Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs following up on my Member’s statement and actually the Minister’s statement as well where he notes that the department has a role as a coach, advisor and supporter in terms of infrastructure. I think it’s much more than that. I think there’s also a responsibility for inspections on the safety and efficiency front.
I’ve noticed that all provinces and Yukon, our sister, have building acts to ensure these sorts of safeties are in place. In contrast, lack of comparable law here leaves us out of step with the times. Why would we not follow the established wisdom of every other Canadian jurisdiction to ensure quality construction through creation of a buildings act, or perhaps that’s already underway.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member raises a very good point and I think it’s one that we need to have some follow-up discussion on as a department, because as he’s said, across the country all the jurisdictions have their own Building Standards Act. We ask our communities that are putting up projects to build it with best practices in mind following, obviously, all the building codes, the National Building Code and that. As I said before, it’s to the community’s benefit if they build buildings that conform to all these regulations and they have good quality product. It’s been raised on a couple of occasions now and it has been suggested by the NWT Housing Corporation as to having building inspectors in all the regions. With that much concern coming on this particular issue, I think it’s one we need to follow up on.
Thank you very much to the Minister for that comment. I’m glad to hear we’re thinking that way. I just want to note that all jurisdictions, we have faith in our communities, as the Minister has repeatedly said and used as an excuse for not having a building standards act, but I do think all other jurisdictions do have communities. Would the Minister agree that it is consistent to play this role and have some standards in legislation and that’s still consistent with having faith in our communities, which I think we all do?
First of all, this is not an excuse that we’ve used. We don’t make excuses. The Member has said, as well as I have, that we have great faith in our communities’ ability to build quality products and put them on the ground. However, it is felt that there is some need for this particular service and I’ve committed to the Member that I will follow up on this and see where we can take it from here and put all the proper research together and see if it’s something that we can carry on further here in the Northwest Territories.
I take that criticism. Excuse was probably not the best word. Perhaps “reason” was a better word for that.
I again appreciate the Minister’s positive response here. I would say that we’re very fortunate to have a resident community of world-class experts in building standards and so on. They’re very active in national organizations and government-level inputting to national standards and so on. Would the Minister agree to meet with those representatives of those associations and professionals as one of the steps towards developing this legislation?
Obviously, it would be to our benefit if we were to meet with all those that were able to provide some expertise and how we can best move forward on this. I would commit to the Member that as we look at developing this particular initiative, I will commit to meeting with the experts in this particular field.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
