Jane Groenewegen

What reciprocal agreements do we have in place with other jurisdictions in Canada to provide them with support if our fire season is not making busy our crews and equipment that are on standby? What agreements do we have in place to lend support where it may be required in neighbouring jurisdictions and where they may come to our aid should we require their assistance?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I referred to in my Member’s statement earlier today, I think we all have some concerns after seeing what’s transpiring in northern Alberta right now with regard to forest fires. The situation that occurred in Slave Lake where within such a short time span a forest fire broke out and destroyed almost the entire community, are there any observations, lessons to be learned for us here in the North on how that whole situation transpired? Is that something that the Minister is going to look at to avoid such a tragedy in our territory?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So far we have approval from committee to deal with Bills 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11; okay, 11 as well. I’m getting the verbal here from... No? Okay, Mr. Schauerte is saying no to 11.

---Laughter

Okay, let’s just go back to 3, 4, 5, 6. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The wish of the committee today is to deal with Bill 8, An Act to Amend the Local Authorities Elections Act.

Thank you. I repeat my question: is this a policy of government now, or are we just making this up as we go along here? Is a consent form a required policy of this government, and does it apply government-wide to all departments or just to specific ones? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As MLAs we are often called upon to advocate on behalf of constituents for a wide variety of issues with literally every department of this government; everything from contracting processes to delays in medical travel, approvals to student financial assistance issues. Very often extensive information is shared with MLAs by constituents who do not have ready access to the answers, solutions or remedies that they are seeking. I’ve been an MLA for 16 years and see this is a large part of the constituent work that it is my duty to perform.

In recent months, upon making...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

I’m still not hearing that this is a formal policy of this government. When did this consent form policy materialize? When did it surface? When did it become an issue? How were Members and people in the North made aware that such a policy existed, because it does not seem to be consistent. Also, it does not seem to be in keeping with the actual Protection of Privacy and Access to Information Act itself, which clearly states that MLAs are excluded from some of the stringent rules regarding the protection of information.

I think everybody needs to handle information with respect and with great...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are in follow-up to my Member’s statement. They’re directed to Minister Miltenberger I guess as the Deputy Premier and Government House Leader and overseer of many things these days. Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I talked about the request that we’ve been receiving as MLAs from certain departments when we are seeking assistance or advocating on behalf of our constituents, consent forms that need to be, well, they come as an attachment to the request for us to get them from our constituents. So there is a form out there called a consent form.

Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee today would like to deal with Tabled Document 9-16(6), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2011-2012.