Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so the funding that was flowing through the Department of ECE to cover -- well, to hopefully cover the insurance costs, which it was coming close, if not not covering already, is now going to show up in Finance because Finance is responsible for administering the costs of insurance. So you may well see this number -- well, you will see this number again when we get to the Department of Finance. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you for that, Madam Chair. I guess then I just wonder does insure -- or the legalities of insuring as a third party around an asset that we don't own, does that not then raise other issues that we should be concerned about, or does that cost more; what are the implications of that? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Thank you Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I asked very similar questions when this first came to me. I don't have all the details here. I do know due diligence was conducted. Perhaps I might turn to the deputy minister. He can speak just briefly to the work that was done by the department and by those responsible for our insurance portfolio. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Deputy Minister MacKay.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do appreciate that the GNWT is covering this for the school boards. We, as Yellowknife MLAs, did hear a lot about this being a big concern for them. And I do recognize that $175,000 is not very much money in the grand scheme of things, but more asking the questions for my own knowledge. So I'm glad to hear that the due diligence was performed. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Any further questions, comments?

Supplementary Estimates (Operation Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, junior kindergarten to grade 12 school services, not previously authorized, negative $175,000. Does committee agree?

Supplementary Estimates, (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, total department, not previously authorized, $2,594,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you.

Committee, we will now consider the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on page 5. Supplementary Estimates (Operation Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, forest management, not previously authorized, $1,200,000. Does committee agree? Oh, Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I recall there's kind of a saying that says we always got to keep some money in the bank because a bad forest fire season can cost us $50 million, and then we got the sup for $40 million for fire suppression, and now we're seeing another $1.2 million in what I don't think was a particularly bad year.

I have a question of how much are we budgeting to kind of keep in reserve for forest fire seasons going forward? And I know this is kind of one of those hard questions where we don't know. But do we have a general average of what we now expect to see every year for fire suppression? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't bring the mains with me either, Madam Chair. But it looks like Minister Thompson might have some information he can offer.

Thank you. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Thank you. So basically we do a 25-year average fires and compare cost. Basically our budget was $22.5 million. That's where we figured we'd be. Unfortunately, we saw additional fire in BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario, which had an impact on our helicopters which means -- so now other costs were driven up. So we did budget for it, but we don't budget for national -- or other provincial ones, and sometimes that has an impact on what we do moving forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I know there's kind of a long-term average here but I suspect that for the Department of Finance's for future projecting that $22 million we'll continually be short, and I know there are some other cost drivers in this area. We've been re-negotiating some of our water bomber contracts and helicopter contracts, as the Minister noted.

I guess, is there a plan to revisit that figure, and can the Minister speak to what are some of the other areas driving costs in fire suppression? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, one thing is that the last year , in fact, I guess the last two summers won't necessarily be indicative of the future costs, and I say that because there's been some efforts -- there's been an effort to fight more fires in order to ensure that there's -- you know, basically a lower risk is being taken, and that's as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to, you know, prevent the chances if there happen to be an evacuation of a community, the need to minimize the number of firefighters that would have to come in, the need to minimize the number of firefighters that are in small in closely knit quarters in camps. So the strategy was to be much more aggressive in the last two years than what normally would be.

So these won't necessarily again, as I say, be the examples to rely on. That said, I'm certainly taking the point, and I think I would share this with my colleagues, that, you know, climate change is bringing more extreme weather events. That seems to be a fact experienced worldwide. So there was no doubt going to have to be more work done on these estimates. I'm just not sure that the last two years will be the years to use as the examples. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Any further questions, comments under this section? Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Environment and Natural Resource, forest management, not previously authorized, $1,200,000. Does committee agree?