Vince McKay

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So when it comes down to having our own department essentially for emergency management, we have the services available, we have the opportunity to do emergency management, operate emergencies under our current operating system. And what I would say is when I first ran for MLA, one of the things that I was saying through the whole thing is, you know, I believe in fine tuning in what we have. I believe in fine tuning on what we do. And this is exactly my point is that we have the staff, we have the personnel, we have the ability, and we've also had to, you know, also...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, so I know we've been trying to get into the Sahtu, and I committed to going to the Sahtu. We have plans, I believe, in the new year to try to go there because I think we'd like to get up there and not only go and meet about the barging season but also see the winter road and see how it is.

So I am committed to meeting with the residents of the Sahtu for the barging and anything else that we need to talk about. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. So when it comes down to the training and the development, working with the communities at the all the levels, the local level, the regional level, you know, we're working with the community governments to make sure that the things are in place to help out these residents. A lot of the problems that we've seen even just recently are not really related to the government. It's related to circumventing the process, and it's been a very frustrating thing for me to even see because we have the resources in place, we have the opportunities in place, to assist with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sorry, I check Drive NT and road conditions before I leave my House. Sorry.

One thing I will say is we do have signs up on the highway. We have them in Enterprise. We have them at the junction to Whati. And those are updated for road conditions; however, I will take that from the Member, the recommendation from the Member, and we'll look at what we can do to improve that. 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...

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.