Yes, Madam Chair, I do. I am pleased to speak to the 2012-2013 Main Estimates for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The plan proposes total operational expenses of $65.7 million for the upcoming year. This represents a 2.6 percent or $1.8 million reduction from last year’s budget.

As Members are aware, the mandate for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is to promote and support the sustainable use and development of natural resources and to protect, conserve and enhance the NWT environment for the social and economic benefit of all NWT residents.

A range of activities are proposed to uphold this mandate and I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few key investments planned for the upcoming fiscal year. In his speech from the throne, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston highlighted Canada’s priority to renew and deepen its relationship with Canada’s Aboriginal peoples and underlined Canada’s commitment to promoting access to clean water and the deployment of clean energy technology in Aboriginal and northern communities. The GNWT is pleased to mirror that commitment.

We are investing $905,000 in this budget to support negotiations for transboundary water agreements to establish common principles for the cooperative management of the aquatic ecosystem of the Mackenzie River Basin. These agreements will ensure the quality and quantity of water entering the NWT from neighbouring jurisdictions remains substantially unaltered and will protect the ecological integrity of the Mackenzie River Basin, allowing Northerners to continue to choose a traditional way of life. Together with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, we continue to make progress on negotiations.

The department continues to work with a variety of water partners on community-based water monitoring initiatives identified in the NWT Water Stewardship Strategy and Action Plan. This fulfills our priority to build a strong and sustainable future for our territory by strengthening our relationships with Aboriginal and other northern communities.

Climate change remains a serious concern for NWT residents and the GNWT, and we continue to take action in this area. The department continues to

implement the NWT Greenhouse Gas Strategy which identifies actions the GNWT, industry and communities can take over the next five years to stabilize territorial emissions at or below 2005 levels. It also highlights the importance of identifying measures that can be taken to limit increases and ultimately reduce emissions from non-renewable resource development activity.

The Arctic Energy Alliance works in partnership with the department to reduce the costs and environmental impacts of energy in the NWT. In 2012-2013 they will receive up to $1.8 million in contribution funding for ongoing energy planning, energy efficiency and energy conservation programs.

With that $1.8 million, the budget adds $200,000 towards regional energy advisors to visit communities to conduct home energy audits, training and workshops to ensure communities receive equitable access to Arctic Energy Alliance programming. In addition, a combined total of $650,000 in funding will allow the Alliance to continue to offer the Energy Efficiency Incentive Program, the Commercial Energy Conservation and Efficiency Program and provide focused assistance to residents of Inuvik over the next year.

The department is preparing a Solar Energy Strategy to be tabled this fall that coordinates our efforts to use this source of renewable energy. Building on the success of the Biomass Energy Strategy since 2010, the department is now evaluating the actions and will be tabling a revised version later in the fall.

The department continues to take action to reduce waste. The department is currently conducting an e-waste survey to determine the types and quantities of electronic items in NWT households and where residents purchase such items. The information from the e-waste survey, along with the inventory and feasibility study that is currently underway will form the basis for an e-waste management framework to be developed this fall.

The department’s proposed new Wildlife Act will help better protect, conserve and manage wildlife in the Northwest Territories. In 2012-2013, $500,000 will go towards public awareness and consultation on this new piece of legislation to ensure Aboriginal groups, the general public and various stakeholder groups have an opportunity to provide input into a new bill. A key aspect of this consultation is a Stakeholders Wildlife Act Advisory Group, which is already working to identify improvements to the proposed legislation. These funds will also provide officer training, development of new forms, permits and hunter education programs that will be needed to implement the new act.

The NWT Species at Risk Stewardship Program is now in its third year. The program provides funding for projects that support the long-term protection

and recovery of species that are at risk or of concern in the NWT. The Species at Risk Committee is preparing status reports for the first four species to be assessed in 2012: the polar bear, Peary caribou, boreal woodland caribou and Hairy Braya.

