Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the commitment to update the Extraordinary Funding Policy, but I don't think this is the place for the NWT SPCA to ever fit. I recognize that the heart of what the SPCA in Yellowknife is doing is municipal, but there is this issue: the SPCA also travels to communities and provides vaccines; they do spay and neuter clinics. This idea that they are not doing territorial work is a misunderstanding of the importance of animal health. A single dog attack in a community, when we throw in the medical travel, costs us more than the SPCA would need to go and do the preventative work to make sure we are not having rabies outbreaks. Right now, we don't have a single department in the GNWT responsible for animal health. I recognize that the Premier cannot make a commitment to provide core funding at this time, but to assign the responsibility for animal health and the work that happens on a territorial level to some department so that they don't keep running into this block of finding absolutely no one to go talk to about larger territorial animal health concerns.
Rylund Johnson on Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on March 4th, 2020. See this statement in context.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
March 4th, 2020
Page 495
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