Mr. Speaker, on Friday, the honourable Minister for Economic and Natural Resources did a Minister's statement on the 2018 wildfire season. I appreciate the work that the department is doing, but I do have some questions for him in regards to our staff going out of the province and that. Can the Minister advise us on how those costs are recovered? I believe I have heard of a program, MARS, and if he could just give us a further update on what that program is about? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Mr. Speaker, through the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement, we were able to recover $2 million from this summer.
So can the Minister advise us how much of that funding came back? Because we paid our workers and for our equipment, so how much money is that coming back to the NWT, what percentage money-wise? What percentage is coming back?
My understanding is $2 million came back to the Northwest Territories. Broken down, I am not sure what that is as far as salaries go for the employees, but through our Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement we recovered $2 million.
I greatly appreciate the Minister for that answer. Can he advise the House how much we spent sending them out at this time?
Mr. Speaker, my understanding, and I am sure that was the Member's question, was how much we spent exporting our crews and resources outside the Northwest Territories, my understanding is that, if we spent $2 million, then we would recover $2 million.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the answer from the Minister. That's good to hear. At least it's a break-even and giving our firefighters some very-much-needed training. The Minister talked about some different crews and them going out and doing work during the fire season because it was not that bad. Can the Minister advise this House, here, what the crew for Fort Liard did during that time?
Mr. Speaker, as I said in my statement, crews that were not out fighting fires or being exported were doing some work around the communities. In Fort Liard, my understanding is there are three crews in Fort Liard, one in Sambaa K'e, and three in Simpson. Again, the information that I have is that one crew from each community was exported this summer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