Traditional knowledge continues to play an important role in ENR’s mandate. During the coming year, $255,000 will be spent on the Traditional Knowledge Implementation Plan. This will help build a strong and sustainable future through our strengthened relationships with Aboriginal governments and further our efforts in incorporating traditional knowledge into our decision-making.

As Members are aware, a large part of the department’s budget is spent on the prevention, detection, monitoring and suppression of wildfires in the Northwest Territories. During 2012-2013 the department has allocated an additional $510,000 towards forest fire management crews. Advanced wildland fire training and firefighter capacity testing will ensure all wildland firefighters are properly trained and able to monitor conditions and take action when necessary.

Caribou management continues to be of great importance to the department. The department is investing $1 million to implement the 2011-2015 Barren Ground Caribou Management Strategy. To ensure the continued sound management and conservation of barren ground caribou, ENR will be conducting population surveys of all the major herds in 2012. These results, along with other caribou studies, will help to inform our long- and short-term management actions in this area. I remain hopeful that the sacrifices made by NWT residents over the past few years will eventually allow us to remove the current restrictions. We must, however, proceed towards that goal with a substantial measure of caution.

Fire and caribou management funding aligns with our priority to work with our partners to ensure responsible stewardship through our land and resource management regime, as well as supporting the traditional economy.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide an overview of the department’s 2012-2013 Main Estimates. I look forward to discussing them in detail with you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Do you have witnesses you wish to bring into the House?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Does committee agree to bring in the witnesses?

Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you would please escort the witnesses to the Chamber.

Minister, if you could please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me Mr. Ernie Campbell, deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources; and Ms. Nancy Magrum, the director of shared services with ENR and ITI, financial services. Thank you.

Thank you to the Minister. Committee, we are on page 13-7, department summary. We will defer until we have considered detail. We’ll move on to page 13-8, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Are there any questions on this page? I did forget general comments. Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Are there any general comments on the department? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to maybe ask some questions or respond a little bit to the opening remarks of the Minister. This department has reduced its budget. I am concerned about that. As the Minister knows, and I see he’s referred to it as a 2.6 or $1.8 million reduction. The actual reduction from dollars spent last year was about a $9 million reduction or about 12 or 15 percent. I guess my first question to the Minister would be: Were those additional costs, the ephemeral costs that we don’t expect and what were they?

The Minister is continuing to develop the water programs and at increasing cost. I think this is a state-of-the-art water program in all the jurisdictions across Canada, and the Minister deserves kudos for this work. My one concern is that it seems to be at the cost of things like climate change. I’m sure the Minister knows that there’s probably no single bigger threat to our water qualities and quantities and ecological services, all the values that water has, than climate change itself, and given the science, we are not doing our part.

I’ve heard the Minister claim that it’s not going to happen at the federal level. Climate change, mitigation needs to be done at the subnational level, and so we’re not saying we’re inactive or inert on this issue, but I am saying that we need to review these priorities.

I’m happy to see the solar energy strategy being devised. It’s a long overdue one. The solar costs are declining at a rate of 4 percent per annum, and the technical capabilities are increasing. Along with that, I hope the Minister will take into consideration things like the standby charges and so on that the NWT Power Corporation, under his jurisdiction, has. The policies that they have that, in fact, go

against the development of renewable energy and solar, in particular.

I’m happy to see a new Wildlife Act coming forward. We had expected it in the winter but maybe the Minister is going to bring it forward earlier as per his comments here. My question there would be when it does come forward, what funding has been identified to stakeholders who require some support as interveners or commenters to be able to comprehensively review this massive legal document.

I guess the last one I have, caribou obviously remain a priority of all residents of the Northwest Territories, or most residents. In many cases we’re talking about our food, we’re talking about some economic values and we’re certainly talking about ecological values.

So I appreciate the work the department does on caribou and perhaps I could just get confirmation on what the substantive herds are that the Minister refers to as major herds that will be surveyed in 2012. I’m sure it includes the Bathurst herd. I wonder if it includes the Ahiak or the Beverly and the western herds, Bluenose herds.

