Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I could relate to what's been brought forward to this motion to the House here today and thinking back to 2023 -- sorry, 2023 fire season, and we all remember what happened with that fire season here in Yellowknife, my community Dettah, N'dilo, going all the way down to Fort Resolution, and it impacted everybody. Lessons learned. It was a very tough time for everybody. And we thanked the frontline workers, the fire support that we got for our small communities. It hit home because by the time I -- when I was in -- actually, I was in Hay River when that alarm went off on our phone and asking us to evacuate. My wife and I were there and eating in the restaurant and everybody took off, and everybody was heading south, and we turned off to Fort Resolution at that time. And it was a really scary time for everybody. In particular, after my wife went to Fort Resolution I managed to get back to Yellowknife and to help the elders in Dettah and N'dilo to help evacuate them as well. It was a very scary time for the elders too as well. And being in Fort Resolution too, I remember being there and, you know, I recall that I don't think I changed my clothes for about a good week or ten days because we were so busy dealing with issues. At one hand, it got to the point where, you know, the community was almost ready to be evacuated but we couldn't because we had a fire in Fort Smith, we had a fire in Hay River, and then if we were to get through that to go south, where were we going to go? Everything was -- all the small towns all down to Alberta was taken up. And so the leadership in Fort Resolution decided just to stay there, and we got lake there, we got the airport there if we had to do something.

But anyways, so when this motion came up, I asked my colleague if I could help maybe second the motion, and I relate to what he is talking about. And I have been listening and watching my colleague bring up his issues in the House where they had a fire season in Norman Wells -- sorry, Fort Good Hope last year, and a lot of that fuel that was used on that fire didn't get replaced. Everything was brought in, was flown in, but people had to pay for that and at a premium. And it was a very tough time for my colleague and his constituents in the Sahtu region. And, again, you know, we had issues with the barging season to bring the fuel in. It was just a tough time. So I relate to what he's been through with his constituents because we've been through that as well. But we spent $175 million that year.

So I stand up here today to give support to this motion and second it, you know, again calling on the state of emergency for humanitarian reasons for Norman Wells and for the fuel supply as well. Again, it's a tough thing. It's an act of God. Nobody knows what's going to happen even this coming summer. All we could do is to prepare as best we can and -- but, again, we need to give support to our colleagues as much as we can and be there for them because as a government, we all have to -- I'm almost like a -- my Speaker talked about, like, being an elder. I am. I feel like an elder. But at the end of the day is that we all got to work together. And I often -- I say that amongst my colleagues as well, that we need to do that. So I just want to give support to my colleague on this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.