Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week, Parks Canada issued a warning related to bison collisions with cars, and returning to the NWT recently after a trip to BC, I was fortunate enough to encounter several of the majestic creatures, myself. This made me think about what would happen if I struck one with my truck, resulting in a crash. Who would come to rescue me? How long would it take? Over a prolonged period of time, would I die from my injuries?
Mr. Speaker, I get it. If you are an hour down the highway, it will take emergency services at least an hour to get to you. The "golden hour" rule when extrapolated to our territory will always be the "golden couple of hours," simply because of the distances between communities on our roadways. How many people over the years could have been saved or had better health outcomes if there had been the political will to resolve the lack of highway rescue?
Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has had interdepartmental reports and plans since 2012. That is eight years, eight years with no on-the-ground, tangible improvement to service, at all. The Premier, while Minister of MACA in the 18th Assembly, further cut the already meager highway-rescue budget from half a million annually to under $200,000 annually. Even then, the money was only being spent on reports, strategies, and web-based toolkits that didn't impact the saving of lives anyway. As we recently saw with the City of Yellowknife, community governments are unwilling to do the territorial government's job anymore and have withdrawn fire and rescue services outside of community boundaries.
Mr. Speaker, when I look into the silos of the GNWT, I see immediate solutions for funding emergency-response capabilities on our roadways. The Yellowknife Airport has GNWT firefighters who are trained as medical responders. Highway patrol trucks on our roadways could carry some fire and rescue gear to support victims until fire crews arrive. The School of Community Government had a firefighter cadet volunteer program it piloted with the city, whose graduates are now employed by the city. 911 is already dispatching ambulance services.
Mr. Speaker, our rural jurisdictions in Canada ensure their medic trucks have light rescue equipment on them, including the jaws of life, so they can rescue citizens. These tangible solutions are already available and require limited new funding. There must be political will to get it done. Mr. Speaker, I propose using some of the huge pot of capital funding to purchase a combination fire/rescue truck to be placed at the Yellowknife Airport for fire and rescue services along the Ingraham Trail; over the next few years, use the highway rescue budget of $200,000 to purchase combination medic/light rescue units for the communities. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted