That is true. Mr. Chairman, we offered and I went to Fort Simpson, for instance, early last year in May to have a community meeting to deal with two primary issues. One was the incredible concern and the distress the community suffered in the previous year because of the very thing that Mr. Seamus Henry referred to, which is the smoke and the difficulties that many residents faced, especially the elders, the senior citizens and the women and children. There was not much we could do about it. We monitored that and in fact thought about evacuation, which was done, as you know, two years ago in Tulita and Norman Wells. We treated it as a very serious concern. However, the only thing that we could do is try to fight fires at the initial stage and to try to improve our capability there since once fires get larger and more out of control, our capabilities are almost insignificant most of the time. We offered to try to improve our performance in Fort Simpson and to all communities. We communicated that through our officials. If Fort Simpson wanted to, they could have a budget approval to spend up to $30,000 without involving the fire centre in Fort Smith. They could use that to hire crews to hire whatever equipment, manpower, aircraft that was available to them to combat fires at the initial stage. Once they hit that $30,000 mark, if they had not put out the fire, then to relay that to us so we could engage our other resources beyond the $30,000 mark if we felt it was required. Thank you.
Stephen Kakfwi on Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 27th, 1997. See this statement in context.
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 26th, 1997
Page 939
See context to find out what was said next.