I’ll go to Ms. Young, Madam Chair.

I’ll recognize Ms. Young.

Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Bromley.

Thanks to Ms. Young for that information. That’s 2015, I believe Ms. Young said. That’s good to know that that’s coming down the pipe. We know that every jurisdiction except the Northwest Territories has a building standards act, and that ensures that all buildings get inspected and so on. We are trying to achieve the same without a building standards act. The difficulty is that there are a lot of codes that are out there that are not necessarily in the National Building Code and a lot of updates and so on, so it’s a complex, sort of, situation for the public. But just given the current situation, how do we ensure that buildings are meeting the National Building Code standard for safety?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m assuming the Member’s talking about the buildings that the community governments put up? Residences too? Well, as far as the residences go, I mean, if they’re built by the NWT Housing Corp, obviously we would inspect each one of the buildings that we put up. As far as the community buildings go, I believe the assistant fire marshal would check to make sure all the codes are met, and again, depending on who designed the building, I think there are times when there are site visits made by the building designer. The architects that design the building, I think they would make site visits to ensure that what they spec’d were adhered do.

As far as private residences go, again, in communities where they have building inspectors, they obviously have to file a plan, but we have a lot of communities that don’t have building inspectors, and if they’re building a private residence, well, obviously, first of all, it would be to their benefit to build it to code, and if it were bank financing, I think the bank would want to have the comfort that it was built to code.

There was some discussion a number of years ago, and I think it’s something we may have gotten out

of NWTAC, too, about building inspectors in the regions. I mean, we would have to have a look at that and see if there are partnerships that we can form with some of the community governments to bring something like that on board. I think, for the most part, most of the buildings that are built in the Territories are inspected, one way or another, to make sure that they adhere to all the applicable codes.

I think the Minister has defined the problem. We think that most of them are somehow caught, and I would agree with that statement. I’m trying to speak for those that aren’t caught that this sort of haphazard approach leaves vulnerable to being built and put in place without inspection. Yes, indeed, the NWT Association of Communities has raised this with the Minister a number of times, as has the Association of Architects and so on. And I know the Minister is aware of this situation.

Given that we are not able to say confidently that all of them do get inspected, and I think the Minister touched on a number of the issues, what’s the plan? Are we going to take responsibility as every jurisdiction in Canada has? Are we going to leave it to federal legislation with the hope that we’ll somehow muddle through?

Recently, we had a meeting with the NWT Construction Association, the Architects Association, and the Association of Communities and the Consulting Engineers of the NWT to obtain their views. One of the recommendations that came out of that is we are all committed to do a gap analysis to see what is currently being updated, so we have had that discussion with them. We’re looking forward to sitting down with them, and going through some of the recommendations and see where we can improve on the services that are offered to a lot of the small communities.

Again, I mean, I have to keep stressing the point. I think Mr. Bromley has heard me say it on a number of occasions before, that I have the utmost confidence in our communities’ ability, and anybody that’s putting this piece of structure up, to build it to code, if not over and above code, because it’s an investment to them and there’s a payback. I think in this day and age when we’re taught the importance of energy efficiency, I think people are taking that to heart and they’re building buildings that would be energy efficient. I just had to put that on the record, again, my confidence in the people of the Northwest Territories to do quality products.

I appreciate the Minister’s hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, it’s not always the people of the Northwest Territories, to start with, that are building these buildings. It’s often people that are not residents of the Northwest Territories and, unfortunately, there is good reason – I’m sure

the Minister is aware – that every jurisdiction in Canada has a Building Standards Act with an inspection function that’s filled. I’m not saying the Minister doesn’t have lots of points on this. I want to express appreciation that the gap analysis is being done. That’s exactly what I’m looking for, and I will look forward to seeing the results of that, if the Minister is willing to share it, and how we will be going about filling those gaps. Just a comment, and that’s all I have.

We appreciate the Member pointing out some of the shortcomings of the communities across the Northwest Territories, and how we’re the only jurisdiction in the country that doesn’t have one. We’re a more stable jurisdiction with a lot of the people that are not moving about so often. In the bigger jurisdictions they all have the ability to just go down the street and, for the most part, find somebody to inspect.

Once we get some research done, I will commit to sharing it with the Members and, again, if there is input that the Members want to put into this, then we’d welcome that also.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have an interdepartmental working group that are looking at a number of different things – because this question comes up quite a bit and it is one that I think is going to come up a bit more – made up of Health and Social Services, Transportation, Department of Justice and MACA. One of the things the Member raised is what we are looking at. Remote medical rescue is one of the items the working group is looking at. We get the question all the time, who is going to respond? Those are questions that this working group is looking at as well as equipment, administration and training. I think what we realize in the past is that some of the communities went out, and one in particular had bought a piece of emergency equipment and realized they didn’t have the proper training to be first responders and there was a bit of a liability issue. They understood that quite quickly and they got out of that. I think they actually sold the piece of equipment that they bought.

We are looking at also probably piloting a couple of projects in a couple of the communities that are served by the road and see how that works. We recognize that this is a huge issue. I can assure the Member that the working group is looking at all these particular types of issues and incidents. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, the Minister and I have some little thing going there. The Minister talked about a remote medical rescue initiative interdepartmental working group, and they’re putting in training and looking at piloting a couple of projects. I would hope that now that the winter

roads are closing, there are another 25 or so more days that it will be open. I know the oil companies are going to use that opportunity to get their equipment out, and people are going to come back on the winter road from holidays and people are steadily using that road. Is it something that I could look for to, say, in the early summer or late fall that we can have a well-designed medical rescue response action plan even for the Sahtu for the next winter that we could take and start training or start notifying people that we have something in place?

