Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I referred to in my Member’s statement earlier today, I think we all have some concerns after seeing what’s transpiring in northern Alberta right now with regard to forest fires. The situation that occurred in Slave Lake where within such a short time span a forest fire broke out and destroyed almost the entire community, are there any observations, lessons to be learned for us here in the North on how that whole situation transpired? Is that something that the Minister is going to look at to avoid such a tragedy in our territory?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What we’ve observed, of course, is every community’s worst nightmare, where there is a confluence of time and events, and circumstances and conditions of weather and dryness that resulted in significant wind that resulted in a catastrophic event.
For ourselves in the Northwest Territories we have our fire crews in place. While we recognize that it is much drier than normal, we have our contracts with bombers and the rotary wing craft. We have been working long and hard in the communities to do FireSmart programs. We have changed our command and control structures when it comes to dealing with fires and making decisions at the fire site up through the chain of command so that people on the ground can now be able to respond quickly and efficiently with knowledge that they have, and not have to wait for it to bump its way up from Fort Smith or Yellowknife or some other place.
As we prepare for the fire season, we look to the south. Nightly I’ll look to the sky and as I say my goodnight prayers, I’m always praying for rain these days.
Last year the province of British Columbia budgeted $50 million for fire suppression and spent $500 million. What does our government currently have budgeted for fire suppression in the Northwest Territories? What contingency do we have should we end up with a worse fire season than normal?
We recognize the way we have set up the funding with the fire program that we will require supplementary appropriations. It was specifically designed that way so that we could monitor more closely and have the funding spent on an as-required basis. We anticipate we will be coming forward as the fire season proceeds for supplementary appropriations. The question will be for how much.
If I may point out, in B.C. and in Slave Lake what you have is fires very close to communities and large communities. In B.C. most of the money was spent protecting communities that were affected by fire. They had little resources even with the tens of millions, hundreds of millions that were spent to actually fight fires that were not tied to protecting communities. We are going to be doing our best to protect our communities in the Northwest Territories, doing the preparatory work, and we will spend the resources that we need to, to protect those communities.
What reciprocal agreements do we have in place with other jurisdictions in Canada to provide them with support if our fire season is not making busy our crews and equipment that are on standby? What agreements do we have in place to lend support where it may be required in neighbouring jurisdictions and where they may come to our aid should we require their assistance?
We have a number of agreements. We have the MARS agreement, which is applicable across Canada for mutual aid and reciprocal response. We have the Northwest Compact Agreement covering the western provinces and the northwest States, Canada/U.S. Reciprocal Agreements. We have the NWT-Alberta Border Agreements and agreements with Parks Canada for fires in national parks.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A lot of fires in the Northwest Territories are triggered by lightning. Some others are started by human carelessness. Given the anticipated dry season that we’ll be facing this summer, is the Department of Environment and Natural Resources doing anything to create more public awareness about the dangers of discarding of cigarettes or leaving campfires not completely put out? What is the department doing on the awareness side of the issue?
We have our own ongoing public education program. Every year, as the season progresses and we find out how dry it is and what the risk is, then as the rating gets more extreme, we increase the public awareness.
We work with communities, as well. Many communities have no burning bans around campfires. If it gets bad enough, there may be no campfires. We are already engaged in the process of making people aware, and everybody that’s been outside knows already how dry it is and how low water levels are, and that we are potentially facing a very incendiary fire season. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
