Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, I raised with the Minister of MACA about how the NWT fire marshal's job is -- one of its responsibilities is to ensure about home -- or building inspections in the communities. I am looking forward to hearing what his plan is about filling the gap that they are not inspecting building plans and buildings in communities outside of their fire responsibility. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
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. Can the Minister speak to how long this practice has been ongoing. Thank you.
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, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's been a well-known secret within the department that the fire marshal does not do building inspections outside of the city of Yellowknife. The City of Yellowknife has its own process. So my question specifically is how long is this practice of refusal to do this because it's a well-known culture secret within the Department of Infrastructure as well as the GNWT, and I want to make sure this problem stops. Thank you.
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 assistant fire marshal position here in Yellowknife to assist with that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
