Forest management, not previously authorized, $195,000. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If the Minister could further explain in detail, we have an item listed as $221,000 to provide funding to ensure GNWT's interest in current and emerging water management issues are maintained. Maybe he could explain what that statement means. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the issue of water management in the NWT is one that has been raised a number of times. The departments of Health and Social Services, Municipal and Community Affairs and Public Works have worked in this area to come up with either the technical side of this, as well as the inspection side and the training side. This money is requested to effectively carry out responsibilities and meet the demands and it's requesting two new person years as well as company O and M that is required. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this would be somebody who travels around and checks our water, or is this somebody who deals with the agreements or transboundary agreements, etcetera?

Which item are you under, Mr. Hawkins?

I haven't changed.

Mr. Hawkins.

I am on page 23.

...environmental protection?

Yes, still there.

Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the one position would be water policy analyst for policy legislation and communication division. That's to provide expertise of territorial and inter-jurisdictional water management policy matters. The other position would be water technical advisor for the environmental protection division to assess impacts of development upstream of the NWT and contribute technical advice on water quality and water quantity issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Wouldn't we be providing this service already in our environmental protection unit to manage and evaluate water related issues specific to types of development? Wouldn't it be incumbent upon the developer to provide an environmental impact statement as to what will happen? I am just trying to get a sense of...Are we here to verify their information? I understand the policy, but it just seems like a large...I would have thought we would be doing that through the environmental protection unit.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, during the winter session of the 15th Legislative Assembly this year, the issue of water took a very prominent role and some direction was provided to play a more prominent role in the whole area of water issues and transboundary issues. Up to now, we have had half a PY, half a policy analyst position that was assuming all the water management activities. The issue of water has certainly been cranked up the last while and there is a need now to work with other Government of the Northwest Territories departments to deal with the drinking water strategy and framework. We also need to participate with the Mackenzie River Basin Board and all the subcommittees and work on the state of the aquatic ecosystems report negotiations that is coming out in 2009. As a result of some of the discussion that took place to have more communication, we are planning to put together and find partners to host an NWT water forum. We would like to do that this summer and follow up during the winter months with a new government. Hopefully we will have a water summit that would bring in all the players we need, to bring in all the information under one roof and be able to share it. We are hoping to get issues and direction from all the stakeholders and all the governments that are involved and are affected by water under one roof and start getting our own house in order.

The other thing we have to do is we still have a lot of work to do in terms of lobbying the multi-stakeholder committee on the oil sands development. We need to have ongoing dialogue with the upstream jurisdictions, Alberta government and B.C. government and also the federal government to show and voice our concerns about the impacts of water and projects around water. There is a lot of research and communication and education and working with community and regional agencies on water management program and matters that have to be done.

So these, along with the direction to complete the Bilateral Water Management Agreement with Alberta as quickly as possible, resulted for us to review what we had. We had half a position and we wanted to target how we could accomplish all these things. We targeted two positions. One is a water policy analyst that would work on negotiations on the Alberta/NWT Bilateral Water Management Agreement and also the bilateral agreements with B.C. and Saskatchewan. They would also go back and work with some of the components of the Yukon/NWT Bilateral Agreement that need to be updated. We need to work on a water forum to inform and engage all the stakeholders in the management issues. We have to start looking at some legislation and policy review to identify and strengthen the government's capability in safeguarding drinking water. I mentioned the water summit we would like to have and ongoing discussions to educate the Government of the Northwest Territories personnel.

The other position we are looking at is a water technical advisor that would work in the area of developing and implementing an action plan for intervention in the oil sands development projects and to do assessment on water quality and quantity, and aquatic ecosystems and the impacts of upstream developments. Also to ensure

that there is effective participation in inter-jurisdictional technical committees supporting transboundary water management.

So there is a lot of work that has been scheduled and has been put on our plate the last while and has resulted in this looking at trying to secure some additional positions.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the detailed information from the Minister. I thought he was running the clock on me. Mr. Chair, I thought, if I understand it correctly, the Akaitcho are going to run a water summit coming up here. I am not sure why the Minister would want to be running one as well. I don't know if he is competing or enhancing it some other way, but I am just curious on this technical advisor detail and then you went on further to talk about the impacts of oil sands. I am surprised you are not going off to an area in discussion that talks about reaching CPAWS and things like that to get them to do the work I bet you could make a small contribution to them and they would be quite pleased to help and share information. You did talk about updating the Yukon and NWT transboundary agreement, but I have heard you say in the past that that was one of the easiest agreements we've had and it's already in place. If I understand it correctly, the other transboundary agreements right now are sitting idle. Although I am sure they are being looked at, but they are sitting idle until B.C. works with Alberta to sort that out. I am just trying to get a sense of that. There seems to be a lot of work here. I am just trying to get a sense of if it's realistic, is some of this already being done?

Thank you. Mr. McLeod.

...the concept of going to find partners such as CPAWS and the Canadian Boreal Initiative and those types of partners is something we are working on. However, we need somebody to do the actual legwork. We need partners to be able to come forward and help us put the budget together for our water summit, similar to what we have done with the caribou summit where we brought in a number of partners. They have contributed towards a gathering. We need to be able to do that. We didn't have anything in our budget for this coming year to do a water conference. It's obvious that we need to have one to get our house in order and have all the different information that is out there to be brought under one roof and to have that discussion.

The Akaitcho, I haven't heard that they are planning to have a water summit. I know there was discussion to have a water summit in Fort Smith. I am not sure if that is the Akaitcho group, but we would like to talk to them and possibly work with them. However, the focus of the water summit or the water conference would be to bring all the players together from the different areas.

As to the agreement sitting idle while B.C. and Alberta negotiate it is not the case. We need to work parallel. We have agreed to start moving that forward. They've recently agreed that that would be the case and it has allowed us to sign the framework agreement. We have to start now doing the actual work on it. We don't really have the resources and it wasn't built into our budget to do this. Some of these things have come forward rather unexpectedly and we are trying to develop the resources or put the resources into place to be able to deal with them.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Environmental protect, not previously authorized, $1.979 million.