Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order and is non-debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed?

---Carried

Thank you, committee. Committee, we have agreed to next consider Committee Report 13-18(3), Report on the Review of Bill 31, the NWT 911 Act. I will go to the chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations for any opening comments about the report. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On February 26, 2019, the Standing Committee on Government Operations presented its report on the review of Bill 31, Northwest Territories 911 Act. The committee report included three recommendations, and I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the report and the recommendations in Committee of the Whole later today. Members of the committee may have individual comments. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. I will open the floor to any general comments on the report. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do have just a few brief comments that I would like to make. I want to thank the committee for letting me sit in on a lot of the meetings that they had regarding the report. I am quite pleased with the recommendations that came out of the report.

911 is something that was being worked on when I was on city council back in 1997 to 2006. This was not in our mandate, and I do appreciate the work of a couple of Ministers to bring this forward. I want to commend them for their hard work in getting this bill to us and that this is finally going to happen in the life of this Assembly. This is very important for the people of the Northwest Territories in terms of public safety, so again, I want to thank my colleagues for their hard work on this.

I still think that there is a lot of work to be done, though, in terms of implementation and working very closely with our community governments, particularly here in Yellowknife, where the centre is going to be located, in terms of how calls are handled and so on. I guess I would take a little bit of credit for the idea of having some public reporting around 911, in terms of the revenues, the number of calls, and the use of languages and so on. I think those are going to be important metrics as we move forward with the implementation.

I want to recognize the work of my Cabinet colleagues in moving this forward and the work of committee in improving the bill. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Me, too. I just wanted to acknowledge the efforts from all sides, including the Cabinet Ministers who were involved with advancing this forward. I think that we all realize the real need for such a system to be set in place here in the Northwest Territories, basically because of the need for more public safety and, of course, emergency situations. Therefore, it is timely that we move forward on this.

I know that there had been efforts from the 17^th Assembly, as far as previous Assemblies that had wished that such a system would be in place. Now we have seen the advancement of cellular technology in small and remote communities. We have seen the fibre optic line that has been laid down from the southern parts of the NWT right up to Inuvik. There are more hopes and expectations that such a critical, life-saving service could be provided.

There are ongoing challenges. One of them is the presumption that such a service would be mainly in English, but as we all know, we have multiple official languages that we need to uphold. The challenge is to make a service that could be available to everybody in the Northwest Territories. However, there are, of course, some technical challenges in terms of how we are supposed to address that. For the most part, I am very happy and pleased that we have made tremendous progress on making 911 a reality in the near future. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Anything further to the report? Seeing none, I will just explain to everyone what happens with these reports. There are various recommendations made to the department in the reports, and those are generally moved as motions. If there are any recommendations which anyone would like to move as motions, I will go to that person now. Mr. Testart.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The committee has read its report into the record, so I won't go into the full details, but sufficient to say, a number of concerns raised by the public in our consultations and from Members representing their constituencies were very clear that the bill alone could not address many of the issues that will be required for 911 coverage to be a success in the program.

The committee feels very strongly that this is a life-saving program that is going to make a big difference in the lives of Northerners, but to ensure that, this motion, in particular, addresses the need for expanded cellular coverage, especially in the smaller communities and in regions where there are large stretches of road without adequate coverage. The concern is that, if there is an accident there, it won't matter if you have 911 or not if you can't get a cell signal on your phone.

It is imperative that we improve this communications infrastructure in the Northwest Territories. We can't do it alone, and this motion contemplates how the government can take concrete actions to deliver more extensive cellular service in the Northwest Territories and adequately support the life-saving goals of the 911 program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed?

---Carried

Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this Assembly recommends that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs develop a detailed municipal implementation plan that sets out the information and supports needed by each local authority to ensure successful implementation of NWT-wide 911 service; and further, that this implementation plan identify a realistic time frame for discussion with local authorities and that the department be prepared to adjust the go-live date to a later date, if necessary, to accommodate the consultation needs of local authorities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We spoke to many municipalities around their concerns with the implementation of 911 and how best the government can support the implementation in a way that everyone can meaningfully participate and have adequate resources. To capture that, the committee has made this recommendation to ensure that municipalities are ready and prepared for the role of 911, that it doesn't impact their existing provision of emergency services, and that everyone moves to a smooth transition after the 911 service goes live.

This motion contemplates it being the responsibility of the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to develop this implementation plan in meaningful consultation with all of our communities where 911 service will be implemented. So we are hoping that this motion is carried and that this plan comes into place before the implementation of 911. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. To the motion. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We really appreciate the work that was done by committee on the reports in bringing these three motions forward as well as the discussion that we had in committee. We know this is very important. We have to make sure that all of our communities and our municipals are ready and prepared when we do this implementation. As this is a recommendation to Cabinet, I will be abstaining from the vote, as the previous motion. However, I just want to let committee know and Members and the general public that Cabinet is very supportive in the rollout of the 911 services. Being the first year that we are going to be rolling this out and we want to do it right, we will be monitoring and evaluating the program, and we will committing to keeping committee apprised of the rollout of 911. I do appreciate all of the work that committee has done on the report and, as we go further into the bill later on today, the amendments that were made, as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. To the motion.

Question has been called. All Those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this Assembly recommends that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs provides a response to the recommendations contained in this report within 120 days. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor. To the motion.