We have gone through quite a dry spell. In a significant part of the Northwest Territories there are warnings out this is a bug bear that the department has to face every year. It can be costly and unpredictable. So I’m wondering if the Minister has any crystal ball on what might be happening with, of course, fire season and how he intends to handle that unpredictability in a fiscal sense. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Your time is up, Mr. Bromley, if you wish to go back on the list. I will go to Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome to the Minister and delegation from ENR here this evening. I want to first say I strongly commend the Minister and the department for a lot of the background work over the years, especially in transboundary agreements and water. So much so that I’ve read a recent book called Ethical Water, which places the NWT in the forefront of the actions of this government. So I think it’s important to give praise when praise is due and I think that’s important.

That said, water is an important component of ENR and it does touch other departments, as well, retrospectively. Drinking water has been obviously a passion of mine since I’ve been a new Member here of the House. The fact remains that there’s still some inconclusives, so to speak, in terms of the quality of the drinking water. Even though I know the quality is really good, we need to quantify that empirically with actual data and we know that there’s been challenges to affixing to the guidelines that this territory has to adhere to. That’s my question, is that really if there’s opportunity that I see within this government, is taking ownership to the guidelines and not passing it to the community governments or to the municipalities for enforcement. There really is no enforcement, Madam Chair. Regulations need to be on the forefront of our thinking moving forward. So if I see opportunity with this department, it’s to make sure that we put a bit behind the bite, so to speak, when it comes to water quality, management and drinking water guidelines. So I challenge the Minister to have his team work with the other departments in bringing those drinking water standards to levels which I think could prove that we are in great shape.

On the subject of water again – again there’s a bit of an overlap with MACA – a grave concern a lot of people in Yellowknife have is the fact that we’re looking at a relocation of our source water from the Yellowknife River to the bay area. Again, as I said, there are overlapping issues with departments, but water is water. Unfortunately, very little opportunity for financing from the GNWT, albeit we have similar financing in other communities. So I think the residents of Yellowknife, residents of Range Lake would be fitting the bill, so to speak, in the long term as a result of territorial government’s non-involvement or non-committed involvement in the relocation of source water. Given the fact that this is a practice that we see in other communities where this government is full force using full federal tax money to do that, why Yellowknife is being left off the grid, that’s a question to be answered.

On the subject of forest management, my concern – and I think the concern is with a number of people – is obviously the age of our aviation fleet. We’ve heard various degrees in terms of the viability of this fleet moving forward. I’m referring to the CL-215s. These are the workhorse of our fire forestry management. The cost to replace this fleet is insurmountable, one that has to have some extreme planning put behind. I know the Minister is frugal in making sure we are putting money away for a rainy day, $74 million in his budget, and I applaud him for doing so, but some of these costs are going to come to haunt us very soon. It would be nice to hear from the Minister or the department what the strategy is for replacement of the CL-215s. We need to hear it now during the early life of this Assembly so we can have plans of action.

Finally, it’s refreshing to know that the Wildlife Act is coming back on stream for review. We’re hoping, and I know a lot of the Regular Members were hoping, that the consultation process, the collaborative process with the public is one on which we can get those views back on the table. I believe a lot was learned in the last 10 years. A lot was learned specially in the dying days of the 16

th Assembly. We applaud you and your team to get the right information out to the people so that we aren’t divisive on this subject, where we can live in harmony with tradition and harvesting, and we can make sure that there is a caribou industry and that we protect that industry moving forward, understanding the real impacts.

Madam Chair, I will leave it at that. More, again, good news on the forefront. That said, some opportunities that we do not see in this budget and it would be nice to hear some address to those concerns. Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I did regret at the outset to suggest we have response from the Minister to opening

comments once they are all done. So if Members are agreed to that, we will carry on with Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In respect to the budget for this year, we’re setting the stage for the next four years. I’d also like to take the time to commend the department in terms of leading the charge, so to speak, in terms of the development of a Water Stewardship Strategy. I think that’s a very big plus. I think more than anything I would expect, through the association and support with First Nations, a very unique template in terms of water monitoring, water legislation, ensuring we always have access to fresh water. At the same time, it’s standardized so that it is publicly safe to consume and that the public has the confidence that we’re looking after the interest of the larger public, their safety and their overall health. I would really like to commend the department on that.

