Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The question of whether fires should be fought is a question that has been raised with the department over the summer by, if not all then most, communities in the western Arctic. In fact, there were some questions raised in communities in the east about how, when, where and how many firefighters there should be in any one fire. Because this was such a bad year for fires, the departmental staff are and will be going into communities to find out concerns that the people in the communities have about the way in which we fight fires at the present time.

As to the question raised by Mr. Whitford, the policies we do have are to fight fires that have value at risk. At the present time, I believe all the fires that are ongoing are not lands which have any value to people in the communities, or they are valued in that they are land but there are no buildings or any such valuable items on the lands. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.