Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, MACA has recently released a new emergency plan, which seeks to better clarify roles and responsibilities for the GNWT, NGOs, and municipalities during emergencies and evacuations. I appreciate the department's work on this, and having read through the plan, I acknowledge that it is clear about roles and responsibilities; however, in terms of current reality, I think there is still a fair bit of work to do to figure out the fine details of how this plan will work on the ground, particularly in relation to local emergency management organizations. I also understand that some gaps still exist that we need to address, particularly who will be funding emergency response capacity building for these organizations and who will pay for it and coordinate evacuation of one community to another?
It is worth noting that the overarching assumptions of this plan were established in a time when community evacuations were relatively infrequent. That reality is changing, Mr. Speaker. And as evacuations and emergencies due to extreme weather increase, I think we need to step back and reassess whether we have all the pieces in place for this plan to work or whether changes to the plan or increased resources to implement it are needed it.
As has been discussed extensively in this House, many of our communities, particularly our regional centres identified in the plan as host communities, are underfunded. They don't have additional capacity to take on the responsibilities laid out in this plan, either for building up capacity to respond to emergencies within their boundaries or to host evacuated neighbours. The plan speaks to how communities should look to local businesses and contractors where necessary to expand capacity to respond. But, again, building capacity within those businesses to be able to answer the call will cost money the communities don't have.
With regard to hosting evacuees, I think we need to step back and assess whether this really is something we can download on to local EMOs or whether we need to be seeking federal funding to establish resource reception centres for the regions.
Mr. Speaker, I believe we can identify a path which works for communities and the territory, but I don't think it involves leaving municipalities to do this work alone. We need to fund communities to build and maintain emergency response capacity. We also need to work with municipalities to identify how regional evacuation hosting is going to work and openly acknowledge that they can't take on that task alone. I'll have questions for the Minister at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Members' statements. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
