Thank you, Mr. Picco. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, there was a meeting in Ottawa last week and I had representation from the Department of Transportation there. This meeting was hosted by the federal government, Transport Canada, and there was discussion about on-sight firefighting requirements at airports that are not now required to provide this service under the new Canadian aviation regulations. There was a working group that was set up. Their task was to study and make recommendations concerning the need to regulate the provisions of on-sight firefighting services at small airports across the country. There was an agreement by all stakeholders that the terms of reference be developed for this working group. Thank you.

Thank you. Supplementary, Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is it possible to have the terms of reference for that small working group that the Minister just mentioned tabled in this House for review for the Members?

Thank you. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes. Once the terms of references are developed and I have copies of them I will make them available to this Legislative Assembly for review. Thank you.

Thank you. Second supplementary, Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier in my preamble to the question on my concern with the ERS and the navigation aids, I wonder if the Minister could correlate between the ERS and the navigation aid problem that we are having right now in our community?

Thank you. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am not too clear on the honourable Member's question, but in regard to the ERS, there are specific interests of municipalities at this meeting here. There were the fire chiefs as well as the fire marshal's offices were involved in this meeting here. I would like to ask the honourable Member to see if he could clarify that question and I will try to be more specific. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Picco, could you please clarify the question for the Minister?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for about three weeks we have had problems with our navigation aids and because of ERS they have to respond to the problems with the navigation aid in Iqaluit, the BRHS system which allows planes to land and take off. So I was asking the Minister about the navigation aids with the ERS service because that is the question I am asking on the ERS and the response that the fire department will have to respond to the problems with the navigation aids. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the original question was about the meeting in Ottawa and the ERS. On that one there is going to be some ongoing discussion. Like I said, the working group is going to be set up to look into providing on-sight firefighting services but that is sometime into the future. In regard to the immediate problem of the navigation aid in Iqaluit, it is really the responsibility of NAV Canada, which is an independent corporation apart from the federal and GNWT government. For this one here, we have been on the case of NAV Canada to see whether they could speed up fixing this navigation aid. I am told that the quickest that they could do it might be the middle of next month or early next month, which is not very suitable for us. There is no problem at the airport per se in Iqaluit. It just means that the airline companies have to take a different approach when they are landing. So there is a problem now at the airport, but it is manageable and we are asking NAV Canada to see whether they can speed up their service of making sure that this navigation aid is working in the proper way that it is supposed to. Thank you.

Thank you. Final supplementary, Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if the Minister could inform the house when he thinks it would be possible to know if ERS services and the regulating chains by the federal government which took the ERS services away from our airport, when the Minister would know if the regulations change if they are going to put ERS back in Iqaluit for example? Thank you.

Thank you. The honourable Minister, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this working group that I mentioned earlier that is looking into this on-sight service at smaller airports, again the terms of reference are being developed and once they are developed this working group will get to work. Just for your information the Government of the Northwest Territories has two representatives in this working group, one from the Department of Transportation, the other one from the fire marshal's office. If the Canadian aviation regulations are going to be amended to make it mandatory for these services to be provided, then the government will have to look at this situation. I remain very concerned that we will be unable to afford the cost associated with providing these services to the smaller airports here in the Northwest Territories. If there are amendments to the regulations to get us to provide these services, then we will have to look at ways on how we could recover these costs, perhaps from the air carriers. These things we still have to discuss and look into. Thank you.

Thank you. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Baffin Central, Mr. Enuaraq.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like I said in my Member's statement earlier on about the problems we have with the fire extinguishers in my constituency, I would like to ask the Minister of MACA, Manitok Thompson, how soon will MACA check the fire extinguishers? (Translation ends)

Thank you. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Madame Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Member please clarify specifically which community he is talking about.

Thank you. Mr. Enuaraq, can you please clarify the specific community that you are referring to?