Debates of February 24, 2015 (day 65)

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We accept. We’ll follow up with Mr. Bromley. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, page 105, forest management, operations expenditure summary, $32.632 million. Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

I have a question for the Minister. When we have tourism outfitter lodges and that, is it part of their requirement to have a sort of fire management sprinkler system? From last year’s fire situation, have we as a department been lending our fire sprinklers to the lodge owners? They don’t have that when they are in that situation. Is it part of their licence? I know it’s part of ITI, but the Minister has responsibility also for the fire protection.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We encourage all folks that live outside of the community boundaries, if they can get it, to get insurance. If they can’t, then they have to make sure that they take every step to protect themselves, fire smarting their own property, investing in sprinklers, investing in all the things you need in the event that there is a wildfire. Other than that, we don’t have much involvement in what would be in their licence in that regard. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

That’s something to maybe take a look at when renewing their licence is that these things are checked off. Certainly, we want to encourage them. We want to encourage everybody. Some people don’t do something unless it’s typically as a requirement as to an operating licence. With the resources that we have, some of these operators are using our resources for the fire sprinklers around their operation. It’s something that I would be interested to see, if that could be part of the review of their whole fire situation. Did we use a lot of our own fire sprinklers for tourism outfitters in the area here?

Mr. Chair, I will ask, with your indulgence, the deputy just to speak to the practice of assisting wherever we can with equipment, fire hoses, sprinklers and pumps as a matter of practice and convention when we have them available.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell.

Speaker: MR. CAMPBELL

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We, as the Minister points out, do our best to assist homeowners in protecting their buildings, infrastructure, et cetera. There, of course, has to be that balance, and it’s back to the education and the promoting of fire smart principles to mitigate risk. We can’t protect every structure on the hinterland. We can certainly work with them on educating them on the mitigation measures that they should be undertaking. But again, if we do have additional resources that we can use to help the people on the land, we’ve done it in the past and we did it extensively last year. However, there will always be, I guess, gaps and we need the homeowners themselves, absolutely, to take some of that responsibility on themselves as well.

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand what the Minister and the deputy minister are saying. I want to point out that I’m not talking about homeowners. I’m talking about operators who have lodges that they’ve invested half a million, a million dollars, and these are fairly expensive lodges for the outfitters. If there is part of their licence requirement that if it’s a season like this, you make sure it’s there because these sprinklers can be used somewhere else in the area for homeowners who are living on the land. We can’t mix apples and oranges here. We’ve got to put them apart here and say as a consideration under the review of the fire season last year. That’s what I’m asking if they’re going to look at it. With the time left on our time to look at this department here, I just want to make sure that this is something that we can look at. I don’t know. I can specifically ask, how many sprinklers did we lend to the outfitters, to the lodge owners? Were they used? How come they’re not getting their own? I don’t want to go there right now.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ll flag this issue for discussions with ITI to make sure it’s clear as we look at this. As the weather conditions and drought continues and the extreme events happen there are going to be hard choices to be made when people choose to live great distances away from fire protection. As the deputy said, we do our absolute best to be there for all the people, but as the number of people living outside of community boundaries proliferates, it’s going to be more and more problematic, but it’s an issue that we will flag at the lodge level with ITI.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Committee, noting the clock, I will now rise and report progress. I would like to thank Deputy Minister Campbell and director Susan Craig for joining us and, of course, the Minister. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses out of the House.

Report of Committee of the Whole