Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate all the words and comments that have been shared today so far by all Members of the House, and I respect personal opinions and views to what's transpired over the last little while. I didn't come here with a big formal speech and I felt, you know, we had some time to write one but I still didn't do one. And the reason why I didn't do one is because of my experiences and my involvement in last year's wildfires, both of them, the previous flood we had in Hay River, in the community I represent, the annual emergency events we continually have in Hay River, and I just wanted to share those as a resident and as a Member who campaigned on holding this government accountable to the events that we had.
Now, I think the biggest issue comes down to the inquiry and a third-party independent review. And immediately as I became a Minister, I started questioning about the difference and also what we can do and go ahead to start investigating. And that's basically where I started off with, is going in that direction.
Most people know I have some experience and background in emergency services, 30 years of emergency services. And, yes, I hate the word "unprecedented". Last year was that. But it was also something that I never want to go through ever again, and I hope nobody ever has to go through that ever again. And what I went through last year, it started off in May, and May was done. K'atlodeeche First Nation, my neighbour to Hay River, lost their band office, lost their Judith Fabian Centre, the elder centre, and some homes, and there was no call for a public inquiry. Now there is one. Why? Because of the unprecedented fires that we've had, the amount of people evacuated, the amount of people that had to leave their homes.
Most of those people went back to their homes. I'm still in a riding where there are people that are not in their homes. So I'm standing here as a Member of Hay River and the Hay River region and the Hay River riding, not only as an individual who's been involved and has been there and seen what happened, and has questions myself, but as somebody who's going to continually fight to try to get these homes rebuilt. And I just came back from Ottawa doing the same thing. And I know one thing, and we've had that time to educate ourselves, which has been really good, and we know the price of an inquiry can be really high.
The most recent one, one individual, one area of Yellowknife, cost almost a million dollars. I can't imagine an inquiry bringing in all the people that they have to bring in, costing tens of millions of dollars, when we could use that for housing. And that's just my personal view on that.
You know, in the events that happened August 13th, I still remember a phone call that I got from a mother who was frantically screaming on the phone of her son who said that he was going to die in this fire, and she asked me to send crews to go save her son. And that will never leave my mind. Do I want questions answered? Yes, I do. And that's why I've asked for the third-party independent review, and I've continually asked for it to be independent and open transparent and public -- you know, public input and everything, right. And I guess that's been the biggest thing is, people don't understand the difference between an inquiry and the third-party independent review. And initially, I probably wanted an inquiry not knowing really the full difference and the scale of it.
Am I comfortable with a third-party independent review coming out with probably the same recommendations and same views as an inquiry? Yes, I am. And I'm quite confident that the people that elected me had the trust in me and the confidence in me to continually fight for that. And the people that I've talked to, the Aboriginal groups that I've talked to in my riding, have said Vince, we got you, I hear what you said. And even the people that I've spoken to just in general, like you know, explaining what I thought was best and they agree. So I think the problem is not so much, you know, the independence or whatever. It's education for everybody to understand what the third-party independent review or the inquiry is.
One of the big things that I have concerns about with an inquiry, and the first thing that came to my mind when we started talking about it, is it immediately goes to lawyers, for lack of better terms, and away they go. Personally, in my years of experience in emergency services, I would rather see somebody who is qualified and knowledgeable in the emergency to start asking these questions independently - the same type of process that was done for Fort McMurray, same process that was done for Slave Lake. And I think those are things that would benefit the questions we have and the answers that we could get.
I'm also concerned about timelines. Like, I think we've all had the experience to educate ourselves in inquiry and reviews. I'm concerned about timelines. We want to know now. We want to know sooner rather than later, and we don't want to be held captive by an inquiry. We want to get things done. We want to get questions answered.
A lot of people suffered from this. There is a lot of loss. There's a lot of suffering. There's a lot of trauma. I've been through -- that was my -- in one year, that was my second evacuation. And I'm only going to speak of Hay River here for the moment because, yes, the other communities all suffered being evacuated. Fortunately, they went home. But we're still trying to rebuild Hay River and that area. We're still trying to put homes back in those communities. We lost a lot of people who I hope will come back, and if we can get homes rebuilt in the Deh Cho riding and the Tlicho riding, you know, I'm hoping these people would come back. And this is a goal. If we spend $10 million on an inquiry that could be better used on homes, I'd like to see that.
You know, most recently there's been a lot of talk on CBC. There's been a lot of discussion on what an inquiry is. And you're right, an inquiry is totally independent. And there's lots of pros and cons behind it. And listening to the CBC Radio of a gentleman from Toronto who's done a lot of inquiries, and he even said it himself, he said there is a lot of pros and cons behind inquiries, and some of the issues that they have with them is they can get away and they can get very costly. And one of the quotes that he said that just sticks with me to this day, and it was kind of almost used by one of the Members there, and I liked it because it is a good saying, and, you know, an inquiry is like a ship that you set to sail. It all depends on the captain you have on that ship. If you don't have -- if that captain wants to do whatever they want and they go out and cruise around and do -- you know, cruise the ocean, good luck railing him back in. And that's the same thing that's potential in an inquiry. And I don't want to see that. I want answers. I want things to happen. And the residents want answers. This isn't about money for me. This isn't about it's costing too much. It's about how and where we spend the money that will benefit the residents of this community, the residents of this territory, the residents of my riding. And that's what's most important to me.
I'd like to make sure that the residents have a home to go to, and I'd like to make sure that people are happy to live in the Northwest Territories and trust the government. And I do respect all the words that have been said here today, and I appreciate everything that's been said; however, again, we all have our own opinions. We all have our own views on how things should transpire. At the end of the day, we're all doing what we think is best for the communities and the Northwest Territories. And I appreciate the work that's been done on this motion. For me personally having been involved, having been ground level, I can still hear those residents wanting answers. And for me, the outcome of an inquiry, the outcome of an independent third-party review, will have those answers. It's how we get there and quickest and the most economical for the residents. With that, Mr. Speaker, thank you.