Debates of Oct. 28th, 2025

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, and I'll note too that the scheduled outage in May of 2025 was a NorthwesTel outage. I'm just curious if we can get some clarity as to whether these system upgrades would bypass that service or enhance our other capacity to have redundancies built into the system such that we wouldn't be, you know, having these service outages for especially smaller communities that might not have access to 9-1-1 services in a time of need. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Part of the projects -- and, again, there are -- there's a couple of aspects to the work that's happening with respect to the 9-1-1 system and certainly one component of the second project really is to try to increase the integration with third party software as well as to integrate more with, you know, ensuring that -- yeah, that the systems do speak better to each other and can rely on GIS. At some point -- I'm hesitating only in that at some point does need to be work done with the NorthwesTel, or whoever the telecom provider or say cell phone company might be, and so there will always be some degree of uncertainty in that regard. I can't -- especially I can't control the private sector's telecommunications providers. But from our side, this is expected to be a system that will improve our ability to be online, be meaningful, and be triangulating what information the emergency responders need. Thank you.

Okay, Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, yeah no, I can respect that the Minister does not have control over private operators.

I would request maybe, Mr. Chair, if the Minister is willing to speak with her Cabinet colleague in MACA, who is responsible for the 9-1-1 system, writ large and its operation, as to whether or not these redundancies can be looked at and meaningfully reported back to this House. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is actually quite a lot going on in both of these, so I'm happy to provide some further information, and either whether it's myself appropriately through the information side or whether it's through minister McKay's side, we could certainly provide something that can be made available and perhaps a tabled letter so that the public knows what's coming as well. I agree with the Member's point here. There's a lot of information in front of me about what these systems have, and I would agree that it's important to put that to the public. So rather than trying to read it all out here on the floor, Mr. Chair, we'll put this together. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Great Slave.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. And, really, more a comment than a question but, you know, considering public safety is one of our priorities in the Assembly and considering that these very detailed questions to both the MACA Minister and the Minister of Finance here today are coming directly from my constituents who are very concerned, and I would say, you know, rightfully so if we have outages and people are in emergencies and don't have access to emergency services, that is a crucial piece that we need to fill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Thank you for -- I'll take that as a general comment. Is there any Members -- I'm going to go to Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I also wanted to ask about the NWT 9-1-1 and med-response -- well, first the computer-aided dispatch system.

So 9-1-1 was launched in November 2019, so that is less than six years ago. How is it possible that we're already at the end of life for a system that just launched less than six years ago? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the information I have is that these systems actually are much older than that. Perhaps, if I could, I'll turn this to the chief information officer, see if he could clarify that for us, please. Thank you.

To the assistant deputy minister.

Okay, thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, this poses a bit of a mystery to me that perhaps I can follow up on later because I do know for a fact that 9-1-1 launched in November 2019, and so I can't quite figure out why we would have launched using a system that was already 5 to 10 years old. Anyway, I do hope that going forward we are making a wise investment in technology that we have some assurance will last more than five years so we won't be back here again.

With this opportunity to sort of reboot the system, to use a very poor technology pun because I know very little about technology, are there -- in terms of the scope or the choice of the new system, I know that there have been challenges, for example coordinating the 9-1-1 computer dispatch system with, say, the city of Yellowknife's dispatch system, and my understanding, unless things have changed dramatically in the last few years, is that the computers didn't talk to each other and you literally had a dispatcher that would have to take all the information over the phone from a caller and then call the city of Yellowknife dispatch system and relay sort of word for word, literally playing a game of telephone, as to what the need was, which obviously wastes valuable time which every second matters in an emergency. So is there a plan to ensure that whatever new system we're putting in place can actually -- the computers can talk to each other so we can have an efficient and, you know, 21st century emergency response system? I'll stop there for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, just to clarify the first item, technology isn't necessarily bespoke to us when we take something on. So in this instance we, back in 2019, adopted the technology, but it wasn't brand new technology at the time. That, you know, limits the amount of capital outlay that you might have if you are not taking the newest and best but then it does result in a situation where six years on, we are looking to replace it. But, you know, six years is six years, and we've certainly learnt something from it, including the next series of questions, which is how to better integrate the system. And so, Mr. Chair, the information we have in front of us doesn't specifically name the city of Yellowknife so I would like to come back to the committee to just confirm that. I can say that the stronger detail about what this is supposed to involve does note that it is next generation 9-1-1 technology now, and it is intended to provide enhanced location accuracy, so that's the GPS and WiFi type triangulation that we wouldn't have had before, but also a lot more multimedia integration and call routing. So with that information, it sounds to me as though it would then therefore be able to communicate better across different systems. But as I say, I will certainly confirm that and provide that to the House. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I am encouraged to hear about those new possibilities, and I do urge the department to consider that in, you know, choosing the technology going forward in the scope.

Does this mean that there will be a possibility -- I don't know what it's called but in some other places, the 9-1-1 system can get a GPS location for a caller, for example if they don't know exactly where they are or if they don't know the exact address or if there isn't an exact address of the place that they are, that there would be an ability for the 9-1-1 dispatch to get a GPS location of where that person is? Is that a possibility with the new system we're planning? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, again, this is the next generation, and it really is meant to be a forward-looking and future-looking type of capacity, including the situational awareness piece, which I believe is the technology or the goal that is being sought for here. So that is the direction we're trying to get to, and that does require bringing up the system that we have in place. So I hope that answers the question, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.