Caroline Cochrane

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is responsible for the CTV Act. We are not responsible for the funding that is provided to the Visitors' Association. As stated, I can't speak on behalf of another department. I am not sure. I know that Municipal and Community Affairs would not be going into the City of Yellowknife to look at their budget for their visitors' centre. That is not under Municipal and Community Affairs.

I am willing to work with the communities on this, but I can't do this alone. If homeowners actually have an issue where they have an environmental concern, they don't have a fuel tank or they may be having to take one out because it is not meeting the need now, and we can't get a tank in there, if they apply to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, we will try to do our best to try to alleviate any potential or spillage that is there currently, recognizing that they have to fit within the needs assessment, the income threshold, to be able to qualify for our programming.

However, tell...

I think we would have to do a community view. I think that we are looking at seeing how the local housing authorities can support their communities better, recognizing that they don't have available supplies, contractors, et cetera, for a variety of housing needs. We are looking at that.

I do have to make sure before I make a commitment in the House, though, that, if we are going to be doing that, my thinking is, and I may be wrong, that you need to have some kind of certification to be able to do that. I need to make sure that either the local housing authorities have that certification or we...

Yes. Again, there are always lessons learned with anything, when things go good and when things go bad, there are always lessons to be learned. Within that one, again, I have to focus that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is not in charge of all the fire departments. That is a community issue, but we do work with them closely to provide the support, the training, and the services that they need to make sure that they are functioning well. There was a breakdown in communication. We talked with the council.

They are actually going to be on this Monday coming up, March 19, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Ms. Arlene Hache, who is here as the Yellowknife representative for the Northwest Territories Status of Women Council. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That is new news to me. I have also concerns if someone is trying to phone a fire line and doesn't get through. I would like to say that the community, the council should be available at all times. We will check into that. I do know there may have been a glitch. They are just in the process of hiring a brand new fire chief, and the new chief is going to start work in early April. That still no excuse, so I will look into it to make sure if people call for support, emergency support, that somebody is going to answer that phone.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I actually appreciate being asked the question so I can clarify some of the information. As stated last week, the Norman Wells fire department was not shut down. That was an error on behalf of the media. We have been, before actually, before the Auditor General report, we have been going in and doing assessments of community fire departments. We have done 15 so far, and each one of those have come with recommendations. Norman Wells was identified as the need for more training, and there were some issues regarding the qualifications of the fire people to be able to...

Mr. Speaker, I can feel it. I can feel it in the air. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to provide Members with information on the 2018 Arctic Winter Games, which are being hosted from March 18 to March 24 in the South Slave Region.

The Northwest Territories has been an active participant in the Arctic Winter Games since its inception in 1970. These games are an important celebration of sport and culture for youth from the circumpolar region. We are proud to host the 2018 Games, and we are even more proud of Team NT who will be representing the Northwest Territories.

Team NT will consist of...

I think that being accountable to the public and having the most input from the public is advisable. I don't want to make it a public show. What I will do, though, is I will commit to doing a survey to find out, and hopefully from all residents, but especially for women. This is the Status of Women, so trying to get a gender-based viewpoint on what the women residents and young girls and women residents of the Northwest Territories feel that we should be doing as the Status of Women, I will commit to doing that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I won't make that commitment at this time. I need to go back and look at it. The review that we did was internal, and it wasn't actually done under my direction. It was just an employee who offered to assist us with that, so I have to go back and look at it to determine if that was a formal report or was that just a volunteer who was assisting us with looking at making the campaign school better, so I'm not sure if it was a paid position or just a volunteer.