Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In Yellowknife we’re very fortunate to have organized first responders in our city. I know I’m very grateful, as well as many other people in our city. However, not every community has this privilege, and for obvious reasons; sometimes it’s not feasible, but that doesn’t make it any more right and it certainly doesn’t make it fair. By coincidence, if you happen to live in the Tu Nedhe riding – that’s either in Lutselk'e or Fort Resolution – and just by chance there happens to be a terrible situation in that particular area, who responds? Who has the skills and experience, and certainly the know-how to respond to that type of situation?
We all know about MACA and their efforts about putting equipment in communities, but at the same time, where are the skills? What good is good equipment with goodwill when no one has the skills and abilities to respond safely and properly to incidences?
As I understand it, community nurses, in some cases, have a policy that causes them to be unable to leave the nursing station to respond properly to these incidences. So what does it mean? It means good people are responding to incidents in some cases untrained. So we have untrained volunteers out there trying to do the best they can and to that I applaud them.
In some communities like Deline, we have heroes, local heroes like Kirk Hughes, who stepped forward and said this is no longer going to happen. He is solving Health and Social Services’ mistake, or gap, I should say, in services.
I think it is time that Health and Social Services gets behind community initiatives and helps train first responders in these types of incidents. Without the skills and abilities to tackle these types of problems, we may put the intended person we are trying to rescue into being a further victim of the situation. That said, we may put the rescuer in grave danger.
There are plenty of organizations that are willing to step forward, and help and offer the training, such as the Mine Training Society. The bottom line here is Health and Social Services has the responsibility to ensure local people are trained with the skills, ability and know-how to help rescue people in their need. I think it is time we step forward and do that responsibility across the North all the way through our Territories and all of our small communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
