Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the concern raised by the Member about how much is being spent by this department for fire suppression. I believe it is a major part of our budget, therefore it is a major concern to the department. It seems regardless of what we do, there will always be somebody who is not happy with what we're doing. We are making an effort to try to meet some of the reasonable suggestions being made by people. Department staff have been to all the communities in the Northwest Territories that are within the treeline. The only community where they have not yet held public consultations is Fort Smith. This coming Wednesday, my deputy minister will be in Fort Smith, meeting with the various leaders. I believe they'll be determining at that point whether there should be a public meeting.
There was concern raised by one of the leaders in Fort Smith about holding a public meeting. Therefore, it has been delayed until this upcoming meeting on Wednesday. With the number of dollars that were spent in the last year, I'm sure all Members and all people in the Northwest Territories realize that last year was an unusual year for forest fires, that it was considerably worse than other years. The staff indicated to me last week that, on average, the amount of dollars that have been spent every year since the time forest fire management was taken over by the Government of the Northwest Territories, was about $11 million. When they took last year into consideration, it raised the average to $13 million a year.
So last year has really made a difference in the average number of dollars that have been spent per year since the time we took over forest fire management.
With that, the consultants who were hired well before my time to consult with the communities, to come up with a report, and recommendations to the department have since been completed. I apologize to the Member, I had indicated I would give her a copy. We have just recently put that together and a package will be coming to the Member in the next day or so.
With regard to how the department came upon this review and the consultation that has taken place over the winter, many Members of the House raised this as a concern that departments should be consulting with the communities. I took the concerns that were raised by Members and felt that direct involvement by departmental staff who are involved in the management of fires should be talking to people in the communities directly and hearing from them directly about the concerns that are being raised in the communities. I think the suggestions that are being made are reasonable. We will be taking those recommendations from the report that was made by the consultants, as well as the consultation that was done by department staff, and come up with a submission to Cabinet and to the Financial Management Board as to how we will be able to spend our money on forest fires at a more manageable level. From what I understand, the consultations have been very good. It has been in consultation with those who are fighting the fires every summer, and elders who have fought fires before, and people who are generally concerned about forest fires in and around their communities.
The concerns that are being raised are very widely varied. Some of the responses given by elders were that they used to fight fires in the evenings as soon as they got to a fire, just as the Members have indicated, and fight fires at night when it was cool and how that has changed to the way fires are being fought today. Much of that change, I believe, has to do with the collective bargaining. Many of the people who are fighting fires today do not want to fight fires at night even though many of the elders have indicated and many of the people who know about firefighting have said that it is easier to try to fight fires at night. It has become a collective bargaining issue because, from what I understand, many of the people who fight fires do not want to fight fires at night.
Some of the other concerns that I've heard are statements such as we should be letting the fires burn because it's natural and it creates new growth in the area. I've heard staff saying this was told to them by elders in the communities. And there are others who have said that every single little fire that's starting up, we should be after. There are a wide variety of concerns being raised by people across the western Northwest Territories. We are taking them seriously. Mr. Pollard has indicated to us that we really have to take a serious look at how much we are spending in terms of our forest fires. I believe that we will come up with a reasonable submission, one that has taken into account the concerns raised by people in the community and concerns that have been raised by our Finance Minister as well as Members of this House.
I've indicated that I hope that this report will be completed by the end of March. We should have a submission into Cabinet and the Financial Management Board within the next few weeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.