Thank you, Madam Chair. The issue of public safety was of grave concern for the Minister of Transportation, and I when we drove the winter road last weekend there were some near misses. There are big trucks and the roads are quite narrow, so that’s what the Minister and I talked about.
The issue that I want to talk about is some of these vehicles have been struck. I just came back from the Sahtu and the Sahtu Dene Council annual general meeting, and people have come up and said some of their vehicles were hit and some clear misses. Some of them actually come out of the road. I mean, stop their vehicles on the roads and trying to wave down a big truck because of the ruts. I want to ask the Minister, in regard to the public safety, we’re close to about maybe 1,500, 1,600 trucks so far, and these are semi-trucks. Some of these drivers do not quite understand the Sahtu winter roads, and these are not flat ground. These are foothill mountains, and these are hills that are quite treacherous and quite steep up here, and some of these roads are very narrow. If you pull on to the side, it gives you maybe about three to four inches. We had that experience already with the Minister. We talked about some of the creeks and some of the hills that we’ve got to look after.
Public safety is number one for our people on the roads, so I want to ask the Minister if there’s something in his plans to look at emergency types of response. Right now, we rely on the goodness of the people just from the heart. If there’s an accident they’ll go out. You know, nurses or… We don’t know which community is going to respond. The
Norman Wells town also raises concern here for emergency vehicles, because the RCMP go out, a nurse, or just the goodness of the heart of the people who will do that. We actually did have an accident on the winter road from Tulita to Wrigley where a fuel truck rolled over the bank there.
We’re looking for some support from this government to look at emergency response during the period of December to maybe March until we get a proper system in place that would dispatch emergency response vehicles, first aiders, first responders.
We have a group of really good people who are involved with the Canadian Rangers that could be considered. If there are some type of supplies or equipment in the community that whoever the responders are can grab stretchers, oxygen tanks and all the stuff that you need. Would the Minister look at something like that that would ensure our people, ensure the people in the Sahtu, people who are coming up, that there is an emergency response plan in place for our winter roads? Mahsi cho.