Vince McKay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure everybody's aware over this last year what every province and territory has gone through, even just this last year. You know, and a lot of the problems that have been happening down south are similar to what we've been dealing with. So we really have to look at what we're doing with a standard, not with what other departments or what other agencies are doing, because it may not work up here. So every emergency is different. Every situation is different. That's why we follow the Incident Command System which is a standard. And it's important to follow that...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to be clear, the after-action review brought out the issues that happened during that time. From that time forward, the government has taken steps to correct some of those and has been working since that time. The after-action review brought out a lot of the concerns that even I had. So to say that that's happening right now is not exactly correct. So some of the things that have been brought out may have been corrected before this after-action review has been released, some of which is what the Member is speaking about right now.

So the EMO organizations throughout...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So with that section there, I assume part of the issue is with the material going away, falling off the sides or whatever it may be, so it makes it all muddy this time of year. So I'll commit to working with the Member and getting to the department to finding out what a solution is going forward to make sure that if we don't fix it right away or fix it initially that we can build on it by putting layers of gravel on it and fixing it over the next few -- while. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe the goal is to support what the community is requiring or what the communities' needs are. We're not going to slow anything down as the government. We're going to work and try to find a path forward in supporting communities when it comes down to emergencies. We have the ability in place to support these communities, and we'll continue to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe it was this spring I had similar lines of questioning, and at that time I pretty much kind of laid out what the plan was going forward. The reality is I think it's important that we really work with the communities on what's needed in the communities. And that's still the continued goal. We are, the department of health and the department of MACA, are working together to come up with plans for the communities, and Fort Res is one of the communities in our mind when we're talking about this, is having something in place to help respond in the communities to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, it's nice to -- for the Member to bring out that article because that's actually where that quote came from, so thank you.

I also will add the department has not specifically pulled out numbers on what it would cost to stand up a department for operating emergencies; however, we wouldn't know what that looks like. If people were around back in the '80s or early '90s, people would remember the Department of Public Safety where Justice was under, fire marshal's office was under, and that's gone. We're now operating the way we operate. So typical government, vicious...

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, so I don't know if it's right to be talking about contracts in here. But I will follow up with the Member, and we'll have some discussions on what needs to be done there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have the staff within MACA to deal with this type of stuff. We have the staff that are trained in emergency management. We have the staff that are able to, you know, build the plans and also work with the legislation. I'm quite confident that the department is able to manage the types of emergencies that we've been dealt with the last little while. I know there's also concerns about the capacity. The Government of the Northwest Territories have -- it's actually even still advertised -- have requested for GNWT employees who wish to step up. There are trained GNWT...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I'll commit to having something to the House or for the Members here before the next session. Thank you.