Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome to the Minister and delegation from MACA here today. I’d like to take a moment to commend the Minister and all the initiatives they do for sport in the Territories. Seeing with my own eyes, as Regular Members do, and seeing that the benefits that sport has done with the division of the department, I have to commend them.

With that said, I believe there’s nothing in his opening address, nothing in this budget which tends to look at some of the bigger picture for sport and youth. I’m talking more about the layers of administration out there. There still tends to be some concern out there with respect to how the Sports and Recreation Council with its other members, a lot of people feel that we have a lot of duplication of authority. I would ask the Minister and his team to potentially take a look at this as many constituents far and wide, north, south, east, west, small, rural, urban, many have come forward to many Members and asked that maybe it could be reviewed and be more efficient so that at the end of the day monies are going to where they’re intended to: back to the kids, back to the volunteers, back to the TSOs, so that they can perform to the best of their ability. We want that message to be taken in the right context not the wrong context.

Communities have expressed major interest in respect to delivering ground ambulance and highway rescue services. We obviously will talk a

little bit more later on today regarding one of the budget items. The NWTAC has come out looking for support. I believe the municipalities are looking for support. I believe the people of the Northwest Territories are looking for answers. Bar none, this is going to be a very expensive program. This has been discussed within a committee structure and I agree that this is a very complex issue, one in which, though, we need to discuss. One in which we need to have a better battle plan, so to speak, as we move forward.

I will be asking, with time as a Regular Member here, for this department to look at the feasibility of a business case model where we can bring in potentially private P3, or private enterprise to come in and work with third-party adjudicators like CMA, third-party agencies that have the ability to use insurance so that we can offset those type of costs. Not having a program in place puts us at a high risk. We have lots of roads. We have very challenging roads out there, especially Highway No. 7 where I’ve heard of sinkholes that can swallow vehicles whole. That said, I’m looking for the department to consider highway ambulance services high on the priority list for this. We don’t see it in this budget, but I’m going to ask that it be looked at for future budgets.

Recreational Leasing Policy Framework. I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside many of your teammates during a lot of the public consultation and I was very moved by the acceptance of the new policy coming on stream. One of the cautions that I have and that I again wish to share with the department if you haven’t already done so is people are looking for us for guidance and stewardship in terms of pushing this program along. I think the acceptance is there. We’ve heard loud and clear by many Members. I know Ms. Bisaro indicated about evaluation after a year to see how that works. We have an oversubscription of capacity for what we have on the table and I’m concerned that we have people who have been waiting for many, many years, some for decades, for the opportunity to acquire a lease in the legal format.

I challenge the department to foster an environment of completeness where we can move along this pathway a lot quicker than potentially is on the radar, just to get the capacity down so that we’re meeting the needs of not only the Yellowknife area but throughout the Northwest Territories, and more so to look at the future expansion of the Recreational Leasing Program. That was very loud and clear. We are looking at a very microcosm program that’s on the table right now, but I think people far and wide are looking for a broader approach to leases.

One of the other things that I know I brought up as a Regular Member in the House here are issues involving carbon monoxide detectors. I’m a very

staunch supporter who is very concerned that we need to put a lot more emphasis on that, not only in our public housing but awareness throughout the Northwest Territories, including our remote areas of the territory. I would be championing and asking the Minister and his team to look at acquiring the services of the fire marshals to work in conjunction with MACA to make sure inspections are high on the priority list for this fiscal year. The last thing we would want to see is any issues involving carbon monoxide and any future unwarranted fatalities for our people of the Northwest Territories.

You heard today many Members speaking about water, drinking water especially. If the Minister hasn’t heard me speak about drinking water before, I’ll reiterate. It’s very, very high. You hear this from many Members, many concerns. Not so much that we don’t believe ourselves that the quality of water is very good, I’m not going to deny that, and that’s been brought up in the House and committee. You need to empirically validate that in a way that communities expect and the people of the Northwest Territories expect.

Stewardship of drinking water always falls under the roles of many departments and MACA is one of four departments here today. Unfortunately, guidelines are really what is the stewardship of the policy. Regulations are something, I think, we are in dire need of to make sure we can enforce that.

We need to have securities, knowing that the testing is done rigorously in all regions as part of the MACA results that have been brought forward in the House. Some of the MACA tabled results that we see in websites, some of them are incomplete. Some of the testing has not been done rigorously, especially in the Deh Cho area. We have some communities that weren’t tested for 29 of the minerals and chemicals that they’re supposed to be tested for, some that go back two to three years. This is a concern that needs to be rectified.

This cannot fall only on MACA’s shoulders. This has to be a cross-department issue, and there has to be a commitment to making sure that drinking water and adherence to guidelines – and these are federal guidelines – territorial work alongside communities, but we have to be stewards. We have to show leadership. If we have communities that are not towing the line, we need to support them, be it expertise, help, whatever it takes. We have to make sure that drinking water is at the forefront.

We need to create a baseline of drinking water standards so that when we complete the Stewardship Watershed Strategy and transboundary agreements, that we have a baseline so that we know that we can move forward with faith that our testing is being done and our drinking water is safe.

You’ve heard from the Member for Sahtu that there’s concern in the Fort Good Hope area with

cancer. The numbers are there. They’re starting to show themselves. The issues that we have are not just on one. This is a lifetime of consumption that causes problems. We need to look not just at a moment in time, but we need those numbers moving forward.

My last comment is still dealing with water but it’s dealing with the source water situation that we’re dealing with here in the Yellowknife area, where we’re going to be changing the access point from the Yellowknife River to the bay.

As a newer Member to the House, I find it odd that in other municipalities and communities across the Northwest Territories, the Government of the Northwest Territories is playing an active role in offsetting costs for source water or water treatment plants, yet it appears here in Yellowknife that that doesn’t seem to be entirely the same case. I will be having questions later today as to why. Why is Yellowknife treated differently? We should be treated like any other community. We should be getting support. The municipality here should have access to equal support moving forward like any other community in the Northwest Territories.

That would be my opening general comments here for today. Thank you for your time. Thank you to the Minister and the team.