Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, we have budgeted $300,000 for fire emergency training and that is what we intend to use the money for, because we realize the importance of getting out there. We probably have quite a few places that we would have to work with. As I was saying in response to an earlier question, some communities have identified firefighting equipment in their capital plans. We would continue to work with the community, do an assessment with them and have the communities take up the responsibility of bringing in the needed fire equipment with their infrastructure dollars. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, this is in regards to that. It is pretty tough to fight a fire when you don’t have the proper gear in the communities that are one of the smaller communities. In Sachs Harbour, all their bunker gear was soaked in sewage. They tried to wash it out. They can’t get the stink out. I think if the fire marshal’s office would go into the community, the fire truck is still, I think, in the cold storage. Just people’s safety, like Mr. Krutko said. There are fires in the communities that we have trouble fighting fires. You are on the defence if you can’t go in the offensive stages of a fire. I think we could look at reallocating some of that funding, just a little bit of it, just to make sure that bunker gear and Scott Air Packs are available to the communities. Thank you. More of a comment.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. No question, but I will go to the Minister for a response anyway.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We respect the work that the volunteer firefighters have to do, it is why we have asked for $300,000, to make sure that they are properly trained and we also respect the fact that the communities realize the importance of providing the gear, which should be a well-trained volunteer fire department. Some communities have identified it. Our plan is to use all the $300,000 towards training and make sure all the volunteer firefighters are trained up properly. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. We’re on page 6-17, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know this question was raised earlier on this page, but in regard to emergency management and response for territorial and community emergency

management and planning, including search and rescue, again, I think a lot of communities who have had situations using Aklavik, for instance, with their floods and whatnot, every time there’s a flood they pull together and they respond to emergency measures. There’s recommendations made so that you can learn from those experiences, but more importantly, that you find ways to not only prepare for those types of situations but that you enact an emergency plan when you have an emergency. Again, that takes resources, that takes money, and I think that we have to do a better job of not only ensuring that those plans are drafted in such a way but also having the capacity to implement those plans and ensuring that they have the resources and the ability to carry out those emergency plans and implement them.

I’d like to know exactly what are we doing to ensure that the emergency management plans are not only prepared, but do we have the capacity to implement those plans when we have a fire or have a major flood in a community so that we’re not in a situation that we’re being reactive, but ensuring that we’re proactive and we’re able to respond to these things and prepare for them ahead of time knowing that we will follow the plans when they’re here. I know in the case of Aklavik, we’ve gone through few floods over the years, but we have learned from a lot of that. Again, there have been a lot of recommendations that have come out of that after the fact in regards to implementing measures so that there’s a way that we can prevent.

One of the things that they’re doing in the community of Aklavik is in regard to drainage systems, looking at the right drainage and more importantly protecting government assets at airports and community facilities. That takes money and that takes planning. You’ve got to build that into your community plans.

So what are we doing to ensure that we’ve not only developed these plans, but implement them at the same time?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chair, part of the $300,000 would be to work with the communities, as we were saying before, in their training. The Member used Aklavik as an example and it’s actually a very good example, because having been in Aklavik for a few of the floods that happened there, I got to see firsthand the local emergency planning group in action. They get together, they have a plan and when emergencies such as this happen, they put the plan into action. They do it with whatever folks they have in the community, they do it with their own resources and a lot of it volunteer. It’s a working committee that has housing a part of it, the hamlet is a part of it, the band could be part of it. So we see firsthand the

response to some of the communities and we see our role in it with the $300,000 is to help with the training for fire and emergency.

I kept referring to fire before, but it’s fire and emergency training and we’d be able to do some training with them, but knowing a lot of the communities across the Northwest Territories and their ability to respond to crisis and a lot of them have their own little emergency preparedness committees and they’re very well aware of the situations that they face in their particular community and we see our role in supporting them in some of the mitigating measure they have to take. I think we’ve seen that with the drainage system, as the Member pointed out, and after the last flood there was the whole redoing of all the roads, which should help and I think the drainage will help a lot. We will never be able to predict the floods, especially in a community like Aklavik where it’s very unpredictable. It doesn’t matter with all the measures you take to try to prevent it, the fact is, Aklavik floods regularly, almost 10 years to the day and it’s an historical fact.

So I think we see our role as supporting the community and the community takes the initiative and they do a very good job at it. Thank you.

One of the things we’re seeing more and more with fire departments and volunteer firefighters is that they’re taking on more responsibilities such as highway rescue and search and rescue, with people going through the ice. We’re finding that we’re seeing more of those types of incidents happening where people are having to do search and rescue. Again, it’s usually the volunteer fire department that has to end up doing a lot of these things, because either the resource people aren’t doing it or we have to depend on someone else to do it for us. But what we’re finding is that it’s usually the volunteer firefighters that are having to respond to emergencies on the highway, having to go out there with a fire truck, or in most cases having to deal with these accidents and disasters on our highway systems because they’re the closest community. Yet again they’re doing stuff that they’re really not trained for and don’t have the equipment to deal with highway rescue. Simply because they have a fire truck, they’re responding to it, because they’re the closest community to these accidents.

