Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of MACA.
Under the NWT Emergency Plan, the communication incident management team is only activated in state of emergencies. Can the Minister speak to what coordination will be stood up when communities have urgent concerns on public safety that may not yet be classified as emergencies? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are many levels of community or sorry, emergency situations and for that, every level has a different stage that they will go in for what they're going to stand up and what they're going to need at that time. So depending on what stage it might be in, us as MACA may not fully be involved but we would be there to observe and assist with the department regional superintendents and the manager of EMO. But for the most part, at every stage MACA will be involved to assist any community emergency whether they fully need us or not, but for the most part, just there to be there if it's needed. So at a local emergency level, we might not be involved at all. It would just be the local community involvement, and they would be doing their own thing, as I've witnessed many time inside Hay River, that not too many people outside of Hay River would hear of or see of, but when it goes down to the regional area of the regional emergency measure organization, MACA would have more involvement and the ability to step in more resources as would the territorial emergency measure organization when it gets to that level. So hopefully that answers your question. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could the Minister speak to whether he'd consider expanding or reenvisioning the NWT alert page to draw from GNWT corporate communications or any centralized mechanism that would be able to consolidate all relevant and robust public safety information in a mobile app, like the BC wildfire app. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MACA has been working to expand the NWT alerting system. They've worked with the RCMP recently for the ability for them to send out alerts. MACA's always looking at improving the way we communicate. When it comes down to a territorial emergency, right now I think we're at the stage where we're using the NWT alert system. There's also other apps and devices out there, like Alertable, for an example where you can set your region for your ability to pick up those kinds of emergencies if there is any. But there's locally, I would have to say the best resources are your local community agencies, whether it be the community government, your community emergency response teams, whatever that might be. And for that reason is that's where you're going to get your experienced knowledge people for that area communicating and those that information would be utilized also for MACA to share or the territorial emergency measures organization to share if need be. But for the most part, when it's a local state of emergency and local EMO organization is running it, it would be the local governments, like a town or municipality doing the communication that may not go out everywhere on, like, the NWT alerting device. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure that really gets at the heart of what I'm getting at, but I'll try and ask my next question, which is will the Minister ensure that coordinated plain language information, including evacuation notice alerts and orders, fire bans, road closures, wildlife or sorry, pardon me, wildfire perimeters, air quality measurements, which are already there, road construction, campsite closures, by way of list of a small sampling could be made available through the NWT Alert Site? That's the new site that they've put up and stood up, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As this is a new development central focused area for getting communication out there, the department will continue to work on it and hopefully we can get as much information on there as we can like the Member's suggesting, and I think those are all great things. It's just a matter of working on the site to get the communication and the information on there that is needed. So we'll continue to work and develop that site to have more information. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
