Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Having discussions with our committee with the Minister of ENR with regard to purchase of the Air Tractor 802s, I certainly support the idea of replacing the CL-215s, and one of the biggest is, aside from all the technical aspects that are being discussed here in the last little bit, is we’re facing funding pressures, and once again, if we’re going to maintain the extra fleet while buying these new Air Tractors, we’re also talking about $3 million worth of resources that is much needed in the communities and regions. I liked the briefing where it says that because they’re smaller, they’re able to be closer to the fires. They’re even able to be parked in some of the smaller communities with the longer runways if and when needed.

I won’t be supporting that motion, but I just want to say further to that, it’s interesting how the motion talks about efforts in training and deploying community firefighters in all regions, and that’s certainly something that’s definitely needed and I certainly support that. I know that our communities want those extra supports out there because they

told me this summer, why wait for the firefighters? Why don’t you use that extra training and hire more people from the communities that want to be out there firefighting? So if anything needs to be said about this motion, I would say we’ve got to continue utilizing our homegrown expertise. There are lots of people in my communities that want to go firefighting. They’re EFFs, but we were importing a lot of firefighters this summer. I certainly support additional firefighters for the communities, but the way the motion reads, maintaining an older fleet that needs increased maintenance and even more maintenance, I just can’t support that. Thank you.