Thank you. Page 13-29, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, land and water, operations expenditure summary, $4.827 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question on this page, the land and water program, we’re at about pushing $4 million and I’m wondering how much of this is land and how much of this is water expenditures.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this juncture the majority, over $3 million, is water.

I’m wondering what is the land component of this figure.

I have to ask the Member for clarification. Is he asking in terms of what’s left of the money or in terms of what type of work we do in relation to the land?

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley, if you could provide a bit more clarity in your next question.

Yes, sorry, Mr. Chairman. I was referring to the programs. What land programs are in this division and receiving some of the funding, albeit a small proportion? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Campbell.

That’s fine, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that information.

Activity summary, land and water, operations expenditure summary, $4.827 million. Does committee agree?

Page 13-30, activity summary, land and water, grants and contributions, contributions, total contributions, $40,000.

Page 13-31, information item, land and water, active positions. Any questions? Being none, page 13-32, information item, lease commitments, infrastructure.

Any questions? Being none, page 13-33, information item, Environment Fund. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee was concerned at one point and, in fact, passed a motion in the House during the 16

th Assembly, on

the Milk Container Program. It seemed a little bit against our general goals. We want people to be healthy and our children to grow up healthy, and probably the single most important factor nutritionally is milk or an equivalent, so that we didn’t want the extra payment for a deposit to be additional to the cost of milk and we had proposed in the motion, which was passed in the House, that that down payment be returned, but we agreed with the idea to have a deposit so that we would get those containers recycled.

I think that there is still an interest in that and I’m wondering if the department has given more thought to how we can return that deposit to people somehow or implement the mechanism, I guess, might be more accurate, that was recommended in that motion. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, we haven’t done a lot more work on returning that particular amount of money. What we have done is put our minds to trying to expand this whole fund and recycling effort to now include electronic or e-waste. That was where we’ve been trying to focus our attention with the resources we have available. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s response there. Again, I hope that at some point in time there will be somebody who could turn their attention to that a little bit and see if we can’t be a little better to our people in terms of getting them to drink milk and not expect higher costs. I still think that’s an interest of the House.

On the other hand, I really do support the moving into the e-waste side. I’ll just note we now have an accumulated surplus, apparently, of $1.2 million in this area, so it’s not a question of affordability, which I think was one of the aspects that the Minister had raised originally. With that sort of accumulation, I think there is room and resources to entertain that motion.

On the e-waste side, I’m very pleased to see that moving forward. It’s something we’ve asked for years. I know the Minister has aimed to do that for years, so it would be great to see that actually happening this year on the ground. I’m very supportive of that and I know the public is too. I did participate in the survey on what electronics we have accumulated in our household and I hope other people in the public did participate in that survey too. Can we expect that there would be

some income at all resulting from a wholesale recycling of electronic waste? Thank you.

We’ve been looking at this and it’s always been my opinion, unsubstantiated by necessarily an expensive study, but that in dealing with e-waste that we would be much better off to work out an arrangement with a large jurisdiction like Alberta, in particular, or in our case Edmonton, where they have the facilities set up and we would make arrangements to process our e-waste through their infrastructure as opposed to us trying to set up a similar kind of service. We’re trying to sort out what’s the best way. I don’t necessarily see it at this point, once again not having seen the final report, as a revenue generator. It will be something that will generate us savings if you do full cost accounting and the amount of waste that won’t go into our landfills and the savings that that would entail for starters. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s remarks on that. Just to confirm, I do indeed try and do full cost accounting, so I appreciate the Minister’s remarks there. Generally, I think it’s been a very successful program, the Waste Reduction and Recovery Act, and I support its further implementation. I am very happy to see this going ahead. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. More of a question; a valid one. Again, Members, we’re on page 13-33, information item, Environment Fund. Any questions? Being none, a combination of pages here, Members, 13-34, