Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to speak to this one shortly. I think, you know, just when bringing motions forward, I think sometimes the desire to get ideas onto the floor gets ahead of the work needed to fully assess the problem, engage with those affected by it, and hear their needs, and work through the necessary and often difficult process of figuring out the most effective way to address those needs. I don't believe that responsibility lies solely on the shoulders of Cabinet. We do have tools at our disposal on the Regular side. We have our committees. We have an excellent team of research staff. We have the ability to engage and collaborate with Ministers. We have the ability to engage with NGOs who have expertise and often a mandate on these items that we're speaking to. And we have the ability to engage with our communities, with mayors, with councillors. And it is through the effective use of these tools, the Members can be most effective in our work. So I am becoming concerned about the relative efficacy of individual motions as their collective volume increases. All of that said, I have been hearing from my community that funding is needed to support emergency planning. And there was a clause related to that in yesterday's motion, which I did support. I think there are definitely gaps between what communities are capable of and what MACA is saying they are responsible for, which I made a statement about earlier in this session.
So on this, I think we need to hear from the NWT Association of Communities on what supports they need, what changes may be needed to our emergency management legislation and framework, and I do hope to hear from the NWT Association of Communities on that. I went to their website, checked their standing motions, checked the motions that they put forward. I haven't seen a motion so far from the association on this matter, but I think they probably will have something to say on it in the future.
So all of that said, I do support, again, the intent of the motion. I support the motion as amended. As I said, I put forward an amendment and I appreciate colleagues supporting that, so I am in support of the motion. I do think that some communities are going to need help, some probably more than others but, most importantly, communities need financial assistance from the government to take on this responsibility. This is something that, I think, you know, came out in a very stark way that we weren't quite prepared when big evacuations hit last summer, and we've talked about that a lot in this House already and I think, you know, that problem is well defined at this point, and then we've got afteraction reviews looking at it right now.
But to the point, you know, I do think assistance to the communities will be helpful in this. I think financial assistance, in particular, is what I've heard from the mayor of my community that is needed in order to take on this responsibility effectively. So to that end, to the motion itself, I do support it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.