Next year if the oil and gas exploration continues, and just sitting down with Conoco yesterday, they are very encouraged – the words they used – to continue working in the Sahtu. They smiled with the word encouraging, also with Husky. We are going to look at something that’s more stable, hopefully, in the future, because companies are spending millions and millions of dollars in our region. They go right past all of our small communities along the Mackenzie Valley Highway. Those big trucks are coming up from the Alberta border. There are 1,500 or 1,600 of them right now, and you’re going to see more next year. They come up to the Sahtu. We want to get ready and get prepared.

I encourage the Minister to work with his officials and put a plan in place so that we in the Sahtu can feel supportive and feel some safety that this government here is looking after our roads and that we have a place that we could call ours. We know people in our communities would respond. We have been very lucky, knock on wood, cross our fingers, that no serious accidents have happened. We wouldn’t want to talk about it.

This is very important to our people in the Sahtu. I have to work with the Minister on the other areas of transportation, but this one here is key for us. We can work with the oil companies. They have medics out there. There are a lot of ways.

Anyhow, I am encouraged by what the Minister is saying. I would be really happy if I can see some plan and dollars spent so that we have a medical response team on the Mackenzie Valley winter roads. Thank you.

Madam Chair, the public safety division is purchasing supplies and we’re assisting DOT in delivering basic first responder training during some of the airport live exercises. We have a few communities that are partaking in this. The working group’s first priority, I think, would be to ensure that we have people that are trained to be first responders.

As far as the equipment goes, I think once they are trained to be first responders and the community, through some of the capital infrastructure money that they get from us, would be able to purchase the necessary equipment.

As far as the timeline the Member is asking about, I’m not quite sure of the timeline right now. The working group is still doing their work. However, as I committed before I think to Mr. Dolynny, I will keep committee up to date on the work we’re doing. Again, we recognize the importance more than ever of these emergency services. I think this is work that this group is going to undertake, and I’ll try to get it into the Assembly as quickly as possible and update all of the Members. Thank you.

Madam Chair, there is training going on in Alberta. It’s called First Responders Medical Training. I saw it in one of the newspapers. They have it in Alberta. I guess we need to look and see how we can start identifying people in our region to do first responders medical training. We can work with the federal government on this initiative.

The other one is the community infrastructure. If they want to sign on to this, they are looking at a type of purchasing equipment. I’m not too sure how healthy the infrastructure budget is with the communities. They have roads, dumps, other things to look at, water treatment plants, and sewer. That money can only go so far. I think we need to sit down with the oil companies, with Transportation, with our government, with the federal government and say this is what we need to do and this is what it looks like. We need to come together on that type of initiative to purchase equipment, things that they would need. I would be very interested in working with the Minister and support him.

In this issue here, it is something that I would like to see by at least next opening winter road that we have a first responders medical response team concept in the Sahtu. We need that. There’s no question about it. We need that. So I would like to see something that our people will know who to call. If not 911, we need to call somebody if something is happening.

I want to thank the Minister and his team for doing a good job in Norman Wells on the issue there that happened. Thank you very much. People are very appreciative. It is a type of initiative that could happen and we are ready for it. That is what I want to see in the Sahtu winter roads. Mahsi cho.

Madam Chair, this is one of the things that the working group is looking at, is the equipment and types of equipment that are going to be needed. As far as trying to get it implemented by next fall, again, the Member made a good point about working with a lot of the industry people that are out there. A lot of them would have their own medical personnel. There are opportunities there. Part of the working group’s mandate would to explore all of the opportunities that are available, take advantage of training available. It’s a good time for us to take advantage of the industry being in the region because they do

have a lot of qualified people there. We saw that in the Beau-Del. We saw them respond to incidents in the Beau-Del. I think they do a pretty good job.

So there are opportunities there, part of the working group’s mandate is to explore all opportunities. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. I’m next going to go to Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve raised a consistent concern of mine, namely because the communities that I represent are situated down the Mackenzie Highway. Of course, the highway extends from the 60th parallel right to Yellowknife

and at this point of the year we have a very high volume of traffic passing through, trying to beat the seasonal warming of springtime and transporting goods to the mine. This is the vital link of transportation of goods. It’s been long established, it’s heavily used and I would describe it as the artery or lifeline that brings goods from down south right to Yellowknife. I’ve raised this concern before in terms of public safety on the highway. Of course, that also extends to the department, in terms of its responsibilities and obligations, to provide a level of service to communities who, in turn, of course, look after the overall interests of its citizens.

In the public section there’s a section called ground ambulance and highway rescue and for this year it identifies, for 2013-14, $200,000. I want to understand what is the intended purpose for the $200,000 for ground ambulance and highway rescue. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The ground ambulance and the $200,000 was supposed to go on an application basis to some of the communities and some of the services that they’re providing. We found out quick enough that it wasn’t enough money. It was actually set to sunset, but committee, I think in the last budget session, had asked to reinstate this money. So we did, and we have, I think two, maybe three communities that take us up on the money, three so far that take us up on the money. So again, as I was mentioning to Member Yakeleya, we’re looking at the overall picture and this is kind of just a little bit of assistance until we can look at the overall picture of providing ground ambulance and highway rescue. Thank you.

Thank you. I do also realize for the last year that same amount was available. I just want to try to come to an understanding, again, in terms of this initiative being available to communities. How has that worked if, indeed, this amount was available, and how has that been accrued by communities that were in a position to use that $200,000? Mahsi.