Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the honourable Member for bringing this motion forward. I was very pleased to second it because I believe this motion is giving the communities and the people in the Northwest Territories a greater chance of saving lives. No guarantees, if the big guy wants you up there he’ll take you no matter what, but this gives us a fighting chance. It’s a possibility for our community members, as Ms. Bisaro has indicated, giving our communities a fighting chance if we had these defibrillators situated in parts of our communities. I know this was an issue a couple of years ago when I talked about this and we had them in hockey rec centres and sporting centres and I do see them there. It would be good training now for people to start recognizing them if they walk into a hotel, if there’s a sign there that says or indicates that there’s a defibrillator there, then people will know, at least consciously. They might not use it, but at least they know if something happens.

Even in our small communities, there’s a lot of people in our small communities go out in great numbers as their own community to bush camps. Why can’t they have a defibrillator when they go to these bush camps and stay for a week or two weeks on the spring hunt? There are actually

families out there, 20 or 30 people in these bush camps in the springtime. It would be nice to have a defibrillator out there. We have progressed; however, we still go back to the old training of our manual, but it’s good to have the defibrillators also with us there.

Ms. Bisaro talked about partnership. This government is all about partnership, so I’d like to continue that discussion and work with the different partnerships that can help us. Again, when coming to the communities, it should be like in our phone book and people know where the defibrillators are located, just like the RCMP or there’s a nurse or there’s the mail. Those types of things are important for our visitors to know that there are designated sites. Start looking at this, as it needs to be put into our operations in the Northwest Territories.

Training is also very important. Of course, the government would have to consider, if we do this, what’s the liability of putting this program into action. I say, what’s the liability of not having it? We would have a greater chance of saving lives in our communities, even at the airport. I don’t know if we even have a defibrillator at the airports in the Northwest Territories. We need to do an assessment, look at things, see where they’re going, and let’s give our communities a greater chance of saving a life if we had some of these defibrillators in our communities.

Once again, I say in closing that, really, if the big guy upstairs wants you, he’ll take you no matter what you do. However, he’s also made it known that if there are things that could save a life, then we should also be using that type of smarts in our operations as a government. I support this motion 100 percent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.