It’s the same thing when people go through the ice. We’ve had a couple of situations in Fort McPherson where a few people lost their lives just within the municipal boundary, people going through the ice and people are trying to do search and rescue on ice, which again they don’t have the equipment to be doing that type of rescue on thin ice in the fall time when the ice is moving. Again, there are two types of situations where we’re putting community volunteer firefighters who are trying to do stuff

where technically they’re in a situation where they have no choice. They have to respond to these accidents on the highway, these situations where people have lost their lives from going through the ice because of the time of year and whatnot.

Again, that’s the type of stuff from a community perspective we are having to deal with. Is it fair to those people that are putting their lives on the line and not ensuring that we’re not only providing the training in regard to those types of rescues, whether it’s a highway accident rescue or a water rescue? So what do we do in that case and what resources are there for the communities to get the training required to take on those types of responsibilities where other agencies aren’t accessible or close enough to respond?

Right now we have ambulance services. I know we’re coming to that, but the only ambulance service we have in the Inuvik region is funded out of Inuvik. But in the fall time when the ferries are out, it’s the community volunteer firefighters who are stuck in the situation of responding to it. So what do we do in those types of situations in regard to search and rescue such as highway rescue and water searches that have to be conducted when people have either lost their lives or have drowned in the community boundaries?

I see that is where this $300,000 could be used for all the proper training. We recognize the fact that we have a lot of people in our small communities that do this type of work, and they volunteered to do this type of work and we want to do our part to ensure that a lot of these folks are adequately trained to take on a lot of this work. I mean, I think the Member and I have both seen firsthand a number of cases where folks have gone through the ice, and even when they do call off the official search, it’s always the local people that have the knowledge and the ability to continue searching and we continue to see that.

But we see our role in the $300,000 is to ensure that those that volunteer in the communities are adequately trained so that it’s safe for them and they’re able to do, I wouldn’t say a better job because they all do a very good job now, but they’ll be able to do a job knowing that they have some training. We see that as where we could be very beneficial to a lot of the volunteers in the community. Thank you.

Again, we have some 33 communities, every one of them unique, every one of them with challenges, but $300,000 is money but it’s not enough. I’d like to know what we’re doing to try to access federal program dollars for the emergency resources that may be under federal funding, whether it’s through the Coast Guard funding or funding for emergency responses. I’d like to know if there’s anything we can do as the government or working with federal agencies to

access federal dollars to assist communities in these application-based situations. That’s the problem, is that some communities have the capacity to get these applications in and have a good case, but for $300,000 we have 33 communities to assist. What are we doing to access federal funding?

The Member points out that we have a number of communities and fortunately we have some of the larger communities that are able to access training for their volunteer and local fire departments as well as emergency training. We see this $300,000 as a start. It’s $300,000 that we’ve never had a line item for before. We see this as a start. Hopefully we can build on it from there.

I’ll ask Mr. Aumond to touch on the federal part of it.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Next on my list… Actually, there is nobody left on my list. Page 6-17, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, public safety, operations expenditure summary, $1.527 million.

Page 6-18. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions here. I’m trying to determine where things are at with this ground ambulance and highway rescue contributions to communities. When we did business plans, some of the information that we got indicated that there were fewer communities applying for this funding. At the

same time, I believe that there is a limit that any one community can get in terms of this funding. I think it’s $40,000. I’d like to start with that and get confirmation on two things: are there fewer applications on this funding and is there a limit to what a community can get?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct; there is a $40,000 cap. We’ve had three applications, I think, that we’re looking at right now for this year. We had the one from last year.

Thanks for that confirmation. If there are fewer applications and even if we only have three for this current fiscal year at $40,000, we’re still under the $200,000 that is available. I’m wondering whether or not the department has considered paying actuals to the communities that do encounter expenses beyond their communities. Yellowknife, for instance, does spend money for ground ambulance and highway rescue outside the city boundaries; down on the Ingraham Trail, for instance. I’d like to know whether or not the department has ever considered paying actuals to a maximum sum. I could see actuals could get us well beyond $200,000, but if one community is expending $60,000 and is only getting $40,000, then they’re $20,000 in the hole. That’s my rationale for asking if we would ever pay actuals.

It’s not something that we’ve ever considered, because we have some of the larger centres that use their actuals in some cases may be more than $200,000 and that won’t leave very much, if any, for some of the smaller communities that are hoping to access this funding.

So I guess the next question would be if there are applications and the money at that $40,000 cap each is going to be less than the $200,000, would the department consider expending the remaining money in the $200,000 fund to a cap of actual? If people are applying for more money than the $40,000 that they’re going to get back, would we consider expending the full amount of the $200,000 so that they at least get more of their actual expenses?