Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the -- raising this one as well. I think this -- FireSmarting has been a very successful program, and it's delivered all across the NWT in all communities, all forested communities. Some of the key programs that it is running are resilient communities through FireSmart program which received $7.7 million of multi-year funding through 2027. There's also a prevention and mitigation section that we're working with the department on. There's FireSmart communities. There's fuel mitigation projects. And a lot of this work is coordinated through communities and through the wildfire -- community wildfire protection plan, so it's a very multi-fingered approach, if you will, in how that the programs are delivered to the communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And, yeah, certainly haven't poured through that plan in any kind of detail so it's a bit hard to say. But maybe the Minister can help me understand, is the department doing any kind of tracking on sort of identifying high priority communities based on which ones might be most at risk or which ones FireSmarting is kind of most needed and prioritizing those communities, or are we just kind of spreading money around? Because I'm sure there's some communities whose FireSmarting is ahead of others. Certainly we want to get to a place where all communities in the NWT are equally safe, equally protected. So do we have kind of a way of prioritizing these actions to ensure that the funding's going to the right communities that need it the most? Thanks.

Minister for Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you very much for the question. So there's a number of areas of work that is being done in this regard where currently there's been a lot of hazard mapping work that has identified potential risk to communities. The deputy minister met with the NWTAC this morning and had a conversation around the FireSmarting and the community benefitting from these programs. There's $20 million that was acquired from the federal government in 2022 to support communities, firebreaks, and working in that area. The department goes in annually in the wintertime and meets with the forested communities and provides support on their community wildfire protection plans. And through that process, the communities would identify areas of risk and areas that they feel need to be supported to protect those communities, and that's totally supported by the department. ECC and our wildfire experts support that work. So there's a lot of really good work going on. And it's very collaborative in that we engage the communities and give them -- they really have ownership of the plan and the need for their communities, and we're there, you know, to help them on the funding side to get -- support them to access the funding from the federal government and to provide the knowledge required to ensure that the right decisions are made. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Those are all my questions for now.

No further questions. Oh, Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So the ECC's wildfire afteraction review identified a number of areas of improvement, and one of those was the recommendation that ECC streamline and centralize the budgeting process, human resources, and reporting for wildfire management into a single program with clear reporting structures to ensure more effective resource allocation and cost controls.

Can the department or can the Minister provide a status update on the GNWT's response to this recommendation and any budget that's being allocated or human resource changes that would contribute to fulfilling what's being recommended here. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister for Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the question. So this work is in its very early stages. After the recommendations were received, the department did go back and look at this area and as a result of those internal conversations, we've engaged MNP as a contractor to go away, take -- and provide us with some options on how to best move forward in this direction as it was recommended in the afteraction review. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Member for Yellowknife North.

Okay. Thanks to the Minister for that update. There's another recommendation around increasing ECC's internal capacity for staff who have competency with wildfire modeling. So I'm wondering whether there's anything in the budget here related to systems purchases or improvements to forecast and model wildlife behaviour or training for staff, for that matter. Can the Minister clarify whether that's on the agenda for this year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister for Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, yes, we have -- there has been some -- part of our normal annual operations certainly is training with our staff, and that's always an ongoing evolving exercise. So when it comes to the expertise of the wildfire -- oh, I lost the word now -- behaviour modeling folks, there's always that ongoing training, ongoing training. Unfortunately, right know, we don't have the additional funding required within this budget to advance other components of the recommendations, so we will be coming back with a supplemental appropriation request in the future to address those shortfalls within our budget. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Member for Yellowknife North.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for letting us know. I do certainly think that, you know, we need to urgently, you know, follow those recommendations and do what is necessary to protect us from every upcoming wildfire season and not wait. So I do look forward to seeing those supplementary budget requests and hope that the department can work on this as soon as possible. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. And, Madam Chair, certainly implementing, you know, the 25 recommendations is certainly top of mind for me as the Minister, and the department has really taken a proactive approach in prioritizing the recommendations that can be accomplished rather rapidly. It's quite an undertaking overall so, you know, I think they've done a good job of implementing everything that could be very quickly implemented and have taken a very proactive approach to implementing the remaining recommendations. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. No further questions, please turn to page 102.

Environment and Climate Change, wildlife and forest management, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $67,491,000. Does the committee agree?

Thank you. There are additional information items on page 106 to 114. Are there any questions? Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a question about the environment fund. So that's on page 106.

So the accumulated surplus for this fund seems to consistently be quite large. So, you know, from $9.5 million the year before last. Last year $8.7 million. Now we're back up to a $9.4 million surplus. Can the Minister explain why we need such a large surplus, especially for a fund that, you know, it's bringing in about $7 million each year but why are we sitting on a $9.5 million surplus? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change.