Vince McKay

Thank you, Madam Chair. With me today, Rick Hunt, the WSCC president and CEO to my left. And to my right, Patrick Bruce, legal counsel with the Department of Justice.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission Northwest Territories and Nunavut Annual Report 2024. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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. 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. 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. 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...