As I’ve indicated in the House, we’ve undergone an extensive period of consultation across the North and all the communities with many groups and individuals. As I indicated to the Member, the intention is that if all goes according to plan, that we will give notice of motion on March 7

th

for a first

reading of the Wildlife Act. We’ll take the process time and then we’ll go for first and second reading on the 9

th

and 10

th

, I believe. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, we’re on page 13-25, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, wildlife. Mr. Yakeleya.

I just have a few questions before we move on. I just want to ask the Minister has his department been keeping a close working relationship with our health department on the fish monitoring situation in the lakes in the north. I know there was an issue that was brought up some time ago with the mercury in our lakes, and the health board and the Sahtu Renewable Resource were looking at closely monitoring those lakes. When I was in Tulita just after Christmas, the Sahtu Renewable Resource Council president had some people coming in from down south to look at these lakes and monitor them. I want to thank the department for keeping close monitoring. That caused a lot of concern for my constituents and probably other constituents in the north that eat fish. Is this something that a report will come forward and we would look at some of the recommendations in the reports as to what’s causing the mercury to go up in our fish up in the Sahtu?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That issue will remain within the purview of the Department of Fisheries. We will be there, as ENR, because it’s related to what we do, but the authority and mandate would be with the Department of Fisheries. As well, our own public health people will be monitoring the outcome, as well, to determine if they have a role to play depending on what the findings are. Thank you.

I also look forward to the Minister working with the federal minister or the federal government with the fish up in Fort Good Hope. I know there was some concern in Fort Good Hope as to the quality of their fish. I heard also in Tulita from a gentleman who lives in Fort Resolution, that he talked about the fish in the Great Slave Lake and some of the fish that they were catching weren’t quite healthy. The first time that this gentleman, and he’s an older gentleman and he could be considered an elder, but the quality of the fish that they caught, they didn’t look quite right.

I want to know if that indication as to the quality of the fish in the future that we’re going to have in the North here, and if the Minister is looking at some fish monitoring stations along the Mackenzie River. I know in the mouth of the Mackenzie there were also considerations about the questions about the quality of fish in the mouth. I guess that might just be down the Mackenzie River there. Fish monitoring is very important. As I indicated yesterday to the Minister in our oral questions, the importance of the fish and the role of this government, the role of this department working with the federal government to look and be responsible for some of the things that might be happening to our fish on the Mackenzie or within the lakes, to take care of them, that’s a concern. I’m not too sure there’s a question in there. It’s also a statement that I’d like to make.

As we proceed with the implementation of our Water Strategy, as we proceed with the work with the federal government about monitoring, and as we proceed with the discussions about taking over more authorities for land and water and resource development, those are the types of efforts we’re going to have to make. That we’re going to have to, as well, rely, and the Member talked about traditional knowledge, the people that are the users of the land and the water and the fish, and ENR will have a clear role to play, because have people on the ground in almost every community that can work with communities and the users, the fishers, the hunters and the trappers, and we can be that connection point to make sure that we work closely with the federal government and the Fisheries folks and Environment Canada as we both do the monitoring and try to backtrack, to make sure we want to know that the water is in as pure a state as possible and if it isn’t, how do we fix it. Those are going to be our challenges going forward. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I bring this up because in the activity description on 13-24 it talks about wildlife health studies. I just wanted to make the importance of fish studies in my regions, in my communities.

Mr. Chair, at one time in my life I did fish studies on the Mackenzie River and we were catching Arctic ciscoes. When we caught the Arctic ciscoes, there’s a little tag on the fish. When we were doing the studies we would take these little tags and then send them out to Vancouver for analysis and when they get the reports back these little tags on these little Arctic ciscoes, they were tagged in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and we were catching them right across from Tulita. When we found out that they were tagged in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, but the fish were also spawning a month earlier. So it tells us change was coming down and people, I guess the elders knew. They knew that change would be coming. They were giving us warning. That’s why I want to ask the Minister, in terms of the wildlife health studies, that these are warnings and we’re being told and I’m hoping that he will put together a comprehensive plan to look at the monitoring of fish. As the elders said, the waters are getting warmer, the fish are getting softer, and there are indications that some of our fish are not healthy. A lot of these elders and my people, they love fish. A lot of them say they live on fish and love, because that’s what their main diet is. That’s why I raise this concern. I think the department has heard me and I just wanted to make sure that we look at the fish right down the valley to right through our whole region right up to the Beaufort Sea. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we have heard the Member’s concern. I have noted it and we will be considering that as we do the work in the coming months. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Committee, once again we are on page 13-25, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, wildlife, operations expenditure summary, $15.274 million.

Thank you. We are on page 13-26, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, wildlife, grants and contributions, contributions, $1.069 million.

Thank you. We are on page 13-27, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, wildlife, active positions.

Thank you. We are on page 13-29. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has already been summed up earlier today about the NWT Water Stewardship Strategy. I think the department has a lot done, a really fantastic job, and so far a lot of really good work. I have attended some presentations on it. I am quite happy with what I have seen so far in the department moving

forward, but I am concerned about the water flowing into the Northwest Territories.

