Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And yeah, no, that's perfect. I didn't expect the Minister to rattle off all that data right now, but thank you very much. It does paint a little bit of a picture of how often we're getting out and monitoring those herds. I'm just curious specifically because the dollar amount for range planning is fairly static since last year, but in the 2023-2024 actuals they're much higher. Caribou monitoring slightly decreased but not significantly so. So, yeah, more information about what is planned for the coming year is most appreciated.

Madam Chair, I am interested also in specifically the disease monitoring. I want to thank the department for their efforts around wastewater monitoring and all the good work that Taiga does on that -- that item. Obviously that's a different activity. But here in this activity, the department speaks to in their business plan the number of wildlife health monitoring programs, investigations, and outbreak responses. And so my question, Madam Chair, is is the department planning and monitoring for the return of migratory birds with the Avian flu outbreak in the southern part of North America? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, yes, that work does happen in the Northwest Territories. The Avian flu, ECC has -- there were six cases to date in the NWT: Three in 2022, one in 2023, and one in 2024. And we also have a media campaign that was launched in 2022, I believe, which provided information to the general public that sort of coincided with some of the actual bird deaths over time. And there are multiple federal funding sources that support this work and other work in the sector. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And can the Minister tell me if he's working with health and social services to do more public awareness campaigns, especially if there are more diseased animals, diseased/deceased animals found in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it's been the practice of ECC to take an all-of-government approach to certainly issues of this magnitude that are high on the radar across the country. So we do work with whichever department is appropriate depending on the circumstance, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And can the Minister tell me if there were concerns about diseased animals aside from contacting obviously an ECC officer in your region to report dead birds, is there any foresight or planning around whether or not we will be hearing more public information if, indeed, there becomes a bigger issue around this Avian flu? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to the Member for raising this. I think it's a great opportunity to put some focus on this event as it's happening across pretty much a good chunk of North America. So certainly part of our approach to this has been putting out public service announcements, you know, warning against touching dead birds that you find for any reason and, you know, ensuring that we're contacting our local wildlife officers to report any of those instances. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll stop beating the dead bird.

Now I have the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to follow up a bad pun like that but try to get back on the subject here.

Madam Chair, I just wanted to understand better; I note that there's some pretty significant fluctuations between year over year in the forest management division. I have to assume that that's related to wildfire response. But just noting that, you know, we went down to $47 million in 2024-2025 mains, and then actually ended up spending about $90 million. Can the department first explain the reduction down to $51 million this year, and is the department confident that this will give them the resources they need to fight fires that may arise. Fingers crossed that they don't.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, certainly, so there was a small increase in the base funding, if you will, want to call it that. So the approach is to take a base funding approach that covers the -- essentially the day-to-day operations for the season and then take a supplemental appropriation approach to fund if there's significant wildfire activity. So within that budget, it has the capacity to address a small number of actual wildfire events. And if you go beyond that small number, then we're certainly going to be looking for supplemental appropriation. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you. Similarly, I'd just note that there's a variation year over year, a much smaller variation in compensation and benefits. Is it for the same reason? Is this related to staffing up or down as need be in order to address any given year's fire activity, or is there a bit more to that story as well? Thanks.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, yes, I think the larger amount in this last fiscal year had to do with the collective bargaining. The small fluctuations that you're seeing year to year can be related directly to fire activity amounts of overtime for full-time permanent staff and those kind of things and how they relate to the suppression activities. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The next question I had was about I note that there's quite a significant increase in the FireSmart area.

Now, assuming that this is related to delivery of FireSmarting, which it looks like it is according to the notes in the budget here, I'm very supportive of that and happy to see it actually, so maybe the first question I'll ask is whether that can be confirmed that this actually does increase the amount of FireSmarting that's going to be done in the territory, and perhaps if the Minister can provide us some details on where that funding's going to be going. Are there particular communities that are in high need of FireSmarting over others? Are they kind of spreading this out over the whole territory, or are there kind of specific places where this funding's going to be going? Thanks.