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.