Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Volunteers in many organizations are valuable and appreciated assets who make our territory a safe and better place. So when lives are in danger, the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, or CASARA for short, are such volunteers who are ready, willing and trained to work as spotters alongside our Royal Canadian Air Force, or military aircraft and ground vehicles. With roughly 80 members in Inuvik, Norman Wells, Hay River and Yellowknife, these CASARA NWT volunteers are nationally funded by the Department of National Defence and work in conjunction with 10 provinces and two territories with access to 375 aircraft and 2,596 certified pilots, navigators and spotters.
CASARA NWT can be tasked by the Department of National Defence, the RCMP, or a community SAO. However, most of their missions are for the RCMP throughout the Northwest Territories. In fact, to put in perspective how busy they are, there are on average six air searches on Great Slave Lake alone each year.
Although these volunteers are funded for training and operational readiness by the Department of National Defence, many of these volunteers are employees of the GNWT, and it is through my observation the GNWT could play a more integral role to recognize the importance of these volunteers in the context of better access to training. Let me explain.
Currently, the GNWT Human Resource Manual has provision for five days per year of special leave for training for firefighters and CASARA volunteers. As generous as this may sound, most of the southern training courses for these volunteers are scheduled on weekends, so when our GNWT volunteers want to access this provision to travel on Friday and return on a Monday, they are denied. Sadly, the approval process for the special leave to attend training has been found to be inconsistent across the NWT as most GNWT managers do not allow special leave to be used for travel and only to be used for actual training days. This, unfortunately, leaves these GNWT volunteers using other leave credits or loss of earnings to travel to required course locations. Therefore, it is in the best interests for the safety of all Northerners that a simple direction be provided to the GNWT supervisors to include travel for training as part of the five-day Special Leave Policy.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Let me be perfectly clear. This is not a request for an increase of special leave days, only a consistent application of the Human Resource Manual provision by GNWT supervisors. I can assure you if there was more consistent application of this special five-day leave, this would encourage current members to remain within Civil Air Search and Rescue and help attract new volunteers to join and strengthen this valuable contribution and the safety of our residents.
Later today I will have questions for the appropriate Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
