Caroline Cochrane

The MLA is correct. The Government of the Northwest Territories provided Sport North with the funding to provide transportation for the youth. As stated earlier, I will check into Sport North and, if they did have a charter, so transportation arranged from the community of Fort Simpson, and the youth did not get a chance to do that, then I will not reimburse them out of pocket because that was part of the deal. If they were asked to make their way to Yellowknife to get onto a plane and they were not reimbursed for that, then I will look into that and provide reimbursement for that cost if that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe there were a couple of youth who, because they were weathered in, took the chance and they actually drove to Yellowknife to see if they could get a flight, which they couldn't get as well. It was, I believe, weathered in.

My understanding was that, the next day, the weather cleared in Simpson. I may be wrong, but that is my understanding, that the weather cleared and that they might have been able to get to the event if they had stayed. That may be incorrect, but what is important to note is that Sport North did pay for flight arrangements for all of the youth...

Yes, it was kind of dismaying for me to hear that, all of these years that we have been providing the multisport games, this has been an issue, so I have made it a priority that we will look at options, like I had said earlier, that we need to make sure as many children as possible, as many youth as possible, have a chance for these games. These sometimes change people's lives, and so it is critical that we look at this and we make it a priority, so I will make it a priority to make sure that we look at all available options so that more youth can attend the trials, at least, for the games.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Member's statement, he used the term, I believe it was, "MACA's always there to help." That's his term. I really appreciate that, and I agree. MACA's whole job is to help communities. How do we get the emergency planning into the areas of his region? Simple, we need to get the community government to contact the regional manager. At that point, we'll get a facilitator to come in and help them actually develop or update their community emergency plans.

We also provide tabletop exercises that they can take advantage if they're interested in that, which will help to...

As well as meeting with the communities face-to-face, we have online training, and that is available to communities. The online training in this case are particular basic emergency management and the incident command systems. Those are the two courses that, actually, we start with to develop community emergency plans. Those are online.

We also work one on one with communities. If they need our assistance, we'll come in and we'll help them either create or update their plans. We have tabletop exercises that we'll go in and we'll actually do a draft emergency plan to make sure that they have the...

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce the launch of the new Municipal Elections website, created by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs in partnership with the Northwest Territories Association of Communities. This website provides easily accessible municipal election resources to prospective candidates, community governments and to the general public. In addition to providing recent municipal election results, the website contains information on the dates, number of seats, and terms for upcoming municipal elections.

Mr. Speaker, the website targets three main audiences. These are...

Often, MLAs say to us, "Just say yes." In this case, I'm going to just say yes. We will actually work with them. Part of working and developing an emergency plan is having discussions on what resources are needed and what funding sources they have available. The regional superintendents and the management team will work directly with the communities, and we can also work as a liaison to work with other departments that they may need to access services from. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The answer's yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The senior policy analyst position is actually with the Office of the Fire Marshal, and as Mr. Schauerte said, it is actually to give assistance in bringing forward the Fire Prevention Act and the community fire protection plans that are needed. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will take that as a compliment, and I will share that with our department. Thank you, again, to the MLA. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is, no, it cannot be shared with committee even in confidentiality. Thank you, Mr. Chair.