Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also have questions for the Minister of MACA. MACA prepared a report on highway rescue and ground ambulance services in 2006. Ten years ago, this was already an important enough issue to warrant a report. According to the Minister's predecessor, it is an issue that is brought up every year at the NWT Association of Communities' AGM. I have brought it to the Minister's attention in this House, outside of this House, the Town of Hay River has brought it to your attention, and I am sure they are not the only municipality to do so.
Given the desire to deal with this issue, for the funding and the legislation of highway rescue and ground ambulance services, I would like to hear the Minister's plan to address the funding and legislative issues related to ground ambulance and highway services once and for all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs actually has done a lot of work with looking at the ground ambulance and the highway rescue services that we provide to the Northwest Territories. We do have some agreements in place where the municipalities that have the ambulance services actually are able to extend their boundaries outside of their municipalities. That is a coordinated approach that we do. The team was the Departments of Justice, Transportation, Health and Social Services, and Municipal and Community Affairs, who took the lead on that committee that we did.
I should also state that we also have air ambulance services that are provided. If there is a need, if somebody calls into the RCMP or the health centre and they need a medical response, it is sent over to a dispatch and the medical response will dispatch an air ambulance into the remote location. We have probably not the comprehensive that the Members would like, but we do have an interim plan until we can identify new funding to look further into this.
As stated many times by the Ministers, we need to ensure that we can do some reduction so that we can invest in new initiatives. This is a new initiative that will cost millions of dollars. We need to make sure that we are using our finances appropriately and that we can look for money to provide this service. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am aware of what has happened since 2006. The previous Minister gave me the same explanation. The plan seems to be the status quo minus the funding. That is not much of a plan. I don't want this to be my white whale, Mr. Speaker.
Does the Minister have an idea of when actual steps are going to be taken to start addressing this issue, even if it is next year, the year after, the year after, if they have a plan for 2025? Is there a timeline where we can expect real progress?
The departments have worked really hard on this issue. We do feel that we have a coordinated approach to dealing with it currently. I do hear the Member's concerns that we are not doing enough. I can't give a timeline on it, in all honesty, but I can commit that I will talk to the departments and see if we can provide a response to the Member on what kind of timeline we are looking at.
The bottom line is that no one has a responsibility to provide highway rescue services on the territorial highways. Twenty-seven communities don't have ground ambulances. That is the bottom line. I would just like to ask this: given this coordinated effort that I wouldn't really call an effective plan, would the Minister commit to at the very, very least keeping the $180,000 in 2017-18 budget?
---Applause
Again, public safety is a concern not only to the Member but to all of us on Cabinet as well as the Regular Members. We are conscious of our fiscal reality. But I can commit to working with Cabinet, the Minister of Finance and Cabinet, my colleagues, to see if we can address the issue.
Mr. Speaker, that wasn't a no. I will take it. I will follow-up again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister.
Masi. I will take that as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