Of course, as we proceed forward, there are some other matters I think the department could maybe focus on. Another point I wanted to make is the Biomass Initiative is a very good initiative that complements communities and regions. It ensures the development of the forest sector. It provides opportunities for local businesses and local expertise, in conjunction with regional and district centres, to provide an alternative to find the cost of energy too much. We’re creating an option for them. I think that’s a very positive initiative that I hope will flourish as we proceed to doing this term of the 17

th Assembly.

There are a couple of things that I’m kind of concerned about. Maybe I’ll spend a little bit of time trying to highlight them and then end off with some key things that I think are fairly reflective of comments of the Deh Cho constituency.

One of them is on the Wildlife Act. The Wildlife Act we’re going to revisit. This is something that’s been ongoing for some time. The greater interest that we should be focused on is we’re trying to meet the interests of all groups of the North and ensure we have bountiful wildlife. There is also the maintenance of subsistence culture activities. At the same time, we also work with the sport and recreation people that bring opportunities to big game outfitters that make their livelihood out on the land and bring tourists from all over the world to the North. We need to balance that. Of course, the department is very cognizant of some of the regional circumstances we have, such as regional land claims that have negotiated, with the federal government, certain provisions respecting that governments don’t abrogate or derogate their treaty and Aboriginal titles. So I think it’s something that will more likely come up as a discussion at some point on the Wildlife Act. But I think we have to be fairly optimistic. I think the department more likely, in the end, will come up with a stronger document that people will all agree to.

The other initiative that I think is fairly strong in the communities that I represent is tourism and just the potential as they look forward to the completion of the bridge. With the decline of sport hunting of caribou in the Barren Lands, we have more people from the North Slave region looking into the Deh Cho for opportunities either to hunt or to create business opportunities to create lodges for sport fishing or sport hunting. Of course, that puts pressure on the local populations for business opportunities. For harvesting it puts more pressure in terms of the sustainability of the natural resources that we have. Of course, with the coming of the bridge, we’ll have more access to the south of the Deh Cho and the north of the Deh Cho, and we’ll have more likely increased traffic and, at the same time, more marine operations in terms of people jumping in their boats in Hay River or Yellowknife and going down the Mackenzie. So I think people will more likely put constraints on the natural resources. Even, for that matter, sports fishing. For those reasons, I really think at some point the department needs to engage with the community in terms of monitoring efforts to ensure sport fishing is sustainable and that we all keep that in mind.

The last point I wanted to make is it’s my belief that this government should have a very integral role and critical role as Canada, as the Canadian government moves forward within two years to take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council. I think we shouldn’t leave it to the feds to look after the interests of the Northwest Territories. This government needs to ensure we create a path of leadership ensuring northern interests are heard at the table, that we have at least a say how the agenda will be determined, and that we have a greater interest because we make the North our home. Through that, I think we need to make alliances with the northern communities that have the same ecology as we do and ensure we partner up with them. Based on that, I think we have some very unique plusses and one of them is this concept of traditional knowledge. I think First Nations have some very unique observations in terms of trying to balance that out with scientific knowledge and ensuring there are levels and efforts to ensure that the environment is sustainable and at the same time the wildlife population are at least monitored and protected. With those thoughts in mind, if we could play a greater role in the Arctic Council through the department and the GNWT and try to at least lay some foundation on how we’re going to be involved, I think some discussions of that nature would be very positive.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Next on my list is Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister has a very important department that deals with the basics of our land, water, air, life, and the

way we look at things. It’s very important. I’m not very pleased that his budget is being reduced. It actually should be going up. I’m not the one to make that decision. This budget here is low. The Minister has some very key initiatives that need to be looked at.

