Alright, 6-17, activity summary, public safety, operations expenditure summary, $1.717 million. Mr. Bromley.

Questions, Mr. Chair.

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The fire marshal, what’s happening with that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

We had a long time to get ready for this question. I’ll ask Mr. Schauerte to explain the reduction in money.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Director Schauerte.

Thank you, Mr. Schauerte. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.In terms of emergency management, I see a bump-up in the grants and contributions of a couple hundred thousand, and I know the Minister referenced another $350,000. What is the Minister aiming at here? One of the things that has come up in terms of community management planning is the increase and the expectation of further increases of the transportation of toxic and explosive materials through our communities associated with the fracking activity in the Sahtu as well as along our highways and rivers and lakes and so on. I know the Minister is familiar with what’s happening down South and with these sorts of accidents primarily with the rail, but where we don’t have rail in many areas, so we’ll be dealing with this stuff on our highways more and more. Will that be included or what are these dollars intended for?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

I believe the Member is speaking to the $200,000 increase on the grants and contributions side. I don’t think it’s the emergency management part on the bottom here. Maybe the Member could just clarify that. I believe he’s speaking to the $200,000 to $400,000 on the top there under grants and contributions. Because

in emergency management side there’s, like, a $5,000 increase.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Bromley, could you clarify your question?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I was referring to the increase from $200,000 to $400,000 for ground ambulance and highway rescue as well as the Minister’s mentioned, I think, in his introductory remarks, an additional $350,000 for emergency management. I can look up the specific comment here. It was $350,000 for the Ground Ambulance and Highway Rescue Services Program increase in contributions to community governments. That’s probably in a different division, but anyway, we’re looking at $550,000 increase here apparently for the same thing and I’m wondering if it’s going to help with these sorts of issues that I mentioned.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We just want to make sure we had our information correct here, or semi correct. They give it to me and then I hope I give it to you correctly. The $200,000 increase there was some of the additional money, the $350,000 that I was talking about, the contributions to the community to help with their desire to provide some emergency services in the community. Usually it was on an application base, and we tried to allocate all the money. The other $150,000, we’ll find it later on when we get to the School of Community Government, because our intention is to use that for first responder training. This year is to help the communities. We have had some application in the past. I think we’ve even considered doing a second round of applications. If all the money is not used up we’ll go for a second round of applications, so we can probably top them off a bit more. I will get Mr. Williams to speak on some of the Member’s concerns on the emergency management side of it.

Thank you, Minister. Deputy Minister Williams.

Thank you, Mr. Williams. Mr. Bromley.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That’s good to know and I think it would be of interest if committee could see that report, obviously. Territory-wide, was it like all our communities or did it include the highways and other transportation corridors? Do we know? Just in association with that, and I’ll see if I can finish this up here, I’m wondering if we’re working with Transportation on this, as well, because they might have a role to play too.

That’s all I had, Mr. Chair. I guess maybe I’ll just ask if the Minister could make that report available to committee.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Yes, we’ll make that committee report available.