I recently have read a report by an independent scientist who studied the Slave River downriver from the oil sands project. It pretty much indicated that there were significant amounts of pollution in the water. It is all part of the Mackenzie Basin. We are all part of the Mackenzie Basin. It is great that we are doing such a wonderful job on our Water Stewardship Strategy, but how are we going to make the upriver provinces respect the water? What hammer or what mechanisms are going to exist as strategy that will be enforceable so that we don’t have to have the concerns about the water that we do now? You have heard Mr. Yakeleya talk about the water and some of the changes they are seeing already. I don’t know if those are a result of what is going on upstream, but they could be. Clearly the water coming down the river has some pollution in it. What mechanisms are we going to see and hear, if any, that are going to help us have some confidence that our water is safe and protected?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Minister Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, we as a jurisdiction have been getting our thinking clear and our pieces and strategy in place to deal with water issues. There are a number of things that are happening. As I indicated earlier, we are now fully engaged in our transboundary processes with Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, laying out the negotiation process, the fact that we would like to have and we intend... we all want legally binding agreements that are going to speak to the broad areas of quality and quantity which, when you look at them in their individual detail, they are very complex issues tying in with groundwater and air, pollution issues.

The other big thing that I know is working in our favour is that the federal government recently, after a number of reports, the most recent one by Dr. Schindler and Dr. Erin Kelly that prove beyond a shadow of any kind of reasonable doubt that there were significant issues related to the oil sands, such to the degree that the federal government, Mr. Barrett -- I believe. I think it started initially with Minister Prentice -- Minister Barrett picked it up and they committed to a 90-day process, which is currently underway, to set up a monitoring what they have characterized as a world-class monitoring system for this part of the country for the downstream jurisdictions and areas of northern Alberta and, of course, the Northwest Territories. We met with Minister Kent. We made the case that it has to have as broad a scope as possible. They can’t narrow it down so narrow that it doesn’t do the job. We have the benefit of having Dr. Kelly on this board. We also have the benefit the jurisdictions

ready to go. We have these pieces in place and we are moving as fast as we can, and the money we have in the budget is going to allow us to move forward to hopefully conclude these transboundary agreements, but we will always have to continue to be vigilant.

The downstream agreements are only going to be as strong as the quality of the monitoring and information that we get that assures us that we are being protected and that the conditions of the agreement are being met. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for that. Once again, I appreciate all the work that you and your department are doing on this, as many are fond to say, water is life. With respect to the monitoring, what are the feds doing and will we have easy and accessible sort of access to the information that is coming out of that? In particular, where is most of the monitoring taking place? Is it immediately downstream of where the oil sands are located? Is it further downstream? Is there any monitoring going on this side of the NWT/Alberta border that will give us some warning about what is on its way just in case there is anything we can do to stop it from getting into the main part of the basin in the Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River? Where is the monitoring taking place? Do we have access to the information from it?

Mr. Chairman, currently if you looked at a map from northern Alberta all the way down to the Arctic, in the NWT I think in the neighbourhood of about 148 different types of monitoring is going on. One of the challenges and problems is that it is often very disconnected, that companies are doing it. Some government agencies are doing it. Other government agencies are doing it. Different levels of government are doing it.

The other question and the big concern around the oil sands is: was it the right kind of monitoring? Were we testing for the right things in all of these exotic substances like naphthenic acids and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and those types of chemicals and substances that are very specific to that particular industrial activity? The design that the federal government is working on is going to have to capture that. We are going to be involved. We have somebody at the table. We are involved in that. We indicated to Minister Kent that, while we appreciated that, we want to be fully involved. We need to have the bilaterals done. We also made the case that if they want this to be really effective, they should have some Aboriginal representation on that board, as well, which has been one of the downsides to the process to date.

Those pieces are being put in place. Our challenge is going to be to make sure that what is being put in place is going to meet those needs. At the same time, we have to, and we are at work at this, trying

to better coordinate the significant amount of monitoring that is already done. That information often goes to different places and there is no one collection area clearinghouse of information. We have our own work to do with the systems we do have as well. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, clearly there is a significant number of challenges in that area. I am intrigued. You talked about basically hundreds of places they are doing assessments of the water. It is difficult to pull them together. Is that actually part of the fed’s plan, is to pull together the data from all of those different individuals or groups or organizations or companies, pulling together the data? Are they only going to be compiling the data they collect themselves? The reason I ask is, if they are not, why would we wait for somebody else to compile it? Is there not an opportunity for us, if the feds aren’t doing it, to compile some kind of information and create our own sort of data base or one-stop shop for where all this information lies so that we can be comfortable that we have an idea of the status and quality of our water? Obviously, I would rather the feds do it, quite frankly. If they are not, the data is out there. Can it be pulled together from all of those sources so that we have a real clear vision of our water quality in the North?

Mr. Chairman, that is one of our goals coming out of our water strategies, to have the best information possible. Our challenge is to continue to work with this since this is still an area of shared jurisdiction and we will continue to be even after we take over authority, is to work with Environment Canada and DFO to make sure that we do coordinate that the system as efficiently and tightly as possible. The federal government, Environment Canada, is looking at, most immediately, in terms of putting in the proper monitoring that does not now exist for the oil sands development. At the same time, they know as well as we do that there are all these other sites out there that have a beneficial function to play.

So there’s going to be an action plan coming out of this. How do we do this? In 90 days they aren’t going to be able to create a whole system in its entirety. I don’t think they are going to be able to get the key elements in place. We are going to have to be working with them to make sure that it doesn’t stop after 90 days. Thank you.

Just in closing, I appreciate all the work that’s been done in this area. This is one area that I think the department could push harder. If you look at our map, if our water is ruined, that affects, out of 33 communities, that immediately affects I think it’s 25 of them, which are on the downriver side of the water coming down that river. So 25, I think. I can recheck but 25 communities will be immediately affected if the quality of the water changes. So this is obviously something that’s

important to us in our future, to all the people, and please push. Please push hard on this one. Please make some progress. Please make sure it’s as binding as possible and get the feds to do whatever they can to protect our water.