Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know if my question has been answered. I am just wondering where in this budget is that $525,000. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For this current year, we were given authority to take $550,000 out of the surplus from the fire suppression budget. The $525,000 for 2006-07 is going to come forward in supp No. 1 because the request came in after the mains were printed and the budgets were done. So supp No. 1 for 2006-07 will have $525,000 and then

everything after that is part of the business plan for 2007-08 and on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last year, it came out of the fire suppression budget, but last year the fire suppression budget went over budget, as far as the mains to the actuals. There is a difference of a couple million dollars. Like my friend from Monfwi pointed out, they did go over budget and that's something that this government just seems to do every year. They budget for fire suppression and they usually go over and deal with it that way. I am just wondering, how can we divert a half a million dollars from forest firefighting, maybe because a lot of these priorities that we just talked about, these values at risk list, were not taken into consideration. I am sure that $525,000 could have been used for those reasons. I am just really having a hard time figuring out even '05-06, the $550,000, that apparently was put towards this whole strategy. The deputy minister states that we are going to have to do a whole bunch of consultation and talk to a whole bunch of new people and get more information. We are just counting these caribou to death. I don't see any point. We could be out a couple thousand here and there, but they don't fluctuate that much from one year to the next. I don't think we are really using this $15 million that this strategy is going to cost us to the best of our ability. You can only count caribou so many times and come out with some definite and good estimates of how the numbers fit.

I am just having a rough time trying to envision where the money is being shifted around from one section to the other to punch out a strategy that really nobody has had any input into. It seems it has already cost us a half a million dollars here and now we are going to slide them another $525,000 for doing work that we are really not sure what they are doing. I would like to see more of a communication between the committees and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the co-management boards to find out where people want this to go, and how soon do they want it to roll out, and what immediate measures do they want taken, and where the money is going to come from for another thing. People should know that if we are going to pump millions into this thing, I think people want to know where that is going to come from. If the Minister could provide some insight into that.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the broad strategy by our count is a total of about $4.5 million over the next few years. We are taking the first 500-and-some-thousand for '05-06 out of the fire suppression surplus that we had turned back and we made the case to Cabinet, FMBS, and they said because it's an important issue, take that money out of there.

The second piece for '06-07 was too late for the main estimates. We were given approval to put that into the first supp for the '06-07 year. The rest of the funding is going to come forward and we will be building it into our business plans. We have been consulting now since just after April last year with all the co-management boards up and down the valley, along with the outfitters, the Metis, the Yellowknives, the folks in this area. If you look at that nine-page interim measures document that I gave everybody, the co-management boards from WMAC, the Gwich'in, the Sahtu, have given us very, very clear specific recommendations about what they want done. They want the counts redone; they want targets set. They have set some very, very stringent quotas of their own in their areas. They want to work with us to come up with a broader plan but, first and foremost, they want us to confirm the numbers. We committed to do that and we are doing the same with the Bathurst herd, as well as the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou. So they haven't been counted excessively. One of the problems is that there hasn't been, with the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq, for example, a census for many, many years. It's a very important issue and we need the numbers. That's the commitment. This is going to be money, in my opinion, extremely well spent. The co-management boards have been very supportive, as have most of the groups that we've dealt with to make sure that we take the right proactive steps. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for his response. Sometimes if you are too proactive and you are throwing out a strategy there that hunters and trappers aren't aware of but suddenly they have a bunch of new rules to follow and I don't know about how they are going to deal with it, but I will just get off the caribou issue here for a second.

I know that strategy came out real quick when we noticed the decline in the caribou herds, but what about a bison strategy? We have bison coming out of every corner of the country here. They are just all over the place, the highways, the Liard area and the Wood Buffalo Park area. Is there consideration for a bison strategy that we maybe could develop just because the bison herds are getting quite large now? If there is a strategy in place, what is the strategy? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member raises a good point and, as we indicated to the Member from Nahendeh, we have made a commitment and we recognize that we need a similar strategy with the bison that's going to look not only at individual herds in the Mackenzie, the Nahanni in the South Slave, but a broader strategy that's going to allow us to deal with the common issues. So that is what we have committed to do in the coming fall or summer and fall. It will have, hopefully, the same kind of specific recommendations and will allow us to be able to deal in a more comprehensive way with some of the pressures that communities are facing, like in the Member for Nahendeh's riding, as well as Fort Providence and the concerns raised outside of Yellowknife with the traffic issues and herd numbers and health, quotas and those types of things for hunting. It is an important issue and it's next on our list after this caribou one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Villeneuve.

I want to receive committee consent to return to page 12-25.

The Member is seeking the committee's agreement to go back to 12-25. Is committee agreed?

Thank you. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. We are just circulating the motion now. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Question is being called. All those in favour of the motion? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

---Applause

Activity summary, forest management, operations expenditure summary, $29.114 million.

Agreed. Thank you. Back to the page we were on, which is 12-37, work performed on behalf of others. It's an information item, $4.197 million.

Agreed. Thank you. Go back to the beginning of ENR. Page 12-7, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $54.711 million.