Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to take a break from asking questions about the cost of living. My questions today are just for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I want to follow up to a motion passed in this House in March which referenced the need for AEDs and defibrillators in our public buildings.
I would like to thank the Minister for the response to the motion that was passed in March. The response by the Minister was tabled by the Minister on the 16th of October. In the response it references some of the work that has been done to date. I appreciate that we have done some work to date. There is a plan that is suggested in that response and one of the things that it mentions is it talks about a lot of partnerships, but one partnership is to partner with the federal government who has free money for us for AEDs.
I would like to first ask the Minister, what progress has been made by MACA to apply to Canada for funding available for AEDs for NWT public buildings? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not quite sure of the status of the application right now. I can tell the Member that we have met with the NWT Fire Chiefs Association, the NWTAC and the Heart and Stroke Foundation to partner up to access this national application-based funding. So, we’ve started the work with them. We also started the project plan. We have initiated project plans, and stakeholders will be surveying all the communities to determine their needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister. As in the response that was tabled a couple of weeks ago, I hear a lot of the tense of the verbs is in the future. I would hope that we are going to be soon present tense and doing work as opposed to we will be doing work.
The federal program is a four-year program that started in 2013, so we are already one year in.
I would like to ask the Minister, in terms of the applications for money to get AEDs for free, are we going to make the deadline of the four-year program? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m not quite sure of the status of the application. I will follow up with the department and provide a response to the Member. I did say we did meet with our partner organizations to start the application process. I’m not quite sure where that’s at right now. I will find out and I will respond to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister. I do appreciate that there is work going on, I’m just a little nervous that in three years’ time we are going to get to the end of the road of the federal money and we won’t have anything in hand.
The Minister has mentioned twice now that he’s working with partners and developing partnerships and so on. One of them is the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
I would like to ask the Minister if he’s aware of an offer from the St. John Ambulance organization, who is offering to assist GNWT with the program, and if yes, has he contacted the St. John Ambulance? Thank you.
We are partnering with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in trying to develop some of our curriculum through the School of Community Government as to training on the AEDs and the maintenance of them. As far as the St. John Ambulance, I’m not quite sure of that one in particular. Again, I will follow up.
Any partnership that we can form to help us train first responders or people in the communities on using these particular types of equipment would be more than welcome. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I am happy to provide him with a copy of the letter. I will do that immediately after session.
I would like to ask the Minister, he is talking about doing a survey of communities for needs. I presume that means the number of public buildings and the number of AEDs that they would need.
Can he give me any idea of when we can expect the survey results so that we will know our needs and can get going on further applying for money? Thanks.
[Microphone turned off] …question number four is when. I will find out for the Member. We would like to start the work as soon as possible. There are other ways the community can access some money to pay for these through the money that we provide for them. There is also some money through the ground ambulance funding that we provide to get a particular type and model that’s available to use in vehicles of first responders.
We started the work. The work is underway, and once we get the results of all the work and the survey, we will be sure to share that information with Members of the Legislative Assembly and members of the committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
