I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am looking for a little more of the context of this motion. I think I see a positive initiative here from the committee, but I am wondering if we could get, just for some discussion, some further explanation of maybe some of the specifics and the outcomes of this motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. To the motion. Anybody else? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could respond to Mr. Braden's question about the motion...

---Laughter

I'm speaking to the motion, too. My understanding of the motion is that -- if I could, Mr. Chairman -- the GED committee was concerned about having different departments and organizations of the government involved in the same activities as it relates to land

administration. I raised that in my questions to the Minister and he has clearly indicated the specific scope of MACA's involvement in the land administration function.

So the intent, although well meaning, may be somewhat skewed. But that was the intent of the motion, was to have MACA take on more responsibility for trying to ensure that significant land development took place in the communities so that any government department, including the NWT Housing Corporation and any private citizen who wanted to access housing programs under homeownership or things like that, would be able to have access to affordable land. Now we find out that, in fact, the money that the Minister refers to is money to communities for the creation of subdivisions, and drainage, and surveys, and all the things that the Minister indicated, and, in fact, there may not be a duplication of actual activity between what the Housing Corporation is proposing and what MACA does. So having said all that...

The Minister indicated that he could take on a broader role if he had a broader budget, he could expand the mandate. So I think it's probably a bigger issue than just...This would actually be a reassignment of activities and budget, so I think this may be a bigger issue than this motion contemplates. So thank you for your support of the committee's motion.

---Laughter

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. Mr. Braden.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. It's, perhaps, a bit unusual for among committee members to be looking into the reasons or the background for a specific motion. I guess what really caught my attention here was the suggestion that Municipal and Community Affairs broaden their mandate with regard to land administration. Mrs. Groenewegen has explained, to some extent, if I got this correctly, that their mandate is already broad enough. It does cover the requirements on a government-wide basis. So I guess where I would perhaps look to the Minister would be to see where or in what areas broadening the mandate could be constructive, or is the mandate already inclusive enough? I'm very prepared to entertain a discussion -- obviously it would have to occur in a different forum -- about changing the mandate so that we do a better job. Can the Minister advise, is there something in here that his department could, indeed, use to do a better job of land administration? Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Just to be clear here, we're speaking to the motion and questions aren't allowed in this forum, even though you're asking questions but not expecting an answer. We'll move on. To the motion. Anybody further to the motion?

I'd like to seek unanimous consent to return to page 1-18, if that's possible.

Is committee agreed we go back to 1-14?

4-18. Okay, committee, we're going to go back to page 4-18. Ms. Lee, 4-18.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. I just want to raise one issue that I've been meaning to raise and, I'm sorry, I missed it when the page was up. It's in regards to emergency responsiveness. Because we have witnessed around the world a lot of catastrophic disaster such as the one we saw in New Orleans. I'm sure that something like that would not happen here, but I do recall discussing what will we do if something really dramatic happened where all our communication systems go down. My staff and I, we tried to look at, okay, where do we call, what do we do, just going from basic steps. All the information we were able to get are telephone numbers and things like that, but what if there are no phones working, and what if the cell phones are down? I don't know what would precipitate that. But if the power was out for a long time or something like that, I think 20, 30 years ago when that happened, there was talk of evacuating all Yellowknife residents, for example, to somewhere.

I think we are much bigger now, and I think an emergency response like that now has to contemplate something that goes back right to the basics, like thinking about where there are no phones, where people have to walk down the street and maybe every household has to know where to go. It should be for all the Territories, all communities. I would like to know that at least there's somebody in each community. For my riding of Range Lake, I don't know if everybody should go to the Range Lake School, or Tim Horton's. Then when you do go to wherever you're supposed to go to, that there are some emergency supplies. I would just like to be comforted that somebody's looking into that, and I'm not sure if we have that. I think we have enquired into that. I know we don't have 911, but that's contemplating a television service again. We don't have TV channels like in major cities. Radio station, maybe CBC. I mean, they have 24-hour coverage and they our local programming in the afternoon, but I don't know if the government has a contract with them to delve into that and make sure that people have a radio or TV that could be run by batteries. And how much water do you need? I think that the government should undertake at least designating who's responsible for each community, and I think we should explain to people what to do. There should be a 10-step thing, rather than giving them a number to call, or a web site to visit, because we have to contemplate situations where all the systems are down and we have to go back to the basics.

