
He said it was a simple question. Well, in some communities I believe the health centre might have a van or a vehicle that they use. I think the question was who is responsible, if somebody is hurt in their home, to get picked up and be brought to the health centre. Am I correct, Madam Chair?
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. For clarification, Mr. Nadli.
Yes, that’s correct. Who is responsible?
Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank the Member for clarifying that. Well, again, in some communities the RCMP would bring him to the health centre and in some communities there may be a van that’s used by the health centre. In communities where they have ambulance services, obviously they would call an ambulance and an ambulance would go pick them up and bring them to the health centre or to the hospital. So as far as who is solely responsible, I really don’t know the answer to that, but I know in different communities different people respond, different organizations respond to those that are in need. Thank you.
Thank you. The other question is I want to check to ensure the status. I know the Minister has made reference to some issues that seem to be fundamentally challenging this government to come to a position where it could fairly and consistently deliver a vital service to people on the highway and plus the communities. He’s pointedly stated that it’s a liability issue, plus, at the same time, it’s a lack of training or lack of personnel that are qualified to almost become paramedics, and in some instances, too, there is an obstacle of lacking equipment in terms of vehicles and transport vehicles.
I understand there’s been an effort to try and bring several departments together. I heard the Minister indicate that perhaps by this fall there might be a report or an effort to report to the House in terms of the findings of this group, but what is the status of this group, and where that’s the timeline that’s fairly consistent that this group will report to the House at least a semblance of a framework to enhance ground ambulances and highway emergency? Mahsi.
Well, the working group are looking at all these different issues right now and they’re coming up with ways, some options, and also looking at the cost. I think it’s been mentioned in this House before, if we were to look at the cost of implementing the overall ambulance service across the Northwest Territories, it would be quite high. So they’re exploring all these options.
As far as an actual timeline goes, I don’t have the actual timeline. I know that they are looking at a number of different issues, but I will keep the Members up to date on the work that they’re doing and hopefully we can have something, and I say hopefully we can have something to share with Members quite soon. I’m not sure if fall would be a reasonable expectation, but I will follow up and if it is, then I will inform the Members of that. Thank you.
Thank you. Another simple question, but it more likely would pertain to the working that’s in existence right now, but obviously another question. Who is responsible for a vehicle that is on fire on the highway and in distress?
Who is responsible for a vehicle that’s on fire? I really don’t know. It would depend which jurisdiction they’re in if there’s someone in the community that responds to a fire. That’s a difficult question to answer. It may sound like a simple question, but it’s a shared responsibility, and people will react as they react when they can. If there’s a firefighting service close by, then they will respond, because nobody in the NWT is not going to respond to any kind of an emergency whether it’s their responsibility or not. If they’re available, they will respond.
Again, the purpose of the working group is to explore all these different types of options. Maybe it’s a question that I’m going to have to go around and ask, is who is responsible to respond to this and who is responsible for that. That actually is a very good question and one that I will have to ask as well.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Nadli, your time is up. I can put you back on the list if you need to be. Next on the list is Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to pick up where I left off on the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program which has sunsetted with the federal government. This was established in 1980, according to their website, to enhance the national capacity to respond to all types of emergencies and to enhance resiliency of critical infrastructure. Over the course, they gave out $170 million to provinces and territories at a federal contribution of 75 percent to the projects.
My question is this: This free money – and I will call it free money – was available to this government up until the fiscal year-end of 2012, and yet I see that we have not taken up that money in 2012. It’s not in any literature that we have here. Can I get a bit of an update as to, as I said in my earlier questions, what has been the uptake of this free federal money? And if we can get a bit of a background in terms of what were we able to use that money for.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The federal money that was available as free money, as the Member likes to call it, we’ve taken it up pretty well every year. For some reason it wasn’t available to us last year. Every year since its inception, I think we have taken our share of it.
If we were taking it up in 2012, it would have actually shown up in the main estimates here as a line entry, and I didn’t see it as being a take-up item. I’m getting some conflicting response here. My goal with this information is to find out how good we were at acquiring this so-called free federal money to enhance the infrastructure in many of our communities.
I’m asking again: Would the department or Minister commit to giving a full background of the use of these funding dollars in the last number of years and share that with Members?
As I’ve said, we’ve taken the money up every year. The Member talked about federal money. I’ll tell you one thing with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Not this Assembly, but Assemblies past, any time there’s free money from the federal government, we are at their door getting our fair share. It’s just something that we’ve always done and the government’s become quite good at.
I’ll provide the Member with the information. We’ll put something together to give him some comfort that we’ve done our work since 1980 when all this money was available and taken our fair share. We’ve used it for a number of different things. The last time we used it was for a video that we had produced. We have taken our fair share of the money, and I will provide historical background for the Member.
If I could remind the Minister, it’s not for my comfort that I’m asking for this information. It’s for the taxpayers who are asking if we were good stewards of the availability of such funds. I just want to make sure that’s put on the record.
Not that I want to dial 911 on this issue, but the concern that was brought up by my colleague here Mr. Nadli in terms of our Ground Ambulance Program is something of a concern. We don’t need to have a disaster on our highways to do so. It just so happens that we had a disaster as of late with respect to areas where a ground ambulance or an air ambulance extraction could have been used in probably more effective ways. We’ve heard today that there were issues of liability, lacking equipment, lacking personnel.
About this working group, my questions are the fundamentals behind this working group. I was led to believe that the department had a very similar working group for a number of years that disbanded, but they did not have any type of conclusion. Now we’ve got a new working group that’s been put together that is working on, I guess, the expertise of our future Ground Ambulance Program. Can the Minister indicate who the members are of this working group and what background they are bringing to the working group? If I could get a response to that, please.
The members of the working group are the Department of Health and Social Services, Department of Justice, Transportation, Municipal and Community Affairs.
There will probably be a time when I will be asking to get the actual personnel, the people who are part of this group, and I would like to know what their qualifications are in this area with time. I’m not going to ask that today here. This is a question I would expect the Minister to answer here in due course.
The concern I have here is we just heard from the Minister that the findings of this working group might not be available until, as he put it, this fall. I think people are gravely concerned that we do have some gaps in our system. It was clearly indicated here by another Minister, the Minister of Health. These gaps are obviously putting a lot of worry and stress on motorists, the people of the Northwest Territories who have to use highways for a means of getting to and from. Is there a possibility that this department can look at interim measures until such time as recommendations from a working group become available?
I’m assuming that the Member means by interim measure that we provide the service until full service is available. Am I correct?
