Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I noticed that under fire suppression, in this year's budget we are showing $8.6 million, which is the amount spent last year, which was a fairly good fire year.

I know that since the GNWT took over forest management from the federal government, we have spent an average of over $12 million a year on firefighting. That is going back to 1988, a 12 year history shows an average of $12 million. The highest year was $27 million. The lowest year was $5.7 million.

We can have a tremendous range in the amount we spend on fighting fires, depending on the year. At the end of March when we were considering the interim supply bill, I had asked the Minister how much we could expect to see in the full year's budget, knowing what was in the interim supply bill. The deputy minister, Mr. McLeod, replied, and I quote from Hansard, page 321, March 29, 2000:

"The suppression holding figure, the last time I checked, was about $11 million. It has not been set for this fiscal year yet, but in the past, the holding figure was around $10 million or $11 million. "

Mr. Chairman, we spent $19 million fighting fires in 1998-99. Why would we put in nearly $4 million less than what the average has been? I know you can never predict what it is going to be, but I would suggest that a more accurate figure would at least be the average for the holding figure, and you hope you do not spend it all in a year rather than putting in a lowball figure, knowing the Assembly will have no choice but to approve supplementary funds if it is a bad fire year and you spend over the budget.