Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke about ground ambulance and highway rescue, as I have done many times. Just to bring everyone up to speed, I would like to recap what we have learned so far from my previous questioning. No single department is delegated with authority over this issue. Twenty-seven communities don't have ground ambulances. Community governments provide highway emergency services far beyond their own borders, mostly out of their own pocket. There has been $1.8 million to provide community governments since 2007 to deal with the issue. The issue is going to cost millions of dollars to fix. There is no timeline to address this issue. The government needs to save money, so it can't provide any further support. That is what we have learned from the previous questioning.
I may not have many questions if there has been nothing going on, but I will give it a shot. Since the last questioning, last October, what steps have been taken to create a coordinated and adequately funded service delivery regime for ground ambulance and highway rescue? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, we have been doing some movement on this file. The Government of the Northwest Territories recognizes that it is an issue. We don't want to leave people stranded and we want to make health and safety our priority, to take care of people.
We have met with the municipal government of Hay River to hear their concerns. We have also met interdepartmentally with Health and Social Services, Transportation, Department of Justice, and Municipal and Community Affairs. We have committed to hiring a consultant to go in and do an action plan; not a research project, this has been researched to death, but to actually do an action plan to see how we can support ground ambulance within the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Usually I hate to hear that the government is doing another action plan, but in this case it is better than what has been going on. The regional centres are providing the highway rescue services for large areas. That is because 27 communities don't have ground ambulances. The Minister said the departments have been in talks with some of the communities. Have they been in talks with all of the communities to address not only the highway rescue but also the ground ambulance part of this equation?
We will be meeting with some of the communities, but the five tax-based communities is what we will be focusing on, recognizing that there are 33 communities within the Northwest Territories. However, not all of those 33 communities have road systems, and we are talking about ground ambulance, not highway rescue.
There is an action plan in development. Can the Minister provide us with a timeline of when we can expect the action plan to be completed, but also when we can start seeing the effects on the ground, whether it be money rolling out to the communities or legislative changes or anything in that manner?
We will be starting the project in the spring of this coming year. There are a couple of issues. There are a few things that we are looking at as difficulties; for example, the municipality of Hay River seems to have issues with collection of fees, yet the municipality of Yellowknife has no issue with the collection of fees. We are trying to figure out what the difference is. We are looking at gaps. We are looking at overlaps. We have heard that even those we have given up boundaries and said, "These are your limits to pick up people," we are hearing that three communities are going to the rescue. It is not only about the funding. We will be looking at the funding formula, but it is also the coordination of ground ambulance and highway services.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister mentioned that Hay River has trouble with collections whereas Yellowknife doesn't. Yellowknife has a much bigger staff. So would the Minister commit to funding another position in Hay River that's responsible for collection of ambulance fees? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As Members should be aware, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs worked on a new deal -- what was called a new deal many years ago, I believe it was 2007, where the communities actually decide for themselves what they want. We provide funding for that. If the municipality of Hay River would like to hire somebody out of their own, then we would more than support that decision from the municipality.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
