Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does the Premier agree that rebuilding trust needs to be a key goal of the government response to the after-action review on the wildfire season in 2023? And, Mr. Speaker, what does he feel is needed to achieve that goal? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know we're not supposed to discuss opinions in this House, but I'll indulge the Member. Yes, obviously, we needed to improve trust of government in emergency situations. I think that is, you know, one of the primary lessons that we've learned from this last series of evacuations that we had. The work to do that has already begun. It began at the beginning of this government.
When I drove out of Hay River, there was no one there to close the highway because people didn't understand what their roles were. And no fault of their own. But we weren't organized enough as a government to ensure that people knew where to people, when to be there, and what to do. And so as a result, we had vehicles driving out of the community into the middle of an active forest fire. So that is one of the very first things that I really focused on, ensuring that there were business continuity plans across government, that everyone's role was defined, so that they knew what they were going to do. So doing things like that and letting the public know that we've done those types of things, we've seen the issues that happened, and we are taking steps to correct them, I think that's important. And as we provide a response to the after-action review, the public will see the action that we've taken and understand that we've taken this seriously. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I note that the report contains some short-term recommendations but also some very long-term recommendations as far as four years into the future. Mr. Speaker, how will the government ensure these recommendations are followed up on and not forgotten? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, of course, we are going to be providing a response, and this is wading into the Minister of MACA's territory, so I don't want to get too ahead of things. But the long-term work begins now. And so a lot of that long-term work - the planning, the relationships - that's already begun. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the Premier started to touch on the answer to this question already, but he noted that the GNWT has already taken some action. Can the Premier detail for the House what has been done to date in response to this report or to the 2023 wildfires and lessons learned? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So noting that there will be a full review -- or sorry, a report back on the recommendations, I can note a few things.
So one of the -- obviously, one of the very first things was the realization that fire seasons start earlier than ever and so because of that, the GNWT has been bringing on fire crews, aircraft, seasonal wildfire personnel, earlier than they were before, and there's been significant investments made in mitigation and prevention efforts.
We've been working with Indigenous governments. We heard in the last -- during the 2023 evacuations that Indigenous governments, not just the community governments that might be run by the band but even regional Indigenous governments, wanted more of a role in emergency management. And so we've struck a working group with the Council of Leaders to look at how we can amend the Emergency Management Act. And we've done the same thing with the NWTAC and with LGANT to ensure that communities are engaged in that work.
We are further supporting communities by delivering community emergency planning workshops and desktop exercises to better understand, so communities can better understand emergency management and how it would play out in the real world. We are working with them to update their community emergency plans, and we are increasing preparedness through practice, Mr. Speaker.
We're working on staffing, so building the GNWT's surge capacity by providing incident command system training, and the Minister of MACA spoke about that earlier this week.
We're also taking steps to ensure there's more coordination, so establishing emergency management training and development advisor position to help coordinate and track emergency management training requirements, as well as an emergency preparedness planner position, and staffing up -- and I believe they're all fully staffed now -- the regional emergency management coordinators. So those are some of the activities that I can speak to at this moment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
