Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.

No, that will be fine. I mean, as I pointed out earlier, some of these are generic headings and from time to time you get people curious on what they actually are. Thank you. No question.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake. Member of Range Lake.

Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The positions may not be sunsetting. But with respect to what will happen, the funding itself is going to be sunsetting at the end of this fiscal. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Any further Member -- questions from the Members? Okay, I don't see any. We'll continue on. Thank you.

Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 2023-2024, Department of Environment and Climate Change, environmental management and monitoring and climate change, not previously authorized for $939,000. Does the committee agree?

Thank you. Continue on to Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 2023-2024, Department of Environment and Climate Change, wildlife and forest management, not previously authorized $27,813,000. Questions. I have Member from YK Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I see that there's $24 million plus earmarked for the fire suppression. This is supplementary funding. Is the -- so this is on top of what's also been provided earlier. Can the Minister start the -- this round of questioning off with clarifying how much to date has been allocated for the -- I'm assuming last year's firefighting season? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we are looking at total projected expenditures for the year will be at just over $121 million. And that's anticipated expenditures. So in terms of the base budget, that comes in at around just 21.7, just over $21.7 million. In August, you may recall there was a request for a supplementary appropriation at $75 million. So that leaves -- with the projected expenditures of 121, that leaves the projected shortfall of 24.3, which brings us here. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.

Thank you. My understanding is the Government of the Northwest Territories has already received a -- we'll call it interim or partial payment, which is unusual, if I understand it, being accelerated so quick. That was probably based on the assessment or assumption that it would be quite expensive coming this firefighting process. Could the Minister confirm how much has been received to date and how much are we anticipating? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we certainly have received an advance under the -- I was going to say the DFA; I hope I've got the acronym correctly but -- I don't have that in front of me. That, though, goes to MACA. That's more on the recovery side as opposed to on -- the recovery and a response as opposed to the firefighting. The firefighting we may see some recoveries. There's a division as between firefighting generally versus firefighting as it applies to a community for which the federal government would provide some supports. But we've received $84 million to date, again as an estimate, advance on the recovery side. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.

Thank you. So just to be clear, whether just for me or potentially others, this $24 million is anticipated -- or sorry, is going to be used for the cost to fire -- fighting the fire, but the money received to date isn't applied directly to that overall cost?

Thank you. Minister Wawzonek.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are some very, very detailed breakdown charts of all of the efforts, both in terms of recovery costing as well as the firefighting. I think there may be some firefighting associated here but -- or sorry, some firefighting that's under the MACA envelope. But this portion under ECC, this is exclusively with respect to fire suppression. And the fire suppression will include both community fires activities as well as wildfires away and outside of communities. So this is entirely for that. It is not the recovery amounts or the response amounts that would relate to, for example, evacuations or people returning to their communities. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my next question with respect to this activity and sort of and beyond, because I think it's all related, is when can we expect a reasonable reconciliation time on this cost? So in other words, an assessment to breakdown and some transparency on when the cost will sort of be fully aggregated for the expense of last year's, and that includes the whole process? Thank you.