Before we go on today, colleagues, I’d like to welcome the Speaker of the Yukon, Mr. David Laxton – welcome to the House, Mr. Laxton, Mr. Speaker – and the Honourable Elaine Taylor, Deputy Premier of the Yukon, welcome to the House. Also, I have visiting us all the way from Texas Cam Innes, Michael Merchant and Rick Sperandio. Welcome to the House.

Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome to the gallery Mr. Charlie Furlong, mayor of Aklavik and president of the NWT Housing Corporation, as well as Joanne Deneron. Welcome to the House. Annette Hopkins and Tasha Bergman from the nine-month-old Department of Lands are taking in our proceedings for the first time. Welcome.

I’d also like to welcome my support counterpart in the Yukon who along with former Minister Kusugak from Nunavut were very instrumental in pushing to have the Alternate Games of those sports that were eliminated from the 2016 in Nuuk, and we appreciate the City of Whitehorse and the Yukon government for agreeing to host these games. Minister Taylor was very instrumental in bringing that about, and we look forward to some of the results in Whitehorse and, of course, seeing Northwest Territories come out on top again. Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve got a few folks in the gallery today that I’d like to recognize, a number of BDIC board members. I’ll start with the chair, Mr. Darrell Beaulieu, we’ve got Mr. Charlie Furlong, Joanne Deneron, Ruby Landry and Gwen Robak. Thank you so very for being here this afternoon.

I also wanted to recognize Deputy Premier Taylor and Speaker Laxton. I’m glad to have you guys here.

Also, a constituent of mine, Mr. Lloyd Lush, president of the Legion here in Yellowknife. Thank you.

Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Minister Elaine Taylor, who’s here with us today from the Yukon and Minister responsible for Language, she’s also francophone and she’s also Minister of Culture and Deputy Premier as well. So I just wanted to welcome her. Thanks for being here with us.

Also in the gallery is Mr. John Stephenson, who’s here with us from YK1. I’d like to recognize him, he’s the chair. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to acknowledge my constituent Charlie Furlong, the mayor of Aklavik; also Joanne Deneron and the delegation from the Yukon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to recognize Ms. Joanne Deneron from Fort Liard, along with Charlie Furlong. Welcome to the gallery. If your grandchildren check Hansard, you’re going to see that your names are mentioned about five or six times in the House on February 4, 2015. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Nadli.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome everybody to the gallery here, at least from the public, but in particular I wanted to acknowledge the presence of a constituent of mine from Kakisa. I rarely ever see visitors from my constituency, but I’m extremely proud to recognize Ruby Landry, a constituent and a leader from Kakisa as well. I understand she is up in the gallery. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Gwen Robak, a Hay River resident, as well as friends Ruby Simba and Lloyd Lush. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Colleagues, I’d like to welcome here for her first day of sitting, Mrs. Danielle Mager, the new Clerk of the Table in the House. So, welcome.

Item 7, acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services some questions from the statement I gave earlier.

How exactly did this new medevac contract benefit our small and remote communities, given those two circumstances that I spoke about in my Member’s statement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In negotiating the final contract, the communities of Jean Marie River, Nahanni Butte and Trout Lake runways currently require aircraft with a short take-off distance. As a result of this contract, we’ve set it up so that the turnaround time on these particular airports, the shorter runways, is two hours, compared to four hours like it used to be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Given the Trout Lake situation with the old contract to actually go out and find a Twin Otter outfit, I think that was part of the delay.

I wasn’t clear from the Minister’s response. Is there a specific airplane that can respond to the smaller runways in the smaller communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in the contract there has been identification that the providers have to have planes that can get into the shorter runways within the time specified. For those shorter runways, the time specified has been two hours, and that determines the conditions that have been met.

This contract goes live on April 1st , so effective April

1st it will be a two-hour turnaround time, barring, of

course, weather conditions that may limit us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think the incident in Fort Liard was the issue of whether at that time they were able to get somebody to state the weather conditions. I think the CARS at that time was also unattended. So I think there was a recommendation by the coroner’s office to install automated observation systems for circumstances like that, because I think the medevac plane actually got there – oh God – in excess of six hours in the wee hours of the morning, but there was a fatality there.

But given that – I know that they’re trying to address that – what provisions for weather and weather reporting are there in this specific contract? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the management of the airports is actually done by the Department of Transportation, and we will continue to work with Transportation to ensure that those requirements are met.

But I would like to say that as a result of these incidents, we have made other changes in our system outside of the contract that we’ve currently negotiated. We have developed what is called a Med-Response unit within the department. It’s a territorial program. One of the key functions of this Med-Response unit is to provide air ambulance triage and make sure that the right people are on the phone at the right time in order to expedite air ambulances and get them to where they need to be as quickly as they can.

We did the soft launch of this Med-Response program in November and we’re going with the hard launch in February. We’ve had an opportunity to learn an awful lot about our program, to make some enhancements and improvements, to make sure that the people in the communities have this tool available to them, to help triage air ambulance and get maximum benefit and maximum time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I think the contract combines, of course, the medevac and clinical services. So when you’re talking about improvement to the services, is the prime contractor welcomed by this service that you just spoke about medical triage? Maybe the Minister can explain that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.