Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will begin for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. So the after-action review emphasized the need to put standards for training and emergency preparedness into legislation and to establish detailed regulations, whereas currently we don't have it, regulations. To quote the review, regulations bring it to a concrete actionable level adding the clarity needed for partners to do their job. Provinces and territories with regulations have better compliance and enforcement of their act and demonstrated more effective emergency management plans. Now, the government in its response said it would consider maybe drafting new regulations, but that would be up to the new working group.
Can the Minister explain why can't the government commit at least to developing new regulations with defined standards while consulting with partners on the details? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
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 Indigenous governments; however, this government has committed to working with Indigenous governments to implement this as part of our review and also put it into some of our -- you know, some of our plans, some of our legislation, some of the work that we have to do. So it's -- the process is that it's not going to be done; it's we're starting to work on it now, and hopefully it will all flesh out over time there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the review, one of it's specific recommendations is that we amend our legislation to describe how a territorial state of emergency interfaces with a state of local emergency, noting that the transfer of authority away from and back to the city of Yellowknife in 2023 was unclear to everyone involved as well as which authority actually decides when to evacuate. So will the Minister commit to changing our Emergency Management Act to make these unclear authorities actually clear to everyone? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I guess that's the good thing about this third party independent after-action review, is that it brought out all these things. It brought out the -- you know, some of the issues that we were having, including this one that was raised. Yes, we are looking at making these changes in the Emergency Management Act. This is all part of the after-action review. You know, the whole point of this is clarifying our roles and responsibilities. You know, I guess after that, in 2023, having been part of it, you know, I understand the confusion and everything else that was there, and it definitely is a trying, difficult time; however, the role behind this is learning from it, and that's what this government is doing right now, is we all are following the after-action review, we're reviewing the Emergency Management Act, and we're going to implement our clearer roles even in the working with like, the city of Yellowknife, for example, so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'm hearing from the Minister that the government is going to move forward with the recommendations of the after-action review, yet the government's written response was that it would take these ideas into consideration as it consults with the new working groups, etcetera.
Can the Minister clarify is the government going to wait to see what is the outcome of these discussions with working groups, or is the government committed now to actually implement these recommendations around new regulations and legislative change? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So out of the 35 recommendations, there was, you know, one that we really didn't agree with. You know, the rest of them were partially agreed. And part of this is not just that we weren't going to do this; it was the fact that we need to see what we need to do. We can't just update the Emergency Management Act, like I said earlier, and update all the legislation to find out that's not what we needed to do. In fact, going through the after-action review has obviously highlighted some of the things that we need to do and part of the process of updating the Emergency Management Act and the legislation and how we work with communities. So the after-action review isn't being ignored; it's being implemented in a way that's going to be working with everybody, the communities, the municipalities, you know, the Indigenous governments, so that all the concerns are taking into place and we're able to encompass it in all our responses of the 35 recommendations, so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
