Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke about Colville Lake and the have and have-not communities in the Northwest Territories and two-tiered systems of standards of programs and services in the communities. I’m going to ask the Minister of MACA, given the fire in Colville Lake last weekend and that the Minister certainly heard through this Assembly that the fire marshal met with Colville Lake people. I understand that a fire truck is on the list of infrastructure that’s going to be coming to Colville Lake.
Is the Minister looking at a type of fire training program for Colville Lake’s newly developed fire department?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of MACA, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re pleased to hear of Colville Lake moving some of their priorities around and getting a fire truck. So we would be pleased to work with the community in getting some training and that, once their fire department is established, we will, on their invitation, go in and work with them and get some training for their recently formed fire department. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. I understand the Minister clearly heard me, he heard me about the capacity building in our small communities and that’s the name of the game.
We often hear from our communities, our SAOs and band members that they’re under pressure to look at community emergency plans.
Can the Minister of MACA tell us how often these training sessions happen to help our volunteers, be it firefighters or search and rescue folk, be ready for real emergencies?
Thank you. We try and work with the communities. We’ve been working with them the last while to update their emergency preparedness plans and we work with the communities, we don’t try, we do work with the communities to upgrade any training that they might need, upgrade the equipment that they might need. The people at our disposal, we use their expertise to work with the communities to help them come up with a plan to deal with a lot of the situations that they’re dealing with. Thank you.
Given that November 1st is the opening of the trapping season and the Colville Lake people are out on the land setting up their traps and camps, would the Minister consider working with the band manager as to looking at some possible dates, so when the community is prepared and ready, to have a firefighter training program come into Colville Lake?
We’d be happy to work with the community. Again, we will wait to hear from the community and what some of their timelines are. They know what’s going on in their community. So once they extend the invitation and give us a definite timeline, then we will make our people available to go in and assist with the training of their fire department. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Looking at old Hansard from 2006, that was the last time I asked for a fire truck in Colville Lake. I said these are some of the necessary emergency services that we’ve been asking for in our small communities. There are have and have-not communities in the Northwest Territories. That’s the reality.
I want to ask the Minister the same question I had in the 2006 Hansard in regard to assessing homes to see if they are prepared to deal with any type of emergencies such as fires in the small communities.
Thank you. The New Deal took effect in 2007. That’s when we devolved the responsibilities for the communities to look after their capital purchases. A number of communities have taken us up on that, they’ve made some really good decisions on addressing some of their priorities. So in 2006, when the Member asked the question, we were still responsible for a lot of the capital that went into the communities and it usually had to wait in line to get through the capital process. Since the communities have the responsibility now, they are identifying a lot of their priorities, and if a fire truck is one of their priorities, then the communities do have the authority now to purchase their own pieces of equipment, their own infrastructure. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
