Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the Minister of MACA for not providing these questions, but I've got to take one more shot at plugging questions.
Mr. Speaker, the floodplain in Hay River has just been expanded both in Hay River and K’atlodeeche. Has the Minister of MACA and his department considered how the department will proceed with future mitigation support measures based on this new reality. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for MACA.
I'd like to take it under notice being the last question of the day here. I respect the Member.
Yes, in the conversations with the Member on this is this is part of our learning process. We learnt from our last flood and the situation from Little Buffalo, Jean Marie, Fort Simpson, and Fort Good Hope, and a little bit Aklavik. So we learnt from that. We started working on that.
But as we move forward, we are going to be doing this in the future. This is part of our learning experience. Thank you. And it will be addressed in the next unfortunate flood situation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I realize we're just now completing, you know, assessments, but it's important to begin to look forward. And what, if anything, is the department doing to start talking mitigation. I'm hoping that, you know, they keep talking about learning from one flood to another. So, you know, after this flood, I'm hoping they learned quite a bit and they have some type of idea of how they're going to look at mitigation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said before, we work with the residents; we work with the communities. As well as we move up the river, we start working with the communities as well that have who weren't impacted so far this year. But we are working with them. We are seeing what there's some needs.
One of the questions that was proposed [sic] to me today was if a resident is impacted and we have to do some mitigation for them but the resident next door doesn't, what can we do with that. So we are going to reach out to the federal government. We're going to work with the communities.
We're also working with the residents to see if they wish to move. And if they do wish to move, then that there is part of the process there.
So each community has some challenges, and we work with them throughout the process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the reality is is that, you know, you might have one House that got hit by flooding and the one next to it didn't, and for what you know, for whatever reason, and, you know, the people now who are probably have homes that are below the flood risk elevations that were set years ago, they may be looking for supports. So will any support be provided to those in the floodplain that want to access funds to put in place mitigation measures, such as rising their raising their homes or, you know, berms or whatever to protect their homes, and will moved flood risk elevations be set as part of this process. Thank you.
Thank you. 3 A, B, C, and D questions. I'll try to get them all answered here. And if I don't, I apologize to the Member.
Unfortunately, no. If the residents have not been impacted by the disaster, then we don't have funding for them. But it's something that we are going to reach out to the federal government to have that conversation with them, to ask them if we can make that part of the federal government's program. So we are going to work with them on that there.
And I apologize. I missed the other questions. So you may have to ask them again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, climate change and flooding has been a reality here for the last while. So I'd ask the Minister will he consider bolstering his staff complement to deal with climate change and flooding. So, you know, what I'm looking for is, you know, we need expertise on climate change, on hydrology, and flood mitigation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we actually just hired our climate change specialist in the department. He has vast experience in climate change, and he is now in place with the department. In regards to the bolstering other staff, like, we've had our EMO staff; we've created five new positions; we have three positions at headquarters. So we're working on that.
With ENR and that department there, we've also worked on creating and finding positions that will help deal with this. We've bolstered some of our staff as the government across the Northwest Territories. So we are looking at where we can help and that.
And as the Member said, climate change is the reality. We're living it. Not when it's going to happen. We're living it. It's impacting us. And so we're trying to move forward on this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Colleagues, our time for oral questions has expired. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to go back to recognition of visitors in the gallery.
Thank you, Honourable Premier.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent. Thank you.
