Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 14, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2011-2012, be read for the first time.

There will be an RFP put out and folks can apply for that. That will be an open kind of process, and if they are the ones chosen and meet the requirements, then they’ll get the job. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 12, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 6, 2010-2011, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was careful consideration given to the request. Yellowknife has, in the Northwest Territories, the best services available on the medical front, of nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, obstetricians, everybody that you could possibly need to have a successful pregnancy, to do the prenatal and postnatal work. Yes, midwifery is nice to have if we can afford it.

I pointed out earlier that every region here outside of the large centres, the Sahtu, Nunakput, Tu Nedhe, Nahendeh, Mackenzie Delta, Monfwi, and Deh Cho, don’t have birthing services at all. So we have...

The staff will be involved. There will be a whole number of people and groups involved as we pull together the information. The task will be for ourselves as legislators, those that are going to be here in the 17th Assembly, to look at the work as they consider the business plan as a government, their first business plan to see where this ranks on the to-do list.

I would also suggest that as we look at the next contracts document at the end of this coming year, that I would think you’d see a diminishment of use of those services, just given some of the financial constraints and the concerns...

We have a number of agreements. We have the MARS agreement, which is applicable across Canada for mutual aid and reciprocal response. We have the Northwest Compact Agreement covering the western provinces and the northwest States, Canada/U.S. Reciprocal Agreements. We have the NWT-Alberta Border Agreements and agreements with Parks Canada for fires in national parks.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 14, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2011-2012, be read for the third time. Thank you.

The Member and I share something of a common history in this process. I was involved as well in the development of the legislation and the bringing forward of the resources and the plan to try to roll this out. The key is going to be to see, given all the demographics, birthrates, and all the other technical things you have to look at in terms of services and where they should be located, and are they justifiable in terms of economics and the service levels, to see how we do that. Contingent upon, as I pointed out last week, the fiscal constraints that we are working under as a government.

The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What we’ve observed, of course, is every community’s worst nightmare, where there is a confluence of time and events, and circumstances and conditions of weather and dryness that resulted in significant wind that resulted in a catastrophic event.

For ourselves in the Northwest Territories we have our fire crews in place. While we recognize that it is much drier than normal, we have our contracts with bombers and the rotary wing craft. We have been working long and hard in the communities to do FireSmart programs. We have changed our command and control structures when it...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 12, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 6, 2010-2011, be read for the third time. Thank you.