Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion speaks about this government, past governments and the state of our communities. Ten communities in the Northwest Territories do not have a resident RCMP in their community and I happen to represent one of those communities. Other Members also have their communities. But more importantly it talks about nine communities that do not have resident nurses.
In the Northwest Territories, safety and health are very important to our people and we have have and have-not communities in regards to policing and nursing. So, I’m calling on this government to bring forward some type of business plans to look at how we start putting RCMP and/or nurses, because they kind of go together with the new policy, into our smaller communities where communities can enjoy some level of safety and comfort and security like other communities that do have full-time nurses,
full-time RCMP and they can be in the same situation.
We have a two-tiered type of operation, services of communities in the Northwest Territories. I have been asking this government for the last 10 years, and Members who have been here longer, we’ve got to make a change. We’ve got to start investing in some of these critical, essential services in the communities with RCMP and nursing.
I’m looking forward to seeing something come forward from this government. So far we have 577 days to the next election. We’ll find out if that’s going to change in the next couple of days, but I wanted to say that there were many suggestions from this side on who we can work with on this issue and I’m bringing this motion forward, looking for Members to support and work with this government and have this government come forward to say yes, we have a plan, we have a plan in place and we want to. Let’s put the smiles of safety and security on those communities without RCMP and without nursing. Let’s modernize our communities and say you’re important to us, we will do this for you so they don’t have to continue to hear all the reasons why they can’t do it. Let’s do something about that. That’s what this motion is speaking to. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.