Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its Report on the Review of Bill 31: Northwest Territories 911 Act, and commends it to the House.

INTRODUCTION

The Standing Committee on Government Operations ("the committee") is pleased to report on its review of Bill 31: Northwest Territories 911 Act.

Bill 31, Northwest Territories 911 Act, sponsored by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, has been referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review. The bill proposes to:

• Direct the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs to establish a territorial 911 service;
• Bind the Government of the Northwest Territories;
• Establish a 911 cost-recovery fee to be paid by local landline and wireless/mobile subscribers and collected by telecommunications carriers;
• Mandate the participation of local authorities and emergency service providers; and
• Mandate the participation of telecommunications carriers, who will be required to comply with any prescribed registration and reporting requirements, and who will also be required to bill subscribers, collect the fee, and remit it to the GNWT.

Background

In 2015, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs commissioned a report by Pomax Consulting, a firm headquartered in Ontario that provides independent emergency service consulting expertise to public governments at all levels and to public safety organizations. That report, which presented recommendations and an implementation plan for a territory-wide 911 service, was completed in January 2015. The report found that the Northwest Territories was well positioned to move forward with the implementation of basic 911 service.

Basic 911 service requires the caller to verbally identify the location from which they are calling, unlike enhanced 911, which uses automated number identification technology. With this in mind, basic 911 service was confirmed by the consultant to be the most cost-effective and timely option available for implementation in the Northwest Territories, provided it was done in partnership with an existing NWT emergency dispatch service provider. The consultant also noted that implementation of a basic 911 service would avoid the considerable technology, cost, and timing challenges associated with enhanced 911, which was rapidly becoming outdated and would not preclude the Northwest Territories from moving directly to next-generation fibre-optic 911 technology in the future.

In May 2015, MACA presented the Pomax report to the 17^th Assembly Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure which, at that time, had responsibility for the oversight of MACA. The Department also committed to working with the City of Yellowknife to validate cost and planning assumptions associated with a proposal to house 911 with the Yellowknife Fire Department. In September of the same year, Pomax Consulting delivered an addendum to their original report, which updated the cost estimates for the proposed service. For those who are interested, both reports are available online.

Subsequent to the commencement of the 18^th Legislative Assembly in November 2015, responsibility for the oversight of MACA was transferred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations. Since the outset, this standing committee has taken a keen interest in 911 and has advocated for its implementation. Members were briefed on the department's work, including the planning work related to the establishment of a 911 emergency service in the Northwest Territories.

Members were, therefore, disappointed to note that funding for the implementation of 911 emergency service was not included in the GNWT's 2016-2017 Business Plan, which stated only that "research has been completed on 911, and the initiative is under consideration as a future strategic priority of the GNWT."

At the conclusion of the 2016-2017 Business Plan review, the committee expressed the view that the value and life-saving potential of a 911 system in the NWT far outweighs the relatively small investment of costs set out in the Pomax report, which identified one-time start-up costs of $616,100 and ongoing annual operational costs of $869,300. Committee urged the department to move forward with the implementation of 911 without delay.

On the basis of the costs identified in the Pomax report, committee also supported implementation of basic 911 service on a full cost-recovery basis, which would require a monthly user fee estimated at approximately $1.15 per subscriber. Committee took note that this fee, according to Pomax, "is noticeably higher than the rest of Canada" and "likely attributable to the low volume of phone subscribers in the North." For comparison purposes, the monthly user fee in Newfoundland and Labrador was, at the time, $0.75, the fee in Prince Edward Island was $0.70, and in Saskatchewan, $0.62.

It is important to note that the fee estimate is exclusive of any tariff authorized by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). This additional tariff, if approved by the CRTC, may be collected by an incumbent service provider, in this case NorthwesTel, for costs associated with implementing and maintaining a 911 network, including trunk lines, selective routing software, and lines terminating at the dispatch centre. As yet, these costs are unknown, but were estimated in 2015 to potentially add an additional $0.27 to $0.47 to each subscriber's monthly user fee for 911. The potential impact of these additional costs has been factored into committee's assessment of the bill.

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has continued to be responsive to the standing committee's requests for information related to this initiative. In March 2018, the Honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and the Honourable Minister of Health and Social Services met with committee to update Members on the decision to co-locate the 911 dispatch centre with Med-Response, the service currently being used by the GNWT for the dispatch of medevac flights for residents in need of urgent medical care, rather than with the Yellowknife Fire Department.

Additionally, committee was most pleased to note the inclusion of funding in the department's 2017-2018 budget, and in each subsequent budget, for costs associated with the planning and implementation of 911. The committee wishes to take this opportunity to thank the previous Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and the current Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs for their willingness to work with committee on this initiative. Committee also thanks all Members of Cabinet for their responsiveness to the committee's requests for funding of this initiative, despite it not having been identified in the government's mandate.

Bill 31 received Second Reading in the Legislative Assembly on November 1, 2018, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review. It was with great anticipation that the committee started its review of Bill 31, the results of which are reported below.

Mr. Speaker, I would now ask to turn the reading of this report over to the honourable Member for Nunakput. Thank you.