The Minister talked about the Mackenzie River Basin and the quality and quantity of water entering the Northwest Territories from neighbouring jurisdictions. In our land claim agreement it states, in the Sahtu Land Claim Agreement and probably as well as with other Aboriginal groups that have settled land claims, about the quality and quantity of the water not changing. If the Minister is working on the transboundary water agreements and if we are starting to see some changes, as people have noticed in my region, there are changes to the water quality, our water, then the federal government is not honouring their commitment, the spirit and intent of this specific chapter when we signed this land claim agreement.

The federal government has initiated some water monitoring community-based and it’s in the government’s plans right now, and I believe Fort Smith and Fort Resolution have been identified as two communities that have these water monitoring stations, community-based stations. There might be other ones that maybe the Minister could help me clarify. I think by having them in Fort Smith and Fort Resolution is a good start because that’s sort of the bottleneck where Fort McMurray, the Bennett Dam, the pulp mills, the Peace River, all that stuff is coming down. We don’t know what’s coming down. I know there are other monitoring stations in the North through Environment Canada and I believe that Minister Kent kept them open. I think there are 22 or 23. I could be corrected on that.

The Minister has a responsibility to ensure that our water is safe and that the other jurisdictions are not dumping their sewer waste into our system and that we’re going to be okay. A lot of my people live on the Mackenzie River. A lot of my people eat food from the Mackenzie. Lots of my people live off the land. We hunt moose and caribou and we certainly know that these animals also use the Mackenzie to sustain their life.

I want to make sure that we have a strong agreement that we could face the government of BC or Alberta or Saskatchewan and say this is what’s happening. This is what’s happening in our waters here. Make our agreement so strong that it would shut down possibly one of the industries to say quit putting your garbage into our water system.

We know the water is changing. I’ve talked to some elders in Fort Providence and they noticed that their fish is getting softer. They said a long time ago, about 50 years ago, the fish was firm. Now they say the fish are getting softer. Their body is soft, not like it used to be 50 years ago. That tells me

something’s happening. I don’t know if it’s permafrost happening or climate change or the amount of chemicals in our water. Are we testing for the right chemicals? Are we testing for poison coming into our water? What are they dumping in our water from McMurray or the Bennett Dam?

This Minister has a lot of work. I look forward to his continued work and his continued charge on why we need a strong transboundary agreement with the other governments.

The Minister is also responsible for the Energy Efficiency Incentive Program. I look forward to seeing what type of support he’s also going to give to the people in Norman Wells. In his statement he provided focused assistance to the residents of Inuvik over the next year. I want to hope that the Minister would also do that for the community of Norman Wells for their support.

Within the limited time I have I want to ask the Minister in the recycling area that we have, I wanted to see if somewhere in his upcoming business plans or future discussions with his department he did a good job with the pop cans and plastic bags. I’d like him to see if he would do some work for the next couple years to see how we can get our vehicles out of our local dumps. There are lots of vehicles that could be chopped up with a mulcher in each community and put on the barge in the summertime, brought down south. Then that machine could go to another community and eat up those vehicles and do the same thing. It can be done over four or five years. We have a lot of old vehicles that have been in our dumps for the last I would say 50 or 60 years. I think the Minister should be able to put some plans together on how we get rid of these old vehicles.

I’m happy that the Minister is continuing to work on the Wildlife Act. I look forward to it getting some good discussions and some good air play in our communities. People can talk about the new Wildlife Act. It’s a long overdue act. It’s outdated. We need to modernize it and continue to work on it.

The Minister also has the role of traditional knowledge which I think needs to be supported and continued to have the effects down to different departments and especially his department.

We have some activity happening in the Sahtu and we certainly need to make sure that the cumulative impacts from resource development are monitored and studied up in our region because of the oil and gas play. Wildlife monitoring is taking place up in our region with all the oil and gas activity, the mining in the mountains. We need to know what’s happening with the permafrost. If they’re going to be drilling and doing hydraulic fracking, we need to have somebody on the ground looking at this type of thing that’s going to maybe be significantly ramped up in terms of resource development.

