Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have $650,000 before us today, and then in 2014-2015 we are budgeting $2.350 million. They’re still doing the technical and geophysical testing to find out, but there’s a strong assumption that there are permafrost issues, moisture issues and those types of things that are contributing to the slump in the runway.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Airports, not previously authorized, $650,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $839,000.

Page 8, Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, forest management, special warrants, $13.894 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I find myself almost repeating some of the same things I did last

time we went through this exercise, in terms of a special warrant of over $10 million. In this case, we’ve got one closer to $14 million. This is something that I know is hard to put in the books. I mean, how do you predict fires and everything else, but that said, I think for budgetary purposes, if we’ve got a repeated pattern year in and year out that we’re exceeding our budget by such a large figure, I’m hoping that the budgeters can start putting that in, into the whole cost accounting for this here. But that’s not my question.

My question has to deal with we’ve got a severely aging fleet of our CL-215s that we continuously hear that they’re at the end of their lifecycle, or very near to the end of their lifecycle, and there is a point in time that that aging fleet is going to start costing us more money than making us money. My questions here today really revolve around are we starting to see the brunt of an aging fleet that are adding more dollars at the end of the year as a result of not dealing with the issue sooner than later.

Can the Minister maybe elaborate if the department has done any calculations whatsoever? Have there been extra costs attributed because of this aging fleet?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of budgeting, first, for fires, we’ve had some modest increases to the base, and it’s come up a number of times. This particular year, last summer was very intensely dry, a lot of lightning, a lot of fires by significant values at risk, especially in the Deh Cho. The fact that we were competing for scarce resources, we had to bring in other crews, other planes.

As it pertains to the 215s, the Member is correct; the 215s are nearing the end of their best-before date and some would say they’ve passed that. We’re struggling to keep them in the air. Just with the access to avgas alone is a major problem. There is a significant fleet review, as I’ve indicated, that is currently being completed that will be making its way through the appropriate channels and on to the desk of the committee, to look at the challenges that we’re facing as it comes to decisions that are going to be required in the coming years. We still have an existing contract for air support services, both land-based and skimmers, that takes us to 2017, but we are hard at work to make sure we start the process and the reviews so that we are well along the way with key decisions being made in the life of this Assembly that will determine the path forward with regard to air support services for firefighting.

On the subject of air support services, and obviously, going back to the CL-215 scenarios here, did we have any times whatsoever

during the summer where any of the CL-215s were grounded for whatever reason, repairs, inoperable, or maintenance?

We’ve managed to keep them all airworthy. Not this summer, but last summer they were grounded. Our fleet was grounded because we had used up all the gas available in Inuvik so we had to bring in, on very short notice, some turbo prop aircraft, or a turbo craft aircraft that could assume those duties. That’s one of the biggest challenges. We’ve addressed it in the short term in the communities, trying to make sure we have gas available. That’s the one thing that has posed a real operational obstruction and challenge. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, if the Minister can also maybe give a clarification. Out of the $13.894 million, what dollar figure from that was due to acquiring and subcontracting other air support other than what we have currently in our fleet? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can tell you where all the fires are but I don’t have that level of accounting detail in terms of the aircraft costs versus the breakdown of detail to the degree that the Member is asking, so we will commit to get that for committee. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I thank the Minister again. I have no further questions.

Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Would the Minister happen to know what the last two or three years total cost expenditures were for fire suppression?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, we spent approximately $18.3 million in 2012-13 for suppression in the NWT.

Thank you. So to put this in context, we’ve had a couple special warrants. I think we’re up to about $13 million added to the budget. What are we anticipating the budget will be for this year?

Mr. Chairman, $21.407 million is what it all adds up to with the projected surplus that they are just finalizing now, possibly $1.1 million. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I realize these special warrants are partly catch-up and partly projection, so you can end up with a surplus despite the bigger budget, so $18 million and $21 million and these are well above the set amounts for the annual budget. I am just wondering: Is there a trend in what’s happening with our fire seasons? Are we aware of any trends with our neighbouring

jurisdictions, Alaska, Yukon, or our northern provinces? Thank you.

The fire seasons are starting earlier. They are lasting longer. They are more intense. There are more draught occurrences. There is more critical fire issues tied to values at risk. The amount of lightning seems to be on the increase. As we deal with things like, unfortunately, the pine beetle coming north and if we are going to end up with forests of standing dead trees, then that will be just another further complication that will significantly affect fire behaviour.

Yes, there is a trend. If you turn on the TV and watch California or Alberta where they have fires in March, or what is currently going on in Australia, there is, absolutely, trends for the amount of fires tied to increased temperatures, draught and all the issues we have just talked about. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, thanks for the Minister’s response. It sounds like he is on top of the situation. It sounds pretty challenging and expensive.

The availability of avgas sounds like a big one. Do we have a sense of how much of our… These exceptional budgets – and I assume this happened last year too; I think I remember the Minister mentioning it – how much of these exceptional costs are due to the whole avgas issue versus more severe fire seasons? Thank you.