Caroline Cochrane

So, the allocating of these 19 units was at the beginning of my term a couple of years ago, and I do appreciate the Member saying: what lessons did I derive from that experience. It's important to look on the things that we do and to reflect and to make sure that we make better decisions in the future. I believe in northern houses for northern people, done by northern contractors, so my initial goal was to actually have those units as a manufacturing strategy. There are a lot of modular units that come from the south, especially in our community of Yellowknife, that are sold and the money is...

Again, I don't know exactly if that has been completed. We are working on developing web-based training for a lot of our courses within the School of Community Government. We have 80 some courses in total.

I do know, however, that we provide face-to-face training. We provide tabletop exercises. We do have web-based training for some of the courses, and I am not exactly sure if that is one of them, but if it is one in the Auditor General's report, and if it is not done already, I can assure you that it will be. At this time, I do know that we do face-to-face training, and we also do tabletop...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, the original plan was to have 19 buildings from the Concept Energy. At this point, we are proceeding with the completion of 14 of those units. I do not know if all of them have been tendered out yet. I do know that five of the projects have been deferred because, there were two communities, one community was we had worked with the MLA and private market-holders who had expressed interest in building in that community, and so we try not to disturb the market within communities. Another one, we worked with the MLA because, I believe, they would be market units, and it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this immediate time, since the Auditor General report was submitted, our Office of the Fire Marshal has been going into communities, working with each community, with their fire departments, to assess their fire departments and their needs to address fires at this time, and will continue right through until every community is done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, the assessment to land is taking into consideration not only the land, but all infrastructure that is on the land. I will use Yellowknife. If you buy a lot in Yellowknife, you might be looking at a couple of hundred thousand, but once you put a trailer onto that or a unit onto that, it does increase the market value of that property. That is taken into consideration.

All of the recommendations within the Auditor General's report are being implemented. We have said that many times through standing committee, in the House, whenever the questions have come up. We are committed to addressing all of the recommendations that were identified in that. We were actually working with the community of Norman Wells, prior to the Auditor General's report, on assessing their fire needs. Our Office of the Fire Marshal is working diligently at this time, going into the communities to assess their needs, to reassess their needs, to define what is needed, to support them in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member's question about why we have been assigned this task is a little bit confusing. I don't know the history on why Municipal and Community Affairs was assigned that. My guess would be that we are Municipal and Community Affairs and our job is to make sure that the communities have the supports that they need. Assessing them would be considered one of those supports. Again, though, I wasn't here back in the day when it was originally assigned to Municipal and Community Affairs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are standards for fire provision within the Northwest Territories. Our Office of the Fire Marshal works closely with the communities to develop safety plans in that regard. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The questions that were asked of me did not say that I wasn't working. I don't believe that I am failing at addressing the issue. I do know that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is actually working diligently on this issue at this time. We are supporting the community. We are assessing their needs and their situations. That I do know. Our job is to support the communities. When we hear there is an issue, we are in there to see what we can do for support.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must state that the Member looks very good today. The fire department in Norman Wells is something that I will have to look into. I will get back to her with that answer. It is a municipal issue; it is not a territorial issue. We provide support to the community governments. They are responsible for actually developing and maintaining their fire departments. We provide training and support for fire departments, but we don't actually look after the day-to-day operations of them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.