Vince McKay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Emergencies happen anytime, anywhere, not just with wildfires. It is important that the territorial government supports local governments in being prepared for emergencies. MACA supports communities in emergency management and developing their community emergency management plans to ensure that they're prepared when an emergency strikes. If there's a flood and they need to evacuate, we need to have those preparedness documents prepared well in advance so that there isn't that instant reaction and place -- things are in place in order to assist a community when they're...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a few plans bringing forward to cover that fund off. One of them is obviously submitting to the government for more funding to help support that. However, we also need to fine tune what we're doing, you know, looking at expenses, looking at what we're paying for in order to contribute to the actual fund itself to make sure that the funds are actually getting to the athletes and their abilities to participate in sports and games. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize my supervisor, constituency assistant from Hay River South, Myrtle Graham, who is in the gallery today. Thank you.

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. 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. The current structure already separates from the political side. The decisions are all made within the ICS system, and when it comes down to a Minister making a decision, it's through the legislation on what type of decision that may be. So sometimes it's signing off on an emergency evacuation order that a local state of emergency that has been declared. So it's not the Minister making the decision; it's following the recommendations of the trained staff. So basically the Minister's role is limited to making statutory declarations if a local state of emergency or...