Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad the Minister is taking some time to lay out some of the initiatives to deal with the dust problem in our communities. It's been an ongoing problem. We've tried to address it with the calcium, however, the funding there is only for one street or the main street. It's never enough and it's going to continue to be a problem. So I'm hoping that chipseal will be something that will be eventually put on all the streets in the communities.
But as a Member of the GED, I'd like to see the amended schedule because I'm not clear from the information we got as to what order we'll be progressing in. I was not clear that Tuk was going to be part of the program. My understanding was that Fort Providence was going to do prep work this year, so that's the information I relayed. Now if that's changed, I'd certainly like to get a copy of that. I think it will be useful information, and we could avoid some of the confusion if we could see what the formula is for determining what communities are going to get chipsealed in what order over the next years. It's something that all the small communities need and all the small communities want. So we need to be able to explain to them the process of qualifying.
The Minister has indicated that Tuk is going to have a lot of gravel crushing that has to be done. We've been in that situation for many, many years, and we've had to utilize rejected gravel, gravel that didn't qualify as road-worthy, or gravel good enough to use on a road because of the mixture of dirt in it. If you walk in some of these smaller communities, you'll see a lot of the communities are in that situation. There's so much mud in the mixing of the gravel, it's really not a gravel. We couldn't consider it a gravel. It sticks to your tires and sticks to your shoes. It has really caused a lot of problems, because we need to use that gravel source for house pads, driveways, and a lot of the airports need it. So I'm glad, that at least in my riding, we've seen some crushing done over this last while and we'll do alright for awhile. However, I'm really concerned that it has to be an ongoing process. There has to be a system in place that addresses it. We can't be left in a situation where we don't have the material to do anymore development.
I was also quite happy to see that there was an increase to the smaller communities in terms of budgeted expenditures. But if you look at it and start to calculate it out, a lot of it is for water and sewer. That really points that there is a need out there that hasn't been addressed for some time. Water and sewer, water quality is something that we have to, on an ongoing basis, make sure that it's looked after. I think there's been some neglect in the last number of years, and we're really trying to play catch-up now. So even though it looks like a lot more money flowing to the smaller communities, it's something that maybe should have been done some time ago.
I also want to voice my concern regarding emergency measures in the small communities. Emergency measures is something that is the responsibility of this government, of MACA, and I'm not satisfied that all the communities have emergency measures plans in place and they're all familiar and updated to be utilized in time of tragedy or emergency. All the communities that I represent are on the highway system. In most cases, there's only one road leading out of the community. If it was for some reason blocked by a vehicle accident or a chemical tanker truck or fire, we have to be satisfied that we have alternate routes.
We also need to ensure that we have some type of transportation system so we could utilize helicopters, we could utilize an aircraft landing in the community. In three of the communities that I represent, three out of the four, there is no real system in place. We had the Minister come down, and I certainly appreciate his consideration to look at widening a portion of the road in Kakisa so that in the event of an emergency, we could land a plane there. Other than that, we don't have anywhere that we could bring in a helicopter. We probably could use the ball diamond in most cases, but there should be a system in place that everyone is satisfied with.
We've raised it as part of a theme day and part of AOC and also GED, our dissatisfaction with the system for capital planning that was adopted a couple years ago. For two or three years now we've been utilizing this system, and for a number of years there's really been no attention paid to what was needed and required in communities because they couldn't meet the criteria. So I think we saw a lot of projects that should have been in place go by the wayside. To add and compound the problem, in the smaller communities at the regional level there's always quite a few vacancies and we've had to live with that for quite a number of years now, and it has resulted in a lot of discussion at the community level with the councils to have capital planning. That's something that this government has to ensure is being done on an ongoing basis. I know when I was in the position of mayor, there was really nobody in the system. We requested it for four years in a row to have somebody come in and meet with us and review the capital planning process and what was in the capital plan, and we couldn't attract anybody because there was nobody. There were so many vacancies at the regional level. I mentioned today a concern that was raised to me by the Association of Municipalities. It has also been raised to me by individual communities in my riding, that there is a lot of activity happening in the area of self-government, land claims, land management, land withdrawals and that whole area of aboriginal groups taking control over some of their decision-making. There are communities that are kind of left out of the loop. At some of the meetings that I've had, it's been raised to me that there is a lack of information flowing. I think this government has to have somebody in place or an avenue where we can bring people into the communities to explain what is happening in their immediate area, especially in communities that have a small aboriginal population.
A couple more things. I'm still concerned that as part of the emergency measures, that we don't have community protection plans for forest fires. What was once considered to be a comprehensive community protection plan to deal with forest fires, fire breaks, fire guards, tree thinning and all that was going to take place, it seems to be something that has been rejected or gone by the wayside. When community protection plans are discussed now, we have one lonely renewable resources officer that takes a couple pictures and says, well, maybe we should trim a few branches off that tree. We no longer have a community comprehensive plan.
If you look at some of the communities in my riding, they've been targeted as high risk. They have a lot of flammable material that surrounds the community. Even some of the ferry crossings; at Dory Point there are houses there, there's a government base there. It's all huge timber in there that is very high risk.
I was asked to commend the government that they did a good job at looking at including some recreation facilities, such as swimming pools. A lot of the communities are built and constructed that are situated along the banks of rivers and lakes. The riverside pool system or the lakeside pool program doesn't work. We've had them in two of the communities, in Fort Providence and on the Hay River Reserve. Very few of the children want to go to swim. Even the ones who want to, their parents won't let them. It's dangerous, it's not a healthy situation, and there's real concern. So I'm very happy that under MACA, as part of the capital planning, it qualifies. I think we have to ensure that we put proper, safe pools in all of the communities in the North. I've seen some of the pools that the communities have tried to build themselves. They're very unsafe and the whole structure is probably questionable.
I also want to mention, Mr. Chairman, that there are a number of communities that we consider communities that are not recognized by this government: Ndilo, West Point, and even the reserve. For a lot of funding capital projects that they should qualify for they don't get. They're really left out in the cold on their own because of their situation, because of their location. In many instances, the communities that I refer to are older and have been located there longer than the newer, modern community that has grown right alongside of it. Yet these are the ones that are ignored. They don't get a core fund of any kind in a lot of cases, and they're really suffering. We should have been looking at a mechanism to include them. It's very difficult, especially for the community of the Hay River Reserve in my riding, to talk about a number of different things -- sewage lagoons and all these things -- because we have a larger, modern community right next door.
So I wanted to raise those things and raise my concerns with them, and ask if the Minister would respond to some of these issues. Thank you.