Vince McKay

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is due to the increase in the positions for fleet management, the compensation and benefits that relate to positions. And because of the three positions, that's what this increase entails. Thank you.

So, yeah, Deh Cho operations, we have -- full-time positions in the Deh Cho, we have 45. For her specific riding -- or for Fort Providence, we can get you the information for detail for specifically Fort Providence, if you like, or if you want it broken down for area. But, yeah, 45 is the number of positions in the Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The responsibility of the fire marshal's office is to do building inspections as they develop or also occupancy loads or anything like that. So, you know, the City of Yellowknife also has bylaws that they may have in place for their building inspectors or whatever, but the fire marshal's office has the authority and has the legislative authority to do inspections on buildings in the Northwest Territories. And like I said earlier, our fire marshal in Yellowknife is -- you know, has been -- the workload has been quite a bit and ongoing pressures, so we've added the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, we have done a review of the fire marshal's office, and we have seen concerns of a gap. We are addressing those. We've upped staff with a position in Yellowknife to help take some of that strain off the area. You know, so our goal is here to provide a service for the residents of the Northwest Territories and Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's the issue of writing the legislation for this issue. It's not a matter of just putting in a couple lines and continuing on. We have to go through the process of the legislation. And, again, you know, we've set our priorities in the 20th Assembly for, you know, certain things, and the legislative proposals have been put in place on what we're concentrating on for our legislative priorities, and it also takes different departments, not just the Department of Infrastructure. We also have to involve the Department of Justice in writing some of this material. So thank...

Mr. Speaker, today I want to talk about the importance of our winter road system and acknowledge the hard work being done by Government of the Northwest Territories staff in the construction, maintenance, and operation of these winter roads.

The Government of the Northwest Territories is responsible for building and maintaining several public ice roads, winter roads, and ice crossings, spanning across 1,300 kilometers, roughly the same distance it takes to drive from Hay River to Calgary. This vast winter road system connects nine northern communities that otherwise do not have access to the...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 41, An Act to Amend the Real Estate Agents Licensing Act, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Try to clarify what practice he's speaking of but, Mr. Speaker, we've had a fire marshal in -- the fire marshal in Yellowknife for many years. However, due to ongoing, you know, legislative priorities, workloads for different types of things at headquarters, you know, the goal was to add some support for doing inspections in the area, along with regional assistant fire marshals throughout the regions. We've added another assistant fire marshal in the area here to assist in the Yellowknife region. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, this is a concern not only in his riding. This is a concern throughout the territories, including my own riding. Although I can't commit to, you know, starting all this year and having completed it by the end of the 20th Assembly, like I said earlier it is on the radar, and writing instructions are being given this summer to get the work started. So like I said, hopefully, you know, we should be able to get some of this going here right away. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the concerns brought forward by the Member and the department has been looking into this; however, it may seem straightforward just to make the changes, but there's necessarily -- there's some direction that we have to take in order to apply this legislation. We have to, you know, start working on necessary policy direction, the regulations, different program adjustments, and these all take time and resources. Although this process is scheduled to start, hopefully taking place this summer, we hear the concerns and it is on the radar. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.