Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I want to return to one of my pet peeves, my pet issues, and that would be the implementation of 911 in the NWT or hopefully just Yellowknife to start.
The last time I asked some questions about 911, I believe I was advised by the Minister that there was a study in the works. They were doing another study based on a study or studies that had been done by the City of Yellowknife. So I’d like to ask the Minister initially if he can give me an update on that study.
Are we anywhere near close to completion? When might it be completed and will it be shared with Members and the public? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll give the Member an answer to her study question as soon as I’ve had an opportunity to study the question and reply to it.
The working group has been doing a lot of work on this and it’s an issue that we’ve heard for a number of years in this Assembly. We’re anticipating the work to be done during this winter and we will, of course, be sharing that information with committee and this Legislative Assembly. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I understand, as well, that Municipal and Community Affairs did a survey of attendees at the NWT Association of Communities AGM in May, I guess it was, of 2014, earlier this year. I’d like to know from the Minister, if there are results from that survey, are those results public, would he commit to share them again with Members and the public? Thank you.
We did the survey during the last one. I’m not sure of the results yet, but I will follow up on that and once the results are known then we will share them with committee. I do know that the communities are fairly supportive of the feasibility study that we were doing on the implementation, or the partial implementation of 911. So again, once I have the results of that, then I will share them with the Members across and all Members of the Assembly. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that. I would hope that it would also be shared with the NWT Association of Community members and I suspect he meant that as well. They are public, after all.
The study is going to be done this winter. Winter is, unfortunately, eight months and I’m wondering if the Minister could give me a bit of a tighter definition of when this study might be done. Thank you.
Thank you. Something I always tell the department, when Wendy is asking questions, or when Ms. Bisaro is asking questions, question number four is always when. Yeah, this is three, yeah. So anyway, my understanding is this winter is going to stretch right into July. So it’s going to be a long winter.
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No, I will follow up and I will see how we’re moving along on this and if we happen to be done earlier, then of course I will be glad to share that information with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. My last question has to do with – it is kind of a timing question again – the city will have an upgraded and adequate dispatch system by quarter one of 2015 they’re telling us. So the technical capabilities will be in place for 911 for dispatch, the technical capabilities are there from NorthwesTel’s perspective, as far as I am told. So once this study is out, I’d like to ask the Minister how soon will we be able to move forward on this. The technical stuff is there, we simply need the will of the government. Thank you.
Thank you. As long as I’ve been Minister of MACA we’ve had these questions, and I think one of the reasons that we had originally said at the time was our lack of telecommunication infrastructure across the Northwest Territories. I think we’ve seen in the last four or five years that has improved dramatically where you’re getting service in a lot of the small communities. One of the things we want to make sure of before we implement, and it could be a partial, I mean, that’s one of the options they’re looking at to implementation, we want to be sure that all our communities have the capability to respond to any such emergencies and we need to work with our partners out there. We’ve offered some training to first responders and we plan on offering more training to first responders, but again, this is an issue that we’ve been trying to find some resolution to. Again, I will work with the Members across and get some information off to the Members. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
