Vince McKay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, rest assured to the Member I've been echoing his statement quite a bit to the international games committee. Most recently in Alaska when I was there during a meeting, you know, I've requested -- or I encouraged them to look at how we do the Arctic Winter Games, participation-wise, how often the games are held. You know, these are important things to help ensure that the Arctic Winter Games are -- first of all, the ability to afford them is there but that we're able to hold them in other communities throughout the Northwest Territories. You know, it's not only us...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're in continued talks about the iGaming topic. I think there's more to the iGaming than just iGaming. I think we have a lot of things going on with even land-based gaming type stuff. So there's a lot going on with that. We haven't reached the legislative proposal stuff yet, but there is a lot of internal workings right now on how to pursue and move this concept forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the 2025 emergency season once again tested the strength and resilience of our territory. It showed the courage and dedication of those who step forward in times of crisis to protect residents and communities. It also reinforced that the changes and improvements we have made since 2023 are making a real difference in how we respond and recover.

I want to begin by recognizing and thanking everyone who worked on the frontlines over this past emergency season. Our wildfire crews, community firefighters and first responders, often put themselves in situations where there was great risk...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As this involves more than just MACA, every community, every agency, every NGO, every department is responsible to have some form of emergency plan. These emergency plans are not always run by the government. So, you know, a lot of this falls under EIA and with the emergency social services, but the goal is to have documented four emergency plans all vulnerable and residents who need assistance, to have the assistance available in the case of an emergency, whether it be a local emergency, small emergency, territorial emergency, or regional emergencies.

So our goal is to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know if that position's been filled or not. I know, like any position in the GNWT and in the territories, we are struggling to recruit people. So I'll have to find out for the Member and get back to him on whether that position's been filled or not. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is in regular contact with the region, the regional superintendent for road safety. We are constantly in contact with the contractors also to ensure that the proper work is being done on those roads. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Having been at the other end of this, I totally agree. We do supply a lot of funds to assist local communities in emergency planning. There are some funds available for training, whether it be on the ICS system, which the GNWT also does some of that training and support community governments in the ICS training. And part of that being we need to make sure that what services or training that's being provided is something that's needed or the community's capable of doing. Some of them might need the resources of other communities or the government.

So I will look at what...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in regards to establishing a dashboard, we don't have any plans to put anything up there as of yet, but I will commit to checking with the department and see what we can do to put something out there so that there's the availability for residents to follow on what actions will be taken for all 35 recommendations. That being said, the recommendations that have been put out there, our goal, to make sure that we're committed to implementing them, following them, and making sure that our task is to have the least impact on communities that don't have the ability to fully...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know that off the top of my head for highway inspections, but I'm quite certain that a lot of the staff that drive on the highway would be reporting any issues or concerns. The goal of the department is to have safe highways in the Northwest Territories that are, you know, safe for NWT residents to use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I would first off say that we're not going to not do that. We are committed to, you know, making regulations. However, we didn't want to put the cart before the horse, so updating the Emergency Management Act, updating the legislation, and then having to go back and fix it after an after-action review was completed, the third party independent after-action review, would, again, just cause more confusion. So we're not saying we're not going to do this. It's we have to actually sit down and look exactly what we need to do. You know, most times this wouldn't include...