You know, Mr. Chairman, I asked the Minister as to what type of measures they could look at developing in order to come in within that projected amount that they have received as a result of the transfer and I do not seem to be hearing what I was hoping to hear. They go on the amount of fires that are happening in the N.W.T., or the type of fire season that we are having. I recognize that many of the contracts with pre-suppression are fixed; I fully recognize that. However, in order to look at fire suppression which have been in excess, measures should be taken and I strongly believe that consideration for contracts privatizing fire suppression would be a way of saving many dollars for the Government of the N.W.T. and the Department of Renewable Resources.
I know that there are many contracts, particularly with different bands in the South Slave area that are into fighting fires on behalf of the Department of Renewable Resources for fire suppression. However, there has been no concerted effort on
the part of the Department of Renewable Resources to try to increase that or to try to address that particular area.
I am sure if the government looked at that without the increased wage amount it would have to look at that on a continual basis for fire seasons, then probably it will save dollars and allow maximum use of resources within the communities. Without looking at having to forecast projected surpluses and overruns every year, I think this government should look at developing measures to address this.
You cannot say it is because of the weather. There are other ways to cut cost, and I do not think this department is hearing that. When you take a fire crew out with the Government of the N.W.T.'s fire crew, there are many times that they sit out in a camp for weeks waiting for a fire to happen. You have all these tanker bases that you have built but I do not think you place the operation and maintenance costs in your budget to address these infrastructure costs that you placed in the different communities.
If you privatize it, these camps will not be sitting in those areas for a couple of weeks waiting for a fire to happen. That is exactly what you do now and it does cost a lot of money. I hear concerns expressed by many people across the territories that there is something like a gathering where people are playing pool all the time waiting for fires to happen and yet these people are getting paid. I recognize the Minister is doing a fire management review, but I do not think it will be a component of the review whether they are utilizing their dollars effectively. I believe that other measures have to be looked at to try to avoid a continual overrun. One of these years we are not going to have the money to address a bad fire season. Thank you.