Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to say that I had an opportunity to travel with the Minister over to Fort Simpson back in April. It was a good opportunity to go there and meet with the people and the leadership.
I just want to reiterate some of the concerns we heard as a result of our discussions there. As well, we made it over to Trout Lake, Mr. Chair.
In Simpson initially they wanted to follow up on a couple of long-outstanding items. Most particular
was the biomass assessment, or the forestry inventory, around Fort Simpson. That was a commitment, a long-outstanding commitment. They brought it up with the Minister, so that’s something I’d like to follow up on in our discussions here in Committee of the Whole and to work toward it. It’s very important, having this assessment done, in many respects.
As well, on the eve of the big push to find alternate energy sources, Fort Simpson did bring up with the Minister at that time that they would like to look at different ways of generating energy, and one of them was geothermal. They’re interested in doing a pilot project, testing for the availability of geothermal in Fort Simpson. They’re still developing their proposal. That’s something I
certainly support there, Mr.
Chair, as well as
looking at the geothermal heating potential for Fort Liard. It’s just a matter of the communities needing assistance in putting together the package and being informed about where to send it.
I don’t expect, of course, the GNWT to fund everything. There are lots of federal matching dollars or federal programming out there to assist communities that want to explore alternate energy sources. It’s just having the capacity to deal with it. Our communities are small, and the resources to develop proposals are limited. Working with the department, I believe, was their intent; instead of the department just waiting for a proposal, I think they wanted to work together with the department and explore these many different opportunities.
With respect to the reallocation of the money, I know this department is just over the 9 per cent cutback in their budget. They’re to be commended for that. However, it came at a big cost in order to achieve those targets, and one of them — Mr. Krutko spoke about it — is a reduction in fire suppression. To us in Fort Simpson it means a reduction of two crews: ten people. That’s ten people who aren’t going to be employed in my community of Fort Simpson, and the impact is manyfold there.
One impact is that they look forward to that summer work. They’ve got families who depend on them as well. The hours they do work are credited toward some employment insurance that they can utilize in the wintertime should the winter work season be slow, and that was a benefit of that program.
I’m of the view, too, that I don’t know why they were cut. I think they’re saying that the last couple of years have been good fire seasons. Those are cycles, Mr. Chair, and I don’t know how far back the department should look at that full cycle. We’ve had a couple of good years, but that doesn’t mean that we’re out of the woods, so to speak. You’ve just got to look at the Sahtu Region. They had a couple of
really bad fire seasons in a row, but they had many, many good years, too.
Having the resources available to combat those threats to our land and our resources and to be able to suppress the fires in any of the regions is critical and is our responsibility as a government. I believe we might have been too hasty in reducing in this area, because there are other big cost centres we could have looked at instead of reducing the fire crews. So I’m fundamentally opposed to that, Mr. Chair.
Another cost centre that was the subject of reduction, of course, is regional positions, regional front-line worker positions: a forester in my region as well as a renewable resource officer in Fort Liard. I just want to state for the record, of course, that I’m opposed to that as well, only because I look at the budget, Mr.
Chair, and you see
corresponding growth in the capital, or the headquarters division, of five or six positions.
When we started doing this whole exercise of fiscal restraint and budget reductions, I went on record right away, Mr.
Chair, that we cannot be
centralizing and privatizing. It’s just not good for the communities, and it’s not good for the regions.
If anything, it’s the front-line workers we have to keep in place. Those are the ones who are in touch with the regions, with the communities. They know the people, they know the land, and they are an immense resource. To try to run it out of headquarters, I believe, is not the direction we should be going. I don’t know how many times I have to say it: it’s just not the way we should be doing our work.
When it comes to cutbacks, initially it was about fiscal restraint, but we have shown and we have established that this budget is not about fiscal restraint but about reallocation of resources. Sometimes keeping what we have is a priority. Just because we have an opportunity to reallocate, it’s sometimes not the best way to do things.
Monitoring and utilizing continuous improvement methodology is another way of watching the costs and using best practices in the industry, because they’re always current. There are always new technologies out there that will save us money, and those have to be examined. But cutting out old tried-and-true methods of fire suppression: I really think we should have another good look at that.
Especially in terms of fire suppression – we’re in June, and it’s kind of like mid-year – I would really, really urge the Minister and the Department of ENR that, for goodness’ sake, we’re going to have to revisit this for the next fiscal year.
Just switching gears over to energy conservation, I think we’re on the right track with that. There’s
always more that could be done, but supporting energy conservation through a couple of the programs we have will be beneficial.
I’ll end on that note, Mr. Chair. Thank you.