Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Aumond.

I guess to summarize, would that be a no, we are not providing any explanation or education on full-cost accounting?

I appreciate that. The last part of this is that the deputy minister mentioned the community energy plans and I think the Minister did too, and the capital plans. Were there any standards provided to be met in the development of those plans in terms of energy efficiency or whatever?

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bromley, your time has expired, but I will allow you one more question. You’re good? All right. We’re on page 4-4, activity summary, regional

operations, infrastructure investment summary. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of things. I guess, first of all, I wanted to ask the Minister if he could provide an update to the House on the situation at Northland Trailer Park here in Yellowknife and whether or not there’s been any plan formulated on how to deal with the infrastructure requirements of that trailer park here in Yellowknife.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The City has made application to the federal government for some of the Green Fund, and we have supported that and are waiting to hear back from the federal government.

I look forward to hearing back on how that rolls out.

Just a couple of other things. I just wanted to voice my concern over the dusty conditions in small communities. I’ve had the honour and the privilege to serve in this House for the past several years and the opportunity, as well, to travel to a number of small communities. We get in there oftentimes in the spring or summer. The thing that is always... I’m left with the impression that things are really dusty. It detracts from the quality of life in our small communities. I think the department, we can try to put it all back on the communities, but I think at the end of the day the Government of the Northwest Territories has an obligation to partner with the communities to get, in a meaningful way, dust suppression occurring in our small communities around the Territory. I would be very supportive of a program that would enable that to happen and trying to find the dollars to make that happen. It’s a health issue for people with respiratory illness and it also leads to increased incidents of respiratory illness in small communities. It would build up pride in the communities. I think equipment would last much longer.

It was about three or four years ago we were in Tulita and they had applied, I think it was E35 dust suppressant chemical to their roads. What a difference that made walking around the community and vehicles driving around the community, not throwing up the dust you would normally see. It’s something we should pursue as a government. I really do believe that’s the course of action we should take. We should try to find the dollars to make it happen. If we’re not going to, and this is the last time we’re going to go through this process as the 16th Assembly, if we’re not going to do it, I’d like

to see that included in a transition document for the next government to actively pursue that for small communities.

Tulita was a good example. There are a couple other communities that I’ve been in where the communities took it upon themselves to deal with the dust control. They’ve actually done a very good job. Jean Marie River I think this past year has put a dust suppressant down that I understand has worked quite well. Fort Providence as a community did some groundwork and they’re going to do some chipsealing next year.

Communities are starting to realize that it is a health issue, as the Member and a few other Members have mentioned. They’re starting to include it in their capital plan. We’re starting to see some good results out of this. I think as more and more communities in the future realize they have the authority to determine, well, yeah, let’s put dust control in, I think we’ll see more communities doing that.

Part of our role at MACA would be assisting them with some of the expertise and some of the costing and just giving them an indication of how much it may cost to apply the materials.

I agree the communities should be partners, but I really think, and my belief is, that the Government of the Northwest Territories, in some way, shape, or form, has to be there with dollars. I know the New Deal is there, but communities are being forced to decide on important community projects over dust suppression, and oftentimes the dust suppression doesn’t quite get to the top of the list, even though I spoke of the benefits of having dust suppression. We need to come up with a way to fund in partnership with communities if they want to have the GNWT partner with them. I’m talking about some substantial dollars, not just hundreds of thousands. It’s probably going to cost the government $3 million or $4 million to do it in a meaningful way in partnership with communities. That’s something I’d like to see happen. I know the Minister is trying to say the communities get their money and they should do it, but what I’m saying is the communities get their money. Let’s find some of our money, partner with them and do it in more of a meaningful way so that we ensure it gets done in some of the small communities. That way it will get done.

The communities have used some of their infrastructure dollars that they get from this government. Some communities have an opportunity to use the gas tax money that they get. Some have used Building Canada Fund money to do some of the work on their roads. As a department we have absolutely no infrastructure dollars. I mean, $28 million right down to the last $2,000 goes to the communities. We leave it to them. If there are ways to identify or go after more funds to assist the communities, then that’s something that MACA is always going to do. If

there’s federal money available, it’s something that we continue to try and get our hands on as much money as we can and then we’ll flow that to the communities.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Ramsay. We’re good. We’re on page 4-4. Mr. Krutko.

