Thank you. I'll go to the Member for the Deh Cho.

Okay, great, thank you. My other question is how many applications were received for this grant from last year's wildfire? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that essentially reflects back to the number that I had mentioned earlier, around the 33 claims. With some of those claims, they were group claims so there was multiple participants on one claim application that was supported by local Indigenous governments or Indigenous organizations.

And maybe I can just briefly add to the previous question that items used for traditional hunting and trapping activities would sort of be a summary of the list, if you will. So it could be fairly broad. And I think it's -- yes, there is some latitude there in how it's looked at depending on case by case. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And another question I have is because of some of these things were lost in the wildfire and these are located out in areas that are not close to a community, the question I have is any of this going to be used for disposal of some of the stuff that's left out on the land? Like, is this part of that? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies, could you repeat the last part of that question.

Thank you. I'll go to the Deh Cho Member.

Is there -- in this compensation, is that -- because you're giving out a grant to it, are you giving out -- does this grant look at how -- or is it going to cover the disposal of the equipment that was lost in the wildfires? Because they're being left out on the land. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that's not considered as part of the program. The details of what's eligible within the program information could be obtained for your member that are interested through the local ECC office, and they'd be very, very happy to support any applications or provide any information that was requested.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Deh Cho.

Thank you. That's -- I have another question. That's just about that disposal of burnt equipment or lost equipment that is sometimes might be left on the land when people leave their campsite that got burned down. So I was just asking about that one. But that's probably another question for a different area in ECC. Thank you.

Thank you for the comment. I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I got a couple questions on this activity here. The first one is I had the opportunity of touring the regional, at the time, ENR office here. It was during the summer months, and I was quite impressed with the monitoring global satellite technology that could be done sitting from a chair and watching what's going on out on the land. And with our experiences from the disasters of last year, what process or steps is in the decision-making for the initial attack decision to go or not to go to that particular fire? Like, what happens in that initial stage?

We keep hearing some stories about oh, the government always waits for it to get too big and then they say okay, well, let's send the bombers. But with that technology to identify fires that are out there, what happens in that phase? When is the decision made to send the bomber over there to blow it out? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the tools that the Member is speaking of, in the way of satellite detection or remote sensing, is just one of the tools in the toolbox that is used to fight fire. Typically by the time you can actually see that fire on that fire map, it's to a size that is beyond the ideal size for initial attack. So primarily when you're talking about the initial attack phase of what you fight or what you don't fight, there are many contributing factors. Weather forecast, proximity to communities, availability of resources, all of these things are factored in at the time. And whether or not -- when we deploy aircraft in support of firefighting activities, that's primarily for initial attack. The point of the aircraft is, you know, to reduce the fire activity to allow the folks on the ground to go out and put the fire out because that's really the resource that puts the fire out at the end of the day.

So I think it's a challenging question to answer from a single perspective, but it's certainly, you know, is something that within our policy. Obviously, the preservation of life is the number 1 priority, and that would definitely be the first contributing factor to determine where the initial attack activity started. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for that information by the Minister. It gives me a little bit of knowledge, some of the decision management factors that are being decided on at the office there during the first initial phase.

My next question -- I'm glad for my colleague from the Deh Cho in answering compensation for trappers. In my recent visits, and as one as the other day, a fellow was talking about the loss of his cabin and the neighbours got compensation, but he didn't. So I'll use the Minister's replies to follow through and seek compensation, including the definition of equipment losses by this trapper-elder individual. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure that I understand the question.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. It was more of a comment. I acknowledge -- I had the same questions as my colleague from the Deh Cho, and I'll use that, the Minister's replies to move on compensation for a similar trapper cabin owner we have in the Sahtu. Thank you, Mr. Chair.