Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. The department is involved in working with other departments in trying to amass a ground ambulance and also a highway response system.
What steps has his department taken and other departments to address the areas of limited cellular coverage in some communities? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’d like to see all of our communities have access to cellular service. I think it’s improved quite a bit in the last couple of years. As far as what we’re trying to do, we would obviously work closely with those that are providing the service, have them inform us as to what their future plans are. Thank you.
Thank you. The overall idea in terms of the goal that the departments are undertaking is to establish an overall and a long-term 911 system here in the NWT.
What immediate steps has the department and this government taken to ensure that there is at least a sequence of events that will happen before we get to a 911 system? Mahsi.
Improving our telecommunications was one of our challenges when we first had the discussion on 911. Since then, telecommunication has improved quite a bit. We have had a report commissioned. The report is done and we are looking forward to having some time before committee to give them an update on some of the work that we are doing and some of our plans going forward. Thank you.
I would like to thank the Minister for his reply. The Minister has stated that there have been some improvements and there are other parties that are involved.
To what extent have discussions been undertaken with companies such as NorthwestTel that have a community responsibility to ensure communities have sufficient and at least adequate cell coverage? Mahsi.
We will have discussions with all those that provide the service to see what their plans are and see where we can go from there. Obviously, as I stated before, telecommunication is improving across the Northwest Territories. It is getting to a point where you go out on the land now and you still have cell phone access, so that part of it is improving, and once we do that work we will take the next step in the work that we are doing around the 911, the update that we are giving to committee on our way forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could the Minister ensure by this spring hunt that those communities that have limited cell coverage out on the land, that efforts will be made to increase the services? Mahsi.
That is not our call as to improving the cell phone coverage. Obviously, that is the providers’ plans. We can work with them to see what their plans are and we give committee an update on some of the work we are doing. If we have conversations with providers, we can pass some of that information on to committee. Thank you.
