We have heard that concern. First of all, I don’t think there’s a community that will not respond to an issue or an accident or a call from outside their municipal boundary, because their priority, obviously, is the safety of people first. They will respond knowing that it could cost them money and then they wonder about the billing part of it. We have heard that concern and I think we are doing a review of the Highway Emergency Alerting Protocol. But I just wanted to make the point that I have not heard of any municipality turning down a request for assistance because it’s outside their municipal boundaries.

To the Minister: I’m glad that that is the case, but I want to urge the department to look seriously at the issue of cost to municipalities for going outside of their municipal boundaries for highway ground ambulance and rescue. Certainly, there is going to become a time when if money is extremely tight and a municipality does not want to put an extra burden on their taxpayers and/or they don’t have the money in their budget, it’s entirely possible that their council may direct them not to go out to do a rescue because it’s costing them too much money and they can’t afford it. I urge the department to find some method of funding municipalities for rescue services outside of their municipality.

Through the formula funding review this is an issue that was discussed and we’ll continue to move forward on this. I think we’ve had a number of recommendations that have come out of that. The government, actually, you know, we’re challenged fiscally, and the people that worked on the formula funding review recognize that. But it is an issue that has been brought up and we need to find ways to deal with it.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we’re on page 369, public safety, operations expenditure summary, $1.741 million. Does committee agree?

Committee, page 370, public safety, grants, contributions and transfers, total contributions, $400,000. Does committee agree?

Committee, page 371, public safety, active positions, information item. Any questions?

Page 373, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, $83.372 million. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you. I believe there was a review going on about whether our formula for regional operations and maintenance programs are sufficient. Does this reflect that, or has that review been completed? I know we were doing that for infrastructure, as well, but I just want to get on top of the operations side here.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct; there was a formula funding review that was done. We had a committee of 15 with representatives from all large and small communities across the Northwest Territories. They put a lot of work into this and they came up with recommendations, and now the next step is to find the money. Being as challenged as we are fiscally, I mean, they recognized that and they were pretty understanding of that. But the work is done.

I’m not sure if we have a briefing. We have a briefing that we’re going to be providing to committee on the results of our findings. There was a lot of good work done with this committee and they took everything into account. We’ll provide committee with that briefing plus the recommendations and then we’ll have to see the next steps and where we go from there.

I appreciate the response and I’m happy with that. I guess, just leaping to the bottom line here, I assume some changes were recommended out of the review and that we’ll be discussing those. Are we, according to the review, vastly underfunding our communities, or is there anything that we can have a preliminary look at or be aware of on that? I know there is always a lot of context to go with numbers, but I’ll leave it at that.

There were some gaps through this formula funding review that were identified. I think one of the bigger gaps is the O and M funding. Again, we have to, as a government and this Assembly and possibly the 18th , find ways

that we can try and address those gaps. I think that’s going to be a huge undertaking. The work is complete, but again, the next part of it is finding the funding.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we’re on page 373, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, $83.372 million. Does committee agree?

Committee, page 374, regional operations, grants, contributions and

transfers, total grants and contributions, $77.601 million. Does committee agree?

Committee, page 376, regional operations, active positions. Any questions?

Seeing none, committee, page 379, School of Community Government, operations expenditure summary, $3.261 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Committee, page 380, School of Community Government, grants, contributions and transfers, total contributions $580,000. Does committee agree? Ms. Bisaro.