Minister of Environment.

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, we are currently redoing our Forest Management Plan and specifically the values at risk that currently are critical to that plan and, at this juncture, it doesn’t include as a value at risk the habitat protection for species like caribou, for example, so that we could plan for if we are going to consider looking more where the burns are, are there corridors where they can travel, where there is enough food and those types of things. It is an issue that has been around for quite a while. We haven’t reviewed the values at risk now for many years. We are looking at that very important policy. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, dare I say that this policy here will be coming shortly for the community in terms of the value at risk preparing for the upcoming season here in terms of having a

look at this. Mr. Chairman, one time in my life I did fight fires for four seasons with the old federal government program and, when the GNWT took over for them, I was still a firefighter. I know that when there were fires that were initiated by either lightning or man-made, we were out there to put it out right away. Slowly we moved away from that. I am happy to hear that the Minister is looking at this important issue here. The question is, are we going to have some discussion prior to the upcoming forest season that will start in May?

Deputy Minister Bohnet.

Thank you, Deputy Minister, in terms of the process that you outlined about consultation with the communities. I look forward to when you come into the regions and having some discussions with the communities that I represent in terms of forest management and the issues that you bring forward on this issue here. I certainly look forward to implementing your strong traditional knowledge policy in terms of having the information, because a couple times I heard during this presentation citing of scientific information and we haven’t yet really satisfied me in terms of some strong traditional knowledge leading to discussions like this. So I just wanted to say I look forward to that discussion coming to the Sahtu on what we have to talk about here and I hope its meaningful consultation with our people.

More of a comment than a question. We’re on page 13-21, forest management, operations expenditures, $27.726 million. Agreed?

Moving on to page 13-22, activity summary, forest management, grants and contributions, grants, $100,000. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chair, I wanted to ask the Minister regarding the fire damage compensation.

Have we lapsed funding on this policy? Have we compensated fairly the people who either lost their ability to trap in a certain area or around their cabins or have we used all this money up? Are there any leftovers?

Minister of Environment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The ‘08-09 are based on actual. We’re currently not concluded this year yet, so we’ll know and we’ve got another figure to start at $100,000. We won’t know the actuals for some time for the coming year either, but I don’t think we’ve concluded the final accounting for this year, but I’ll ask the deputy minister to maybe clarify that.

Deputy Minister Bohnet.

Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Would it be possible to, and I don’t see it here, so would it be possible to ask the Minister if he could kindly distribute this policy in terms of how you go about assessing the fire damage and what things are possible, what things may be contentious so that this can be communicated to our harvesters in my regions regarding this policy here. It’s a good policy, Mr. Chair. The one issue I do have and I haven’t talked yet with the Minister so it’s unfair to have a response from him. However, there was a fellow in my community that has asked for compensation when the fire was done, I think five or six years ago. I don’t have all the facts right now, but he wanted to know if there were any forms of compensation that he would have been eligible for. So this is an unfair question right now for the Minister because I haven’t given him all the details or information and I could be at risk here to say I want an answer, however, I want to deal with him on that issue.

Minister of Environment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will provide the program criteria to committee.

Thank you. Mr. Yakeleya.

The other question I have, Mr. Chair, is on the contribution. We have actuals of $46,000, but we haven’t budgeted anything this year. Are we expecting some dollars on that or what is this contribution various to support natural resources and the environmental issues?

Ms. Magrum.

Yes, just on that there, in this specific request that’s a pretty broad, general definition, so is there an example that you can give in terms of specific requests that come in for funding?

Deputy Minister Bohnet.