Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is probably going to be a little bit of a longer answer, and I apologize to the House, but we need to get the information out there.

The GNWT used the territorial state of emergency. The decision was based on a combination of multiple factors and not one factor. They included starting in May, the NWT had already experienced multiple community evacuations. In one week alone, just before Yellowknife evacuation orders had been issued, Enterprise, Fort Smith, Hay River, Jean Marie, K'atlodeeche First Nation had also learned -- been evacuated and we've also seen the devastation that happened in Enterprise. Very aggressive and unpredicted wildfire behaviour near Yellowknife area was causing significant concerns to certain -- to very knowledgeable firefighters. Previous wildfires had, in fact, critical infrastructure like the fibre optic link, highways, impacted communications and transit corridors. The fire break that was here around Yellowknife today were not in place when those evacuation orders were issued. There were potentially risk to the highway and airport given the current fire conditions. There were many factors that led to Yellowknife evacuations but, ultimately, the right decision was made. Given the same information that I had today from -- or when we did it, I'd do it again twice on Sunday, Mr. Speaker. The city is right from their perspective. The NWT health and social services is right from their perspective. But the GNWT had considered all perspectives. The fire conditions, one road, one airport, system capacity, etcetera. Conversations about what was said are largely irrelevant because of how quickly the situation changed from Sunday to Thursday, the day before the Yellowknife evacuation. But the city did formally ask for assistance with its shelter in place and a scenario for a city evacuation on the 15th, the day before the evacuation order was issued.

Mr. Speaker, NWTHSSA was focusing on the hospital. They had patients there. They had long-term patients. They also had 60 evacuees from Hay River in Fort Smith that they had to get out there. So to do a shelter in place and to set up an evacuation centre, they would not be able to do that. So when the city came to us, we sat there and looked at everything. We looked at every avenue, what the situation was happening, and we made the decision that we had the time to evacuate the community, we'd give the 48 hours to get the community out because the fire was coming. 15 and 11. 85 was burning as well. These situations were occurring. If 15 and 11 connected, that highway would have been closed off. Then we would have problems with the air quality in for our residents. We'd also have the problem of getting -- to use the airport because we were seeing it, and the predictions were that Saturday it was going to hit, and we were going to see all the problems there. So that's why the decision was made moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.