Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge, appreciate and give a sincere thank you to the Inuvik fire department. The Inuvik fire department currently has 40 members, including the fire chief, the deputy fire chief and the dispatch. Only the fire chief and the deputy fire chief are career firefighters. All other members are volunteers, and in fact, this might be the biggest volunteer fire department in the Northwest Territories. Our longest serving volunteer firefighter has been doing their job for over 30 years, as well, so his commitment, his experience that he has is helping train all our new rookies that we get into the department.
I wanted to take this time because just recently, as Members might have seen in the news, the Inuvik fire department battled a blaze in Inuvik for over 10 hours initially, and did more hours of control throughout the night and the following days. A lot of these firefighters are family members, they have full-time jobs, they volunteer for other organizations, as well, and I think this is a great opportunity to show them our appreciation and say thank you for the work that they do.
Under the leadership of fire chief Mr. Jim Sawkins, the Inuvik fire hall is about to become a training hub for the Beaufort-Delta region, building capacity not only in Inuvik but in the surrounding communities of the Beaufort-Delta region. Hence, firefighters now don’t have to travel to Yellowknife to get their training and they can stay closer to home.
I just want to commend the volunteer fire department on their dedication, commitment and the sacrifices that they do make protecting the residents of Inuvik, creating a safe community for the residents and also for saving lives, saving property, going above and beyond what they’re asked to do. Today the Inuvik fire department is actually participating in a very worthwhile program called the PARTY program, Preventing Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth, in partnership with the youth centre, and they were doing work in terms of getting people who are in accidents out of vehicles.
Like I said, I just want to take this opportunity and I hope Members will join me in thanking the Inuvik fire department for all the work that they do in Inuvik and going above and beyond their jobs and being great members of society and residents of Inuvik.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
