Michael Miltenberger

While Yellowknife is blessed with significant natural defences when it comes to fire, every community is looking at their defences and working with ENR to see what needs to be done, what the communities can do, what individuals can do, how do we use our fire crews when they’re not fighting fires, and all those different areas. Every community in the Boreal Forest should have a refreshed type of a strategy as we look forward to the upcoming fire season. Thank you.

Through regulation and policy would be the best way, but included in my coming back before the end of session with timelines, I’ll highlight some of the things that we think need to be looked at. Thank you.

I don’t have a definitive response to that question, but I will commit to have further discussions with the department to see what short-term and immediate things could be done if there is in fact a need to do that. Thank you.

I would point out, once again, we’re 278 days from the end of the government until the next election and that every department and government is now fully applying themselves to the budget process, getting ready for the business planning process and building the transition documents, and there are clear capacity issues and limit issues, so I will commit to the Member that I will have another discussion with the deputy and the senior officials about this issue. But I would point out, once again, and I’m speaking for myself personally as Minister, that by the time I get through the day with all...

If there is a wish of committee to have that fulsome discussion about that particular initiative at this stage when we have 278 days left in the life of this government, we would, of course, sit with committee to have that discussion and possibly flag this issue for consideration in the 18th Assembly.

We have been paying intense attention to this file. We have compressed, in my opinion, about 18 months to two years of normal negotiation times into about six months as we’ve moved forward to try to advance this file to conclude as much of it as possible in the life of this government. We are hopeful that over the next couple of months that we will have a northern position, we will have work done on the actual footprint of the area and the mix of a potential federal park along with the combination of northern tools.

I would point out, as well, that the federal government has indicated that they will step back and wait for the territorial government to conclude the work we need to do in the North, and then we will re-engage with them.

In regards to some potential options in terms of northern tools, there’s an actual territorial park, there’s conservation areas, wilderness areas, study areas, to name a number of opportunities that are there that we could possibly consider as we carry on with this process. Thank you.

The work has been concluded. It’s been a very comprehensive exercise and we anticipate that by the end of March, early April we’ll be able to share that information. We’ve been looking at it as we’ve developed it, as we’ve talked internally, plus the work we’ve had with the stakeholders in communities and the feedback. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to the Member’s question, I would like to just reflect quickly back on his Member’s statement and his acknowledgement and recognition of the foresight of the people of Kakisa, and I just want to acknowledge that I concur with his assessment that what they did was, I think, pivotal in how well they survived the wildfires.

What’s been happening is we’ve been doing a debriefing. We’ve been working internally. We’re going out to the communities now to have those discussions across many of the regional centres, but to have that discussion with communities about...

We will look at how timely we can be. We are somewhat consumed with the budget session and such, but I will once again commit to the Member that I will be able to get back to him before the end of session with some specific timelines. Thank you.