Natural Resources committee  My last name is Saryeddine. Any way you say it is fine.

Natural Resources committee  Good morning.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Chief. I know we have brief time, so I'll just add to that the application of FireSmart principles right across the country in all communities. These are principles that help people prepare their homes in areas that are at risk. Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Chief, and thank you for the question. Through the chair, Chief McKearney already alluded to this, so I'll just expand on it a little bit more. Through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, it would be important to be able to connect all the players and all the protocols with indigenous practices and the knowledge that our indigenous communities bring.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Chief McKearney, and through the chair, thank you for the question. As Chief McKearney said, we're not clear on the mechanisms for the funding when it comes to the indigenous communities. All of you understand that much better than we do. One of the things that was successful in the last year—and again, I don't know if it applies to indigenous communities, so please forgive my being naive—and was very positively experienced across the country was allowing fire departments to have their projects be eligible for funding from the former gas tax fund, now the Canada community-building fund.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Chief McKearney. Yes, through the chair, the other piece is the enforcement piece. I think you already mentioned it. There are just those two pieces, the funding and the enforcement.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Chief McKearney. I think you've covered it. Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Am I using the right channel for English?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. Thank you for the question. If you don't mind, Mr. Chair, I will respond in English. My French isn't quite as good. We have the absolute privilege and pleasure to have the National Indigenous Fire Safety Council, previously known as the Aboriginal Firefighters Association of Canada, on the national advisory council of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question and thank you for the compliment as well. I hope I can live up to it. One thing we talk a lot about, especially in small communities, is building right from the start. As Chief McKearney said, it's the education piece. We have a wonderful program called “The Fire Chiefs Ask” where we try to have messaging go right out to the public, which helps them know what some of the strategies are that they can use.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Chief McKearney. I think you've said it well, Mr. Shields. The message that we've gotten in reading the strategy is that the decision-making has to be in the local communities through the leadership of the governing structures there and providing the correct information, almost as if those individuals would be the decision-makers for emergency management and for fire, which would require their education, the same education that one might have in a municipality.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Sure. Thank you. Through the chair to Mr. Shields, the Finnish fire chiefs association has actually put together a study group. A number of their peer countries are together. While we haven't had direct communications with them, we were discussing with them how we would organize information sharing.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Chief McKearney. Chief McKearney has explained it really well. In other communities where there are significant government resources for permits and bylaws and, as Chief McKearney said, inspections, these problems don't exist. There is the compounding element of the structural supports within the indigenous communities to be able to do those inspections and have those bylaws and resources in place that would be in other communities.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chief Perron. Thank you for the question, Mr. McLeod. This is an ongoing case we've had with those you funded from the $30 million that came out from budget 2018. Something that I think all fields struggle with is the speed of translation when you try to get an evidence-informed process, as Chief Perron said, to the front line.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, I'd like to follow up on deputy fire chief Tracey's solution to the national fire information database, and what we learned from that. This database has over 10 years of data about fire incidences and injuries in our country. It was an effort to collect data from across the country, and we learned the issues of data collection are not unique to the aboriginal communities.