One of the other areas that I think we as a government need to put a lot more focus on is the fire departments and training that is required in communities, especially looking at front-line workers and the people who have to deal with them. In most cases it’s a volunteer fire department. A lot of people volunteer, but they need the training. They need the capacity to do their job. They need the equipment to make sure that when they put their lives at risk responding to a fire, we equip them with the equipment they require. The same thing for ambulance services on the highways. We do have to work with communities and community governments and the local fire chiefs and volunteer firefighters in the communities to give them the capacity and the tools to do it. A lot of it falls under the fire marshal’s domain. With having the fire marshals going into our communities, that’s something that’s required.

I’d like to ask the Minister what we’re doing to ensure the communities have the capacity to respond to fires in their communities, that people are qualified with training for local firefighters, volunteer fire departments, and giving the communities the capacity to respond to highway accidents and making sure that they have some means of dealing with the ambulance services of some type, which in most cases are handled by the local volunteer fire department.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I couldn’t agree with the Member more on the need for improving our training to fire departments and assisting them with training. There’s a whole new program that’s coming forward. We’ve identified the need to improve the training that we provide to small communities. The assistant fire marshals in each region are coming up with training plans and we’ve identified some dollars that would be put towards this, obviously pending Legislative Assembly approval. It is one that we’re quite aware of and we know that communities are challenged, so I think we’ll see after the next fiscal year a move towards more regional-type training, working with the assistant fire marshals, going into the communities and working with them to identify some of their needs, some of their equipment. It is one that we recognize is quite a challenge and we’re moving in that direction and starting to work with the communities to deal with them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Just a reminder to Members that we’re talking about capital here today. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is around the area of capital with regard to fire equipment and making sure people are equipped to do their job. More importantly, we had an instance here in Yellowknife where two firefighters lost their lives. There was a major review done on that through the Workers’ Compensation Board. There was, basically, an injunction filed against the City of Yellowknife because of the incident, and there were a whole bunch of recommendations that came out of that inquiry. I think, if anything, we should learn from that and make sure that we do give those firefighters all the support we can and, more importantly, that they have the training that they need to respond to a fire and when they find themselves in a dangerous situation.

Again, I think it’s important that we, as government, who are responsible for giving the volunteer firefighters the tools and the equipment and the training that they require, but more importantly, with the situation that occurred here in Yellowknife, and again because of that, it’s an incident that we don’t want to happen anywhere else, and more importantly, we have to learn from that, and more importantly, take what the recommendations that came out of that inquiry, and more importantly, put them in place so that we do protect our firefighters throughout the Northwest Territories.

Again, I’d just like to ask, what are we doing as a department to follow up on those recommendations that were put in place and also in regard to the consequences of the review by the Workers’ Compensation Board and, more importantly, the recommendations that came out of that inquiry and ensuring that we are following those recommendations going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Part of the duties of the assistant fire marshal will be going into the communities and assessing some of their equipment, working with the communities to identify the life of their equipment, and possibly working with the communities to put that equipment into their capital plan. Obviously training, as the Member said, is huge. No point in having a fire truck in the community if you don’t have the training for it. That’s where we see in this part of the new program that I had mentioned to this House a few minutes ago, is training is a huge part of it and it’s something that we’re focusing on, and I think in the coming fiscal year we’re going to see progress in the area of training. That way, we don’t have situations where we have firefighters that are

untrained trying to operate equipment, going into buildings. We want to make sure that we stay away from that. It is something that is in the works. Equipment is a huge part.

I’ve been in a couple small communities where they’ve shown me the equipment that they’ve had and how they need to be trained to operate it. We take those very seriously and that’s part of why we wanted to make sure we had all the proper training in place for the equipment that’s there. Thank you.

My final question is: How many fire departments do we have certified at this time? That are certified, that are trained and do have the certification required to actually be certified firefighters in our communities.

I’m not expecting those folks’ questions. We don’t have the information, but I would be willing to provide the information to the Member as to the number of fire departments we have and what kind of capacity they have. Thank you.