Thank you, Mr. Blake. I believe that was more of a comment, unless the Minister wants to conclude. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the Member for his offer of working with us in the community. We will be following up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, we are on forest management. Continuing on with questions, we have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first question I have for the Minister and department is just in terms of the fire suppression budget. The actuals in 2013-14 were about $20 million, and the revised for last year was $54 million. In a news article that was in one of last week’s papers, the Minister said that funding for the wildland fire management is based on a 10-year average of suppression expenses. With these numbers that are in place, especially with the revised estimates coming in this year, you would think the budget for the ’15-16 year would be increased if he’s, in fact, going by the 10-year average.

Can I ask the Minister, based on his funding formula, why hasn’t this budget increased for fire suppression? In fact, it went down by about $118,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe I wasn’t quite as clear as I could have been, but the intent is to move to a 10-year moving average. We haven’t done that yet. That says when we move into next year’s budget that’s what we’re going to be looking at doing as we come forward with the budget plans.

In regards to the $118,000, I’ll ask the deputy to clarify that one particular issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Moses.

Thank you for the explanation. Also, I know that discussions have already been going on in the communities. Just referring back, because we don’t have the report in front of us so we have to go by what has been quoted in some of the papers, it talks about some of our experts who have been in the field a long time, stating that in some of the cases a personal opinion is that this is going to be a fairly dry season, if not drier than last year. As I mentioned in briefings before, I’ve talked to people in the fire suppression division and they’re saying the same things.

It’s also mentioned here that usually drought cycles are, on average, about three years. It was mentioned that last year was their first year, so we can be expecting two more summers of something similar. I think that needs to be taken into account when we’re passing a budget, instead of having to come back to committee with these special warrants to get funding to fund our fire suppression crews, especially when it’s also noted that there were a lot of fires but a lot of severe fires that I think put about seven communities at risk last year.

There have been some really good questions from Members during this exchange here. I’m glad to hear that we’re going to be getting a report and maybe a debrief in March and that will be going to committee and that were about a half dozen themes that were discussed. It will be interesting to see what those are.

I know, from last year, the department was actually putting call-outs for people to come and volunteer to fight fires. You know, when we have management and guys that need to be on the fire line and yet we’re getting people off the streets to come and fight fires, there’s a significant amount of training to protect the safety of these emergency firefighters, as they’re known.

Would the department look at creating some type of emergency firefighter training at the beginning of the season and creating a database from that so that at the end of the year we’re not grabbing people off the streets and that we can have a database that we can rely on, rather than, I wouldn’t say frantically looking for people to come jump on

the fire lines, but it would be a good planning tool for another dry season that we’re looking at. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re in year four of drought, and cycles could go four to five years. So I agree with the Member, I’ve been making the same observations based on just what we’ve seen from lack of major fall rains to the snow pack this year and the fact that we’re in such deep drought, it will take a significant amount of snow to affect that and we anticipate it could be a long, hot summer.

We learned last fire season, which was by far and away the biggest we’ve ever had, on the need to recruit internally in the Northwest Territories. We can’t rely on southern resources because they, as well, are facing extreme weather events. So we have learned from last year, we’ve put those lessons into play and I’ll ask the deputy to lay out what we’ve done and it in fact addresses the issue that the Member is talking about.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell.

Thank you, Deputy Minister Campbell. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m glad to hear that that database does exist and now we’ve increased it by about 600 new emergency firefighters and that we’re still looking at starting that training early on in the season.

It was mentioned earlier about compensation for equipment lost to hunters and trappers, or even property, cabins. I’m not sure how many cabins or property were damaged during the last fire season, but rather than looking at increasing that budget and providing compensation to those that live on the land or those that keep their equipment on the land for hunting and trapping I think the department would be better suited moving forward in terms of creating an awareness campaign.

Based on last year, everybody knows what happened last year in the Northwest Territories and if they had a list in terms of how many properties were damaged, how many people lost equipment and that, putting, not a call-out, but just awareness of the people who live on the land or do their harvesting on the land, that they should start taking precautions early on in the season of their own so that should a fire spark next to their property that they’re not rushing out there to try to do some clearing or do some saving of property and putting other lives in danger. I think the department could be projective on this and create awareness before the dry season. Has that been discussed? Is the department looking at doing something like that early in the fire season? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is one of the issues that have come up during the ensuing discussions post-fire season, and it’s one of the themes in terms of the education, prevention and preparation. Yes, we are following up on it. We do it as a matter of course, but there’s added emphasis on it now this year, both in the communities getting individuals to fire smart, take their matters that they can into their own hands, and then we will try to be there as well. So, yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, we are on page 105, forest management, operations. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I ran out of time there as the Minister was wondering about how to define people who live in situations that I was trying to describe. I just thought I’d make the offer to work with him on that. Some of the things that come to mind is they get most of their food off the land from hunting and gathering. If they have children, the children are either home schooled or they have to leave home to go to school because schools are not accessible on a daily basis. The residents themselves rarely get into town and that sort of thing.

Again, I offer to help the Minister to help the Minister on that definition. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We accept. We’ll follow up with Mr. Bromley. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, page 105, forest management, operations expenditure summary, $32.632 million. Mr. Yakeleya.

I have a question for the Minister. When we have tourism outfitter lodges and that, is it part of their requirement to have a sort of fire management sprinkler system? From last year’s fire situation, have we as a department been lending our fire sprinklers to the lodge owners? They don’t have that when they are in that situation. Is it part of their licence? I know it’s part of ITI, but the Minister has responsibility also for the fire protection.