Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to return to an issue that I brought up many, many times in this House: ground ambulance and highway rescue services. As we all know by now, the responsibility for the provision of these services is in a regulatory grey zone. Essentially, no one has been assigned responsibility. That's why we hear stories about people being injured in vehicle accidents who get transported to the nursing station on a quad.
When you consider that 27 communities, last I heard, don't have any type of ground ambulance and that the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway recently opened and that there are more highways on the horizon, it's time that we have a plan, and one that is adequately funded. Luckily, I've heard that the department is taking these issues seriously and there is probably more work being done now than there has been in quite a while.
I have some questions for the Minister of MACA. I'll just start with a simple one: what work has been done on the plan to address this issue as of now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I concur with the MLA that highway rescue is an area that we need to put a lot of focus in. This government is actually focusing on it and looking at drafting a plan for the future. What have we done so far? We have done extensive consultation with key municipal bodies. We have done consultation with other governments of the Northwest Territories, with departments, with law enforcement stakeholders. We've research the standards and best practices throughout different jurisdictions. We've looked at comparative models that are being utilized throughout Canada. We've identified gaps that we notice are happening and we're now in the process of looking at possible solutions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It sounds like the department is doing a lot of work. When can we expect to see something either brought to this House or committee?
Right now, we're looking at hopefully the completion of a baseline report by the end of March or early April, we're shooting for. There was some difficulty in completing the research, so I'm going to state it here. We have had trouble determining the true costs of doing business on the highway rescues, and that's because, for some of the communities, not all of them, but some of the communities that we are funding to provide this service recently, or over the years, they haven't tracked the ambulance costs separately in their financial reporting, nor did they separate the costs for the equipment and the calls related to ground ambulance or the cost recovery. This made a little bit of a glitch in our research. We're trying to work with that, looking at different methods and trying to figure out calculating what that true cost would be. That is something that's a little bit of a difficulty, and it's really critical in actually ascertaining what the costs in the future will be. We're looking at different research models to be able to give a good estimate of what that will cost. Then, like I said, we're hoping that preliminary findings will be done by the end of March or the beginning of April.
The Minister was questioned on this at the recent NWT Association of Communities meeting in Hay River. She admitted that the funding that's currently provided is inadequate, and it's too late, I guess, going forward to change it for 2018-2019. What would the Minister suggest is adequate funding?
I want to start talking about the NWT Association of Communities. When I said that the funding was inadequate, I did also state that some municipalities were really good at getting the cost recovery back. The City of Yellowknife is a prime example. They have not experienced a shortfall. They are actually really good at getting their cost recovery back. The Municipality of Hay River, on the other hand, does have difficulties with that; they were the ones that brought it to my attention that we need to do some work on that.
When I talk about inadequate funding, that is because, I mean, we have a highway to Tuktoyaktuk now. We're building a highway to Whati. Those weren't considered, so those need to be considered with that.
What will be an adequate level of financial provision? That is to be ascertained when the findings come in. Like I said, it's been really difficult to find out what the financial costs have been because some communities haven't separated that. They've just put that into a general pot. We are in the process of trying to figure that out now. As soon as I find out, I'm hoping that I will release it to my colleague on this side, and we will hopefully present it to the standing committee as soon as possible, hopefully this spring.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