I look forward to going through some of the business plans, and I really hope that we have a good fire season and that it doesn’t get too busy and that this government here or this department here continues to support the people who have cabins. We need to know that these fires can be put out on the community’s needs.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Are there any further general comments? I’ll go to the Minister for a response.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Once again I thank Mr. Dolynny for his comments on the water and the work that the department and the government have been doing, and his challenge to the government in terms of the regulation that’s needed. I know that there’s work underway between ENR, Health and Social Services, Public Works and Services, MACA, to ensure that we do all the things from the headwaters to the taps and beyond into the systems in people’s homes. It is going to be an issue of eventually moving from guidelines to regulations.

The issue of the relocation of the source water treatment plant from the Yellowknife River into the bay is going to be an issue that I’m going to leave for the Minister of MACA when the time comes. I’m not in a position to speak knowledgably about that.

The aviation fleet, the current contract expires in 2017. We’ve been on this now… This is the third year in terms of preparation, doing the research, bringing in consultants to review the service, give us a clear understanding of the options that are out there. We are now in the situation where the CL-215s that we do have are not going to be able to continue much longer. Simple things like access to avgas. The need to turbinize. If we keep them, turbinize the planes, if we were to stick with them, it would cost about $20 million or so a plane. So we are at work doing all the information gathering and assessments that we need to do to look at what options are there from the existing fleet being upgraded, buying new, leasing things like the air tractor, which is a smaller, more mobile, newer plane that is in use in a lot of other jurisdictions. We’ve had them up here doing some test runs last year. We’ve sent folks to observe them in action in other jurisdictions as well. Our intent is to move forward in a way that’s affordable. We now spend about $5 million a year just running and maintaining the CL-215s. There’s money that’s already in the budget to do that. We have to make the determination of the type of plane and the type of financing we need to do that.

In coming up, the other big issue that I would point out is: if we buy, we can’t afford to have our air force sitting in the snow bank eight months of the year. If we lease just by the year or X number of months a year it’s one thing. If we end up changing the arrangement, then we have to come up with a

way to have that significant investment working more than four months a year. There’s lots of work to be done over the next number of years. The hope is to have this whole process ready, either through some type of call for proposals or very much ready for calls for proposals so that the incoming Assembly has either a process that’s underway or that we, this Assembly, will have concluded. We are on this one and paying very close attention.

I appreciate the Member’s comment, as well, about the Wildlife Act. We are working hard to be as collaborative as possible, recognizing that we have, I believe, a very good piece of work in terms of the Wildlife Act. There’s no other piece of legislation that was either done the way this one was done or is drafted up the same way, recognizing the same number of complex issues that are not even recognized in the current wildlife ordinance.

Mr. Nadli, as well, referenced a number of concerns about the water, similar to some of the other comments. I won’t repeat them, other than to say we are committed to negotiating a strong transboundary agreement. We want to be able to make sure that we are, in fact, negotiating hard-to-protect waters and the quality, and that when we look at quality it is detailed enough that so that we are, in fact, as Mr. Yakeleya indicated, taking into consideration are we measuring for the right things.

This is a changed world. There are lots of very complex substances out there and authentic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, bitumen, persistent organic pollutants. Any number of things in the water and in the air that we have to make sure we account for.

I would point out, as well, that we are putting our full effort as a government on this. Premier McLeod was down with the western Premiers in Edmonton and had an opportunity to have some discussions with Premier Redford about transboundary negotiations. We are in the process, as the department, of setting up our meetings with the Minister in Alberta, as well, to further those discussions. This is, for us, a full court press, given the significance of this issue.

