Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We probably have a pretty good track record here in the territories for personnel in fire safety. We have a fire department that appears to be quite professional and thorough, but the north is growing and the numbers of buildings that are being built is growing and there are different types of buildings being built. They pose problems that are unfamiliar to our present fire fighters.
There is always a need for training and upgrading for the present staff we have. I have heard, numerous times, from the fire chiefs -- I've had the pleasure of meeting with them on at least three different occasions when they have their annual meetings -- and there is a request from them to have a training school set up somewhere in the north. We have about 65 communities and some fairly good sized fire departments.
They can get training in the provinces right now, in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, but the fire chiefs feel it would be good to have a fire school closer at hand. It has been suggested by the out of Yellowknife and out of tax-based community areas that more fire training be delivered at home, at least in the Northwest Territories, and have raised this issue at a number of different times, towards the establishment of a fire training centre in the north somewhere. It doesn't have to be Yellowknife, but somewhere in the north where northerners can go to get some northern experience.
This year, in Yellowknife alone, we had three major fires in the dead of winter. I don't think the conditions anywhere could be as bad as they were, minus 45 degrees with a fierce wind blowing. It tests men and equipment -- or fire fighters, I should say, because we have some very capable lady fire fighters -- and it tests the fire fighters to their limits. There is a lot that needs to be learned from winter fire fighting such as the different techniques of putting on water and handling equipment. We learned a few things by experience, but sometimes that experience could be fatal.
I think a school that has a unique northern content to the extreme conditions that we face here would have a lot of benefit to our fire fighters and security to the people that depend so much on them. I know that the department has heard this request and may have given it some thought, and I just wondered if any more thought had been given to the establishment of a fire school in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.