Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  British Columbia is very sparse, with very different geographic tendencies. When we talk about breaking down our offices, as I mentioned, we have two main offices, and they are primarily in southern B.C. and strategically placed because of those hazards that are typically there.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We do a lot of work in mitigation, especially when it comes to wildfires. We have on-reserve fuel funding grants that communities are able to apply for, but it's only a maximum of $75,000 if they prove that they are high risk. What we're finding is that, through each of the communities we deal with through their community wildfire protection plans, if they have one in place already, it's out of date by seven, eight or 12 years.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  For the communities that we have been dealing with, emergency plans really vary. There are all-hazards plans. There are hazard-specific plans. We've been working with about 150 of the communities. A lot of them are grouped together because of geography. As an example, in the Lower Nicola, there are probably five or six communities that are really close together.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When it comes to communities themselves and having their responders be involved, in emergency management that's one of the early preparedness statutes, where we work with each community to ensure that they're able. For the first 72 hours, as an example, we ask those communities to be able to handle it themselves while we prepare for the larger-scale response of whatever incident it is.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a great question. One of the pillars we have identified as FNESS is recovery itself. It's its own pillar. We have identified an emergency management specialist—he was our prior emergency manager—and we've actually tasked him to the recovery specialist branch of our society to try to figure out the best way to handle recovery in first nations communities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  [Witness spoke in Nisga'a and provided the following text:] Simgigat, sigidim haanaḵ’, k’uba wilksihlkw g̱anhl k’ubatk’ihlkw. Ksg̱ooḵ ni dim t’ooyaḵshl Sim’oogit Lax̱ha wilt gin̓amhl amaa sa tgun loom̓. [Witness provided the following translation:] Ladies and gentleman, first I would like to thank God for giving us this beautiful day to have our meeting.