Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, with this year’s firefighting season, I am definitely supporting the second part of this training of firefighters at the regional levels and including more and more of that for future years. We know over the next couple of years we are probably going to need more crews on the ground, and even the department mentioned it yesterday that we have these large craft that spread retardant but the actual fires are put out by the crews, by the staff, and I think that we need to make sure that we have a well-trained staff in the Northwest Territories. If we have an abundance of staff in five years, then that’s something that we can farm out.

Obviously, considering the 215s, I do think it’s an asset that we need to keep. I have been questioning the need for the 802s at this time, especially with the expenditures that we’ve been having. I know there are concerns with the fuels, yet we know there are thousands if not tens of thousands of planes that are currently operating under this fuel system in North America, and I think that the perceived perception that there is going to be a shortage of this fuel is one where we are predicting, or one we are convincing ourselves that this is a situation that needs to be rectified by purchasing these 802s, spending $27 million currently. I guess I lost that fight. I have been fighting to maybe delay this purchase of these units and try to actually do it between the two types of equipment. I think this is the compromise that would keep the 215s.

When we have demands in the Territories, we’re going to need all the assets that we have. We have heard from the Minister and the department that we will farm it out, we will get additional reinforcements from other regions. The problem being, if there are fires in every other province and they have their assets contained, we will have difficulties acquiring this. Typically, there is some region that is not fighting fires at the same time as us, but the scenarios are that we should be keeping… If we have an asset that the fuel supply hasn’t run out, and we have these assets and the parts for it, we know that they are effective in many ways, we should be keeping these assets in our inventory until the last possible minute that we can.

We’re not getting much for sale value. We know they are not much use for other territories who have upgraded to the 415s, the larger planes. What we know is our jurisdiction is smaller funded and we can’t afford 415s, so I think we should be keeping the 215s as arsenal in our firefighting capacity, so I will be supporting this motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Next week we will be having the Energy Charrette. The charrette is meant to look at the cost of power and costs of energy in the Northwest Territories, probably one of the biggest costs that most of our constituents currently have. The government is touting this as the opportunity for us to look at all the solutions for the cost of living, but I’m very concerned.

We had an Energy Charrette a couple of years ago, with limited successes. We talked about a power supply system that would link all our grids together, which we know is now ineffective cost-wise, as well as the lack of our borrowing limit. The other issue such as gas prices is always on the constituents’ minds, and one of those factors is our gas taxes. Last week I was asking questions about the reduction of that tax. We should be looking at that type of stuff.

The other area a couple of the Members have talked about in studying taxation is northern residency limiting from the federal government. We know that this has not changed very much. We see in the south where they allow cross-border shopping to increase the volume so that the people down there can live cheaper. What have Northerners had for a tax increase from the federal government? Very little.

Obviously, in this Energy Charrette I hope we’re talking about conservation as well. We need to learn to do more with less. We need to figure out the way that our costs of living are high. A lot of the discussions lately have been about these small houses. What are we doing with them? What’s the potential for that? I have several constituents that are talking about trying to be off the grid as much as they can. We obviously know in the Hay River area there are a lot of people involved in agriculture, trying to replace foods that they’re purchasing currently at the grocery store and reducing those costs.

We need to work at this problem at several different angles.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The other general comments that I had, we’ve been kicking around some of the ideas. One of the ideas is: Has the department looked at, as far as the 215s, what the plan is going forward with them? Are there discussions of selling them off? Are there discussions of maybe keeping them until we have operation? The Minister talked about three years left in the contract, but is there discussion of maybe operating the two newer units along with the 215s for a period of time this year or next year and what our capacities are? My understanding is we don’t get a whole ton of money for these older 215s but we might want to look at a mixture. On busy years like we had, the cost of running those, maybe, versus us having to hire bigger planes or the newer 415s from some other jurisdiction. Has the department looked at what we’re going to do with the 215s, and is there an option to keep them and keep them operational for a few more years to see the mixture between them and the 802s? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a few statements concerning the biggest project on this budget, which is the purchase of the 802 air tanker fleet replacement. I guess coming into this Assembly, I know they talked about these

replacements for a while, so it’s kind of a process of us new MLAs starting and looking into the process of replacing these units. It’s replacing an older fleet that I think we got for minimal dollars. I guess the high cost associated to the purchase of these newer planes, and I know the department’s been looking at this for years because I know the department did some tests in Hay River, I want to say half a dozen years ago, maybe six or seven years ago where they did some water tests between the 215s and the 802s. I think this was some of the basis of some of the assessments of these 802 new bombers that we’re looking at, these smaller bombers we’re looking at purchasing.

I guess my questions are concerns with the capacity of them. They’re quite a bit smaller. Their volumes are quite a bit smaller. I guess I’m concerned with the deep canopy penetration of the units. I know we have used them in some of our firefighting these last few years because I saw them in Hay River, I think, as a tactic with other units, I guess, other bigger units. So I think those are my initial concerns. I guess the Minister has expressed to us in committee meetings and stuff like that, that they have justification of the purchase of them.

I guess my concerns also in that area is they are, you know the budget item there, they are territorial units, I do believe, and I see them down as Fort Smith here in some of the documents we’ve gotten. I just have a little bit of concern on that. I’m just wondering where we’re going to locate them and what the costs are on that one. When we have newer units, is there going to be additional cost to housing?

I guess some of the justification is that we’ve looked at the operating costs and maybe some of the potential revenue. Because we’re buying new aircraft, we might be able to lease them out. Have we looked at the potential of that revenue in the future? Those are some of my general comments, Madam Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting this motion as well. In our recent difficulties with long-term beds in Hay River, we also had lots of people from the community say, what’s the future plan.

Obviously, we’re going to need more. The aging population of the Northwest Territories is going to be a factor in Hay River and how do we… We were asking at that time for the 10 long-term care beds to be replaced that were out of the capital budget and now they’re back in, but what are our needs coming forward? I know in November they did a continuing care review and that there are indications that there are strong demands out there, so now that we’ve done the review, we need to come up with a plan on how we’re going to go forward and, as the mover and seconder talked about, there’s need for partnership. So, obviously, we as a government are a small jurisdiction. There will be lots of pressures for us to solve this problem, and some of those problems have to come from the private sector as well.

So, Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting this motion as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand that Cabinet is proud of this program and I understand that Junior Kindergarten is going to be a good thing for some of the small communities that don’t have anything. The question that I have is, it’s being rolled out now, it’s being implemented. Some of these organizations, some of these small communities already know those concerns.

Will the Premier commit to doing some sort of general meeting on Junior Kindergarten with all those people that are being affected, a Junior Kindergarten charrette let’s call it, will the Premier commit to that?

I understand the situation, but I understand that these kids are being removed and they’re being put into the public system. Who wouldn’t take that on? It’s a free program, but it’s a program within some of the communities that’s not necessarily needed. I guess the rollout is the question.

How can we change the rollout going forward in consensus government?

I’m just wondering about the concern, and I see the concern is not Junior Kindergarten and the fact of whether it’s needed or not.

How do we deal with this consensus when we’re talking about how it’s being rolled out? The concern is from different communities, from different leaders throughout the Territories saying that this program is not being rolled out properly when there’s other organizations and other programs, such as the Head Start program, that are being overrun by this Junior Kindergarten program. How do we deal with that in consensus government?