Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting this motion and I want to underscore and support my colleague and thank her and second her for bringing this motion forward. The search and rescue is, obviously, critical and timing is of the essence.
As many of us know – not all of us – it used to be that search and rescue was done pretty much by local providers, air charter services, people with knowledge of travelling on the land and so forth. Over time it sort of became a more bureaucratic approach and things were based further and further away. Finally, far to the southeast of Canada. This is undoubtedly at a cost to the being rescued as well as the financial costs, perhaps. So there is a real need to establish a base in the North.
We know that with the opening up of the passage through the Arctic, cruise ships are becoming more popular in that area and these ships often have passengers that number above the total
accumulated number of people in our northern communities. Should an event happen with them as happened in Italy and so on, obviously it would be quite disastrous and we would really need those resources close to hand.
I myself have benefitted from search and rescue, local search and rescue in the past, my distant past, an experience that I will never forget, a traumatic experience. I want to acknowledge Rocky Parsons, a local pilot at the time supported by a member of the Lutselk’e band, and I don’t doubt that there are others in the House today who have also benefited from search and rescue or participated in the delivering of search and rescue.
We need a base in the Northwest Territories, somewhere in the North. Even so, it could be hours away from those needing search and rescue. So let’s at least provide that minimum level of service, and I will join my colleagues in asking this House to request that Ottawa ensure that this base is established in the North, in the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.