Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following four documents entitled “NWT Main Estimates, 2016-2017;” “Fiscal Responsibility Policy”, “Planning and Accountability Framework”, “Budget Dialogue 2016: Report on What was Heard in Participants' Own Words.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Member has already raised it as an issue that continues to be on the radar. We have had a lot of the work done, the research work done, and so we know where we need to go. We know what it's going to cost, so our challenge now is to come up with the funding to try and implement this, see where it's going to work best. But as far as during the life of this Assembly, it would be ideal to… Because this work has been going on, I think, for the last eight, nine years… So if there is an opportunity to do it during the life of this Assembly, we will certainly explore that.

Mr. Speaker, 911 has been on the radar for the past assemblies and it received a lot of attention. There's a lot of work that's gone into it. We had a working group that was set up to analyze the implementation and how we could work 911 into the system. That work is being done, as the Member correctly stated, but to his question, 911 is not really a part of the NWT mandate, the mandate we just put together, but recognizing that it is an important safety service that's required across the NWT, I will commit to the Member that we will continue to have discussion on 911 service and how we can get...

Mr. Speaker, I did make a commitment in the past that we do our work in trying to analyze the effects that it has on the NWT. We will continue to do that work. We share that with committee. For the particular detail on that, I don't have that detail right now as to what do I think we are going to lose if ten people leave the Northwest Territories, but we are doing what we can to mitigate the effect on the NWT as a whole.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I made the commitment while we were meeting with committee in Committee Room A that we would do the work in analyzing the effects that it would have. Historically, we have always been able to accommodate a lot of those folks that have been affected in moving them to other departments, and we are continuing to do that work. We will continue to keep committee apprised. In the briefing that I had with committee the other day, I did make a commitment that we would come before committee every Monday and give them an update on the work that we are doing to accommodate all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to recognize my wife, Judy, who is with us in the gallery today who came down to support me during the budget address. I appreciate her being up in the gallery. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll follow up and gather the information and I will see where we're able to table that. But I will follow-up. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, if there is opportunity for us to find other stakeholders or other community governments and that, we can partner up with them and we will explore all options in how we can move this forward. We have done a lot of work across the jurisdiction, across the country to see what their successes have been with the implementation and which systems might work best for up here. I think we have basically come up with a plan. The next step now is to identify finances, to try and implement across the NWT, and it's one of the reasons we go through the exercise that we go through so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker I will make that commitment. In fact, it's already happening in the Member's community where we had a member of our regional office meet with the Chamber of Commerce. I believe it was on May 26th and it was a very informative session from what I've been told, and they had a lot of questions, and they had a bit better understanding of how it works, but I will make a commitment to have our folks… It's part of our jobs too as representatives for our ridings is to share the information that we know with our constituents so they'd have a better understanding...

Equity leases are still an option for clients under the land pricing policy in the unsettled areas.