Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs in terms of services in the communities. I want to ask about the ground rescue services for communities in the Sahtu.
From Wrigley to Colville Lake, there are 800 kilometres of winter road. I want to ask the Minister if there are resources being looked at by the Sahtu communities in terms of coordinating ground rescue services between the communities. We don’t have the luxury of having cell phone services or having those types of initiatives. Could the Minister advise me as to what type of work MACA and the hamlet are working on with the departments of Health, Justice, and probably even Transportation on what types of services could be delivered in the Sahtu?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do know that there is some funding available to some of the communities that do provide emergency services. We always want to improve the services that are delivered and if communities come forward with a good action plan, then we are always willing to sit down and hear what the communities are saying.
As far as the funding goes, that’s an issue that is going to need to be worked out if it falls within their community. I spoke to the Member previous. There is the gas tax money. Disaster mitigation is one of the criteria that is allowed under this pot of funding and there is also the capital formula funding. So there are different pots of funding out there and we are always willing to work with the communities and work within the government, the different departments, to see if there are ways we can pull all this together and have a proper response team. Thank you.
So what I am hearing -- and the Minister can correct me if I misunderstood this -- is that the communities that are on the winter road system in Tlicho, Behchoko…Sorry, the Tlicho, the Sahtu or the Beaufort-Delta, anywhere where there is a winter road system, the communities in that area come to the department with a proposal to coordinate or organize themselves regarding ground rescue services, and the Minister would be willing to look at this to see how they can coordinate with the different departments to have a coordinated management approach to ground rescue services on the winter road system. Thank you.
I said we will continue to work with the communities and see what kinds of plans come up. We are always willing to work with the communities. I think sometimes there is always the question of…Well, there is always the big question of funding. When we do work with them, they think we are going to bring our cheque book when we’ve already given them all the money we’ve got, so we have nothing left in the bank, the MACA bank anyway. So we will continue to follow up on this and work with the communities and see if there is some kind of action plan that is being put together. Thank you.
Then would the Minister put in coordinating efforts in the communities, for example, the Sahtu region? Would the Minister instruct his officials if he could work closely with the communities in the Sahtu to coordinate with each community when there is this type of service that may be needed, so the communities are well aware of who to call regarding emergency services, ground rescue services in the communities and which team members could get involved and how to go about it? These are some of the things that members from the Sahtu talked about in the past. We would like to know for sure about this type of strategy. Can the Minister inform me?
Most communities do have an action plan and, as I said, we are always willing to work with the communities. If the communities came to us and said we need help in trying to develop something, we are willing to go there and work with them. But for us to go and say you are going to do this and you are going to do that, we always leave the onus up to the community and then we will work with any community that requires our assistance. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue again is sometimes we get conflicting messages in our communities. When there is an accident on the winter road, sometimes there is a policy within the Health department that the nurses are unable to go out. With the RCMP, there is a policy. So the community takes it upon themselves to do their rescue here and sometimes it’s difficult in terms of the coordination. I will ask the Minister again, will he work very closely with the officials, work with the communities in terms of who they call and that nobody is left in the dark? Can the Minister work on that, please?
As many of us live in small communities, we see how in times of emergency the communities usually respond very quickly and usually have good results because of it. There is always the planning and that, and sometimes you don’t worry so much about the planning, but action that needs to be taken. So they take it upon themselves to do that. But I will commit to the Member that I will speak to the appropriate departments and see what is being done about an overall action plan for emergency services and rescue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
