Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of comments in no particular order. Some of them have already been mentioned and I’ll just kind of add emphasis to them as I add them.
I want to thank Mr. Hawkins for bringing up 911. The Minister knows it’s something that I’ve been somewhat passionate about for quite some time now, and I recognize that there’s no money in the budget for any kind of 911 this year, but I would hope that the department would seriously consider looking at providing some assistance to the City of Yellowknife if you get a proposal for the 2014-15 budget year. It’s not a huge amount of money that’s required, and I know there’s not a huge amount of money that the department has at its disposal, but I just want to put the seed out there and hope that you think about supporting the city to get something started in regard to 911.
I agree with Mr. Dolynny’s comments about emergency preparedness. It is something which I think has taken a bit of a backseat and has lost focus since we reduced staffing at the department. I can’t remember when it was, but a couple of years ago we reduced the number of staff within the emergency preparedness section. I think that’s been to the detriment of, sort of, well, the territory as a whole but our communities as well. I’ll just leave it at that. Mr. Dolynny has emphasized things really well.
The Minister, in his opening comments, mentioned the accountability framework, and I will have some questions when we come to that section.
The Recreational Leasing Policy Framework was also mentioned, and I will have some questions when we get to there as well.
I do want to say that in terms of what I consider to be an extremely successful program, and I think the Minister considers it that as well, is the Youth Ambassadors Program. It’s kind of grown over the years, it’s now well-entrenched within the department, and I think it has proven to be a very valuable program for our youth. It’s been valuable for us in terms of promotion of the territory, but it’s also been really valuable to the youth in terms of their development as young people and as leaders.
I will have some questions when we come to it about the changes to legislation of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I would hope that the department is moving towards including municipalities under that legislation.
Kind of along the same lines is the transfer of taxation capabilities to municipalities. I know that’s been mentioned and I’ll have some questions when we get to there to see where things are at with that.
I am concerned about the, I don’t know if it’s slowed or stalled or whatever, but the opportunity for a municipality to implement a hotel levy if they wish to do so. I know the hoteliers within the city of Yellowknife would like to see a hotel levy and the revenue put back into tourism marketing and promotion.
I, too, have major concerns about the ground ambulance and highway rescue policy, or lack of, and the amount of money that’s available to municipalities. We need to allow for training, equipment and capabilities in all of our communities that are on the highway system to be able to respond. It goes beyond ground ambulance. That’s been sort of the focus for the last number of years, just to sort of reimburse communities for the costs of responding with ground ambulance to situations outside the community. Yellowknife, for instance, down the Ingraham Trail, if an ambulance has to go out there, that costs the city, that’s not within the city’s municipal boundaries. But, you know, the city sends fire crews and sends emergency crews out
anyway. We need to go beyond having the capabilities so that municipalities feel comfortable in being able to respond to some kind of an accident or some kind of an emergency on the highway, and we don’t have that right now. I know it’s an expensive proposition. I know it was looked into a number of years ago, but I think we have to go back to that and try to find a solution, maybe halfway in the middle. But we’ve got to do something to protect our residents and protect municipalities.
There has been reference to evaluation of funding formulas. I believe last year we were advised that the operations and maintenance funding formula was going to be reviewed this year, so I’ll have some questions when we come to that portion.
I also would like to hear from the department when we get to that section, how the Public Service Capacity Program is doing – it’s been two years now, I think – and whether there’s been an evaluation done by the department, and the impact that it has had in communities and whether it’s successful or not, that sort of thing.
That’s all I have, Mr. Chair, but I’ll have specific questions when we get to certain sections of the department. Thank you.