Jay Macdonald

Yes, the plan is to start our aviation contracts earlier in the year. Most of the contracts that we have for fixed wing aviation are longterm, multiyear contracts. And there's a provision within the contract through notification from the department to allow those contracts to start sooner. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, fire towers have been used as one of the series of tools used by ECC to detect wildfires, including smoke patrols, lightening detection, networks, weather stations, satellite base and public reporting. The industry standard for fire towers is moving away from having people work in isolation for safety reasons. However, fire towers are being used to house communications, equipment, and detection cameras. ECC is investing in remote camera networking to provide 360degree coverage and operate 24 hours a day providing a proven and effective way to monitor new...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECC was aware that the communities in the area were at risk, and that is why the evacuation notice and then upgraded to the evacuation alert before finally being put on full evacuation. ECC and MACA have a wildfire event notification protocol advertising on what level of risk a wildfire may pose to a community. The protocol determines when and how ECC will advise MACA of the threat level to a community and when evacuation is recommended. The fire was between 25 and 30 kilometres to the north and west of the community at noon on August 13th, and the fire...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the idea of a public review of the events from the 2023 wildfire season has been top of mind for me from early days from when I started the end of my work with environment and climate change in the fire program into my campaign for MLA as I was elected to this House and as I became Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

One of the things that I want to emphasize today is I want to stand here and thank all of the people and the personnel and the firefighters and the GNWT staff who gave up so much through this event. They gave up time with their families...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, barrenground caribou are extremely important to the people, cultures, and communities of the Northwest Territories. They have supported northern Indigenous peoples from time immemorial, and it is important that we all work together to ensure caribou populations remain strong for future generations. In recent years, many herds across the NWT have undergone significant declines, particularly the dramatic 99 percent decline in the size of the Bathurst herd. These changes are driven by multiple interacting factors, including harvest, predators, and the impacts...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any decisions on water conservation will be informed by our snowpack assessments that we do annually and water levels of source rivers. Information would be shared with communities and with multiple parties involved in this discussion and further action. ECC will continue to assess water conditions and distribute monthly monitoring bulletins to the public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, while ECC is unable to predict how much rain or snow there will be other the next several months, it's safe to say that we would require an extremely high rainfall amount across the large geographic area to increase our water levels at this point. The winter snowfall amounts across the NWT have been extremely variable, and these very low snowfall amounts in Fort Simpson and  sorry, ECC will continue to assess water conditions and distribute monthly NWT water monitoring bulletins to the public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the emergency response plans are the responsibility of the community governments, and they're the ones that are responsible to prepare, adopt, and maintain the emergency plans and programs, including reviewing their emergency response plans annually. Environment and climate change is indirectly involved with these plans as they move forward or as they come into implementation in that we provide, you know, support and information to those activities. Over the winter, I know MACA will be delivering community emergency planning workshops to assist community...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you, Member, for the question. I would say climate change and the extended drought that we've had over the last couple of years has certainly shown us the need to be proactive in how we're approaching these types of fires over the winters, and I think one of the things that we're doing is we're monitoring. We've got staff currently monitoring fires throughout the winter. And as the fall came and last fire season ended late in October, staff identified that these are potential challenges for the early spring. So the department has worked to plan to bring our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week, I met with the Alberta Minister of Environment and Parks, Rebecca Schulz. We discussed issues of shared concern, including low water levels. We discussed the concern that had been raised by the NWT Indigenous governments, partners, and residents about our low water levels. We also discussed the water shortage advisory that is currently in place for the Hay River basin in Alberta along with many other water sheds in the province. Water use by temporary and longterm license holders has been affected. Through our transboundary water agreement with Alberta, there...