Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess a number of factors come in. Usually, when we make a public notice, it is in the opposite end, is boil water notices that would go out. However, we do put on the website our results of the water tests that have occurred, on the Stanton website as I am informed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the area of involvement, again with the new act, clarifies our roles and deals directly with the issue of water and water quality now instead of the way it was done before. We can, with the passage of this act, make orders in response to the water quality if it, in fact, fails. That would be made to the community and working with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs as to what needed to be remedied. As for the budget for equipment, that type of area, that would be a direct relationship with the Department of Municipal and Community...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the new act would change the way we’ve looked at things and clarify the roles and responsibilities of the department and the chief public health officer. At this point, I’ll go to Dr. Corriveau to give some detail to that response. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Friday, August 17, I will move that Bill 18, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2007-2008, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we’ve seen from our results and many discussions that involve the Northwest Territories and other provincial and territorial Ministers of Finance, as well as the federal government, the process can be rather involved. We are working with that. We have initiated the contact and we’re starting to get those responses. As well, we have the opportunity and actually, as I stated earlier, we’re going to be working together with our territorial colleagues in making a joint presentation in Iqaluit on September 24th as the House finance committee launches...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, if I understand the question correctly, is how soon can an issue be put out there and how soon would it be dealt with. That would work in conjunction with our testing patterns as we found problems. Again, for more detail, we will go to Dr. Corriveau for more detail than I can provide. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it would be difficult to give an absolute timeline as, number one, to try and get a schedule together of all Finance Ministers where we have our joint meetings and, secondly, to get the agreement that we will put that on the agenda that would also include the federal government. On a provincial and territorial side, as I stated, we’re starting to get responses back that are favourable and can see that we can put that on a provincial and territorial agenda, but the meeting dates have not been finalized or discussed at this point. Secondly, from that table...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as we proceed and this bill gets passed and put into force, we will also have to do work around regulations of that. As Dr. Corriveau stated, we would be working with municipalities if they decided to use a product like fluoride. We would continue to be involved in that sense. But as we go the next step and look at regulations, those items can be looked at and incorporated. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, to the extent we’re able to. We have to recognize the fact that this contract and the union negotiations are going outside our processes. So I’ll have to be careful that we’re not deemed to be influencing process on either side, but we’ve been monitoring it on a regular basis and we’ve had our contact to see what was happening in the current settlement. We will continue to do what we can within our realm of authority to try and ensure that this comes out to a successful conclusion; the sooner, the better. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.