Thank you, committee. Please now turn to the Municipal and Community Affairs, public safety, at page 347 with information items on 348 and 349. Questions from Members on the Department of public safety? Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I've spoken about many times, we are the only place in Canada that doesn't employ building inspectors. We take one small part of the building code, and we give it to the Office of the Fire Marshal. But, you know, compared to Yukon and Nunavut or anywhere else, we don't actually apply the whole National Building Code and we don't really develop that expertise. And I know the Fire Prevention Act is scheduled. I heard the Minister speak during corporate services about all the work they are doing to find policy staff.

I'm just -- I'm still slightly unsure about what the first phase of the Fire Prevention Act that we are hopefully going to see in the life of this Assembly will look like and whether it will, you know, do something like create building inspectors or building inspection office? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister for MACA.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For that detail, I'll go to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I -- probably a larger conversation here about I know departments have their processes and have to go through them but, you know, we have 18 months left in this Assembly, and I -- at some point, we just need to stop talking to anyone and stop talking to the communities and get the Building Inspection Act considering we're the only place in Canada without one, would be my opinion. But I'll leave it to the department to do their processes.

My question is there's -- I know the Office of the Fire Marshal only has a $500,000 budget. It's a pretty small office with quite a lot of responsibility. Not only does it have to, you know, supervise every single GNWT Infrastructure project, it has to supervise all the private ones as well through a series of inspections from the design phase right to the permitting.

I believe sometimes the office contracts the plan review function to private individuals who are professionals in this area. I note when Nunavut created the building inspectors they kind of just decided that they weren't ever going to build that capacity and it's easier to contract out the plan review function. The turnaround times are amazing, I'm told, by the professionals in that area.

I'm just wondering how much of -- whether we are doing that and how much of this budget is spent on contract services for that function, and do we have that information? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister of MACA.

Thank you. For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister Gareau.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I am very happy to hear that, and I know that there will be a number of contractors who are familiar with those -- the likely people who will bid on that RFP and have worked with them across the North in different territories, and I think we ease the workload of those people at the Office of the Fire Marshal by doing that. So I look forward to seeing that RFP.

I wanted to talk about the contract services line item here of $30 million. I'm going -- I'm quite confident that this is the flood money. Can I just get an update on when we expect to have completed our reimbursement to the federal government under the disaster assistance policy and when we expect to submit that for the flooding? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Yeah, so he's correct, it is flood. But for that detail of when it's going to be completed, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I would like the Minister to speak to any work that's being done to increase our emergency management ability. I'll note that we budget $330,000, which is two or three staff to -- you know, if you look at the actuals, I mean obviously last year was a bad year, but I don't even know if three staff can administer $35 million and then the year before that, they had to administer a few million more, you know, just to track that amount of money requires more than three staff, let alone actually be on the ground responding to emergencies. And I think given the climate change realities, we are likely to see many more of these, unfortunately, in a variety of aspects.

So if the Minister could speak to, you know, the fact that emergency management is only $330,000 budgeted, whether that is sufficient and what we can do to staff up that and make sure we are prepared? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of MACA.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So we are looking at allocating five more positions from the regional level. We're in the process of that. We are also in the process of working with the COVID Secretariat, and there's potential of three positions coming to us as that. So we are building the team, regional and headquarters. Previously, we are looking at where positions are best suited and right now, we feel comfortable with our allotment of these eight positions where we have them located going forward right now. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Are there any further questions under public safety from Members? Member for Thebacha.