I know somebody in the department is working on this, and I'm just looking for the commitment from the Minister to pay attention to that, and perhaps report back to the House about what we can do. I'm noticing that the community emergency measures item actually is down on its money this year, so that's a little bit of a concern, too.

So if I could just get that commitment from the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, this certainly is an area of concern and it's something that falls under the responsibility of this department, Municipal and Community Affairs, and we do have emergency measures plans with every municipality.

We request that the municipality review the plans on a regular basis and update them as people change, councillors change, SAOs change. We also have a territorial-wide NWT emergency plan. We have a territorial emergency response committee that our government sits on. We also have representatives from the federal government. We also have people from the private sector. We have people that are involved in communications and different areas that sit on this committee.

We also work with the federal government under the Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada Committee. That's now headed up by a new Minister. Stockwell Day is the new Minister for this area. Through that agency, we deal with the Disaster Assistance Program, we also deal with the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program, and through the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program, we did fund and were able to secure some money for the highway rescue vehicle that was in Hay River. We also do a lot of emergency management and planning with the communities through some funding from this agency. So we have a full complement of emergency plans in our communities and at the territorial level, and we try to keep the profile of the importance of emergency planning through mail-outs, through brochures, through letters that we write to the different communities and try to keep this on their radar screen. So there are disaster assistance plans out there.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those are assumed, but I don't think they have been tested really. I think probably MACA and the officials assume that all the municipalities have those plans and I think people assume that. But in the event of everything shutting down, where, I don't know if everybody is supposed to drive to the fire hall and see if that's the emergency measure area, or would they all drive down to the city hall, look in the phone book? Where would they look?

In many parts of the world...I mean, I grew up in a place -- post-war Korea -- we all had a drill without warning, where all the kids had to go under the desk or something. But we don't live in that sort of situation. But we live in such a sophisticated technological world where we think that if we just turn on the TV, turn on the radio, get on our cell phone and call somewhere there will be an answer. I think the government has an obligation to totally step out of that, and assign somebody to test it. Say if a real emergency happened, would people know who to call and where to go? I don't think that the government could assume that every municipality has that, because even in the city of Yellowknife it was not easy to figure out who to call and where. What if you don't have a phone? I don't want to play a dooms day scenario, but I think we have to be prepared for something happening where everything shuts down and we have to go down to the basics. Also, who would be the emergency supplier if something happened where everybody has to go somewhere? Do we have an inventory of how much water is there in the city? What shelters and blankets and I don't know. I'd like to ask the Minister to make a commitment to come back with a more detailed plan about how this is supposed to play out.

I think the communication and publicity campaign has to be a lot more intense. We don't have a 911 line working in the North, but I think kids or families should be able to just roll off their tongue about when something happens we go here. This is the number we call. I don't know if those emergency numbers that we have implemented, like 669-1111, 873-1111, like all the 1111s with the first three prefixes, I don't know if they would work if there were no phone system. I don't know if anybody has tested that, you know? So I would like the Minister to come back with more evidence that suggests that we do have a plan and it's going to work and it's been tested in all circumstances. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, we do have a plan. As I indicated, we have a plan in every community and we have a territorial-wide plan. We'd be glad to do a presentation to the Member or the committee at any time. We have a territorial emergency management coordinator. His name is Eric Bussey. He would be very pleased to come and present the plan that we have. We have tested it. September of this year we did a tabletop exercise in Inuvik with DND. We've had to actually implement disaster plans in Fort McPherson. In Norman Wells we had to do an evacuation, and we had a flood in Good Hope this year where that was also...We had to declare emergency measures. So there are communities that have been using the plan, and there is an NWT plan. So we'd be very glad, I'd be pleased to make that commitment to come back and present to the committee.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche next. Mr. Menicoche. Page 4-18.