Thank you, Madam Chair. Just some general comments. The Minister and the department might be familiar with some of the points I’m going to highlight and this goes to the communities that I represent. For some time it’s been their aspirations to try to at least take on the responsibility of serving their citizens to the fullest. One of them is being able to have their own water source. There are two communities in particular that I represent, Enterprise and Kakisa, that have for a long time aspired to ensure that they have the responsibility.
I have raised this on a number of occasions. It continues to be an aspiration that they want to work on. I know they have considered some options, whether they do well water or trucked services. It could be a partnership arrangement. It continues to be a point that communities have aspired to work and continue to lobby their efforts to ensure in the end their strong will. Hopefully, there will be a compromise or a middle point where the department will be in a position to assist the communities. Eventually, they would like to realize their own source of water in both Enterprise and Kakisa.
For some time, too, I know there’s been a New Deal with MACA and communities, where money and funds have been downloaded to communities for them to be responsible for ensuring that they have their capital wish list or capital plan wish list, and at the same time giving them the responsibility for operations and maintenance. It’s good, but at the same time it shouldn’t be the case where MACA basically walks away from their responsibility. There has to be an assured level of cooperation and stronger than ever if these communities that have aspirations to establish their own water source, that partnership needs to be there. I would encourage it.
I’m hoping we can make some advances over the course of this year.
Another point that I wanted to make is just highlighting two fundamental things that I’ve been monitoring and trying to get some movement on, on the matter of ground ambulance and also the highway fire emergency situations. I think MACA has been in the lead for some time to try and get at least an interdepartmental cooperation and level of discussion in terms of trying to focus on the issues of trying to establish those two initiatives within the NWT. I understand there are some fundamental challenges with respect to liability issues in terms of a volunteer brigade from the community that might make a Good Samaritan decision and assist the public out on the highway, and then the question of liability has been brought up. In the end, it’s the citizens of the NWT that we have to serve. Down the road more likely we’ll be seeing more visitors hopefully coming up North, travelling the highway system and the eventuality of perhaps an unfortunate accident may happen and may arise and at the call of a whim a decision has to be made where this volunteer fire brigade has to be employed and provide service to the public. Some focus needs to be shed on this initiative.
I understand it’s been an ongoing matter for some time. I think it’s come to the forefront because of the opening of the Deh Cho Bridge. We have 24-hour uninterrupted traffic flowing right from North of 60 to Yellowknife. We need to ensure that there’s marked progress, and perhaps an established understanding of how ground ambulance and highway fire emergencies will be arrived at. I hope during the life of at least this Assembly I will be able to witness some significant progress in the front. In the end it’s the spirit of helping out the public that requires need and assistance on the highway, or else even, for that matter, for the smaller communities that are in the circumstance where they have a volunteer fire brigade in their community. They have to act in circumstances where they have to assist the public, especially in the community level as well. I think there needs to be a focus on training and preparing people to be in the position to help the public. Those are just general comments at this point.