The biomass initiative, I agree, is a good one. It’s gathering momentum. The government initially had to play a very major role, but now we have, for example, a private individual putting his own money on the table, seriously advancing a proposal for a pellet mill in the Northwest Territories, a significant pellet mill that will be able to supply the market now and into the future. That was always the goal for ourselves as a Legislature: build the market, build the industry; step one, step two. We are committed to that.

The technologies, as well, in biomass are improving rapidly. There is almost job ready advancements in bio fractionation, for example, where they can

actually take biomass and convert it to diesel, convert it to avgas, convert it to any type of substance we need. There’s also a significant interest in work being done with natural gas, as well, being able to make the same alterations to the molecules to make it usable. So this is a rapidly advancing area.

The Wildlife Act, as I indicated, is a very important piece of work for us. It’s one of the reasons I ran for re-election, was to come back to see if we could get this approved in the House. I take Mr. Nadli’s comments about the many complex issues and the balance, and I would point out to him that anybody that reads that draft Wildlife Act and you look at the ordinance that is there that is currently governing us, it’s as close to night and day as you can come into pieces of legislation. The old legislation is archaic. It does not mention the word Aboriginal once, and there’s no mention of treaties, any obligation to Section 35, all those issues that have in some cases it predates. In addition to all the new ways of thinking of how we manage wildlife together, as he indicated.

We are interested in working with all the communities, especially in unsettled claims as we sort out the issues that the Member raised in terms of sport fishing and hunting. We’ve had a discussion in the House about the need to monitor fish stocks, especially during this time of the year when the fish are running and the folks come especially into the Member’s area to take advantage of the fish, to take as many as they can and…(inaudible)…them up and head back to Alberta. So we’re very committed to make sure we help manage that.

The Arctic Council, we are members on there, along with most other members of the circumpolar world. My understanding is Canada and the United States are going to be taking over the chairmanship, but we have a role at the table. I don’t have enough knowledge of the workings of the Arctic Council in terms of how they pick their chairmanship, but I can reassure the Member that we are fully engaged at that level. I know Premier Roland was there and Premier McLeod will be attending along with others, as appropriate, whenever there are meetings that take place.

Mr. Yakeleya indicated his concern about the budget. As I pointed out, this budget will be going up, assuming from all the trends that there are going to be fires and that we’re going to have to come back for supplementary appropriations. The money, as I pointed out to Mr. Bromley, that the money that was in last year’s budget included all the supps from firefighting that were one-time money, so those lapse. But every year we have been coming back so, unfortunately, I’m anticipating we’ll have to come back again this year.

I won’t review a bunch of the comments on water.

We are committed to working with Norman Wells in terms of their issue with their energy sources. We demonstrated that commitment and the level of that commitment in Inuvik. Not only this particular circumstance, but when we switched everybody off the old high-temperature system. We were there as well. The people of Norman Wells will not be abandoned. They will not be ignored as we work through with them their transition to another energy source.

The old vehicle recycling, I will tell the Member that just by sheer demand and limitation in terms of capacity, our focus, as our pointed out in my opening comments, is we’re looking at, in addition to all the things we’re currently doing, trying to get a grip on e-waste. The vehicle recycling is on the list but, once again, we’ve had to make choices and we’re of the opinion that there’s such a constant changing of electronic equipment and materials and it’s stockpiled all over and put into dumpsites, it’s the next pressure point in terms of the recycling.

The traditional knowledge, yes, we are committed. We are the lead department. We have it built into all the work we do working with co-management boards. We are the lead on the science research agenda. It’s a critical piece in there, as well, as we blend western science and traditional knowledge. As the Member knows, on the health side, for example, there are I think very interesting, proactive attempts with traditional knowledge. Education, as well, has a serious role to play with education and Dene Kede and all the other good work they’re doing with the curriculum.

As we proceed with the oil play for tight oil in the Sahtu and the issue of fracking and those types of things, there will be, clearly, a need for enhanced engagement and support in a whole number of areas, including the monitoring that the Member mentioned. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Is committee agreed we go to detail?

We are on page 13-8, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Any questions here? Seeing none, page 13-9, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Dolynny.