Mr. Chairman, our estimation is that the cost of the GNWT maintaining a crew where there’s no operational requirement averages about $27,500 per crew member for the contract period. The cost of providing income assistance to one period for the same period of time as the operational period of the contract is estimated at about $1,250 per person or $2,500 for a family of four.
I guess the other point I want to make is that over time, in some cases, this program has been seen to have a significant social component for the reason the Members have talked about.
Our challenge has been to look at the money we have available, the targets we were given, the number of crews that have grown over the years — in some cases with a very, very modest or minimal workload — and to make the hard decisions in all areas, including this one. We’ve tried to be as careful as possible on that issue. Our capacity to run our fire crews with that social component being one of the criteria is not something we’re able to do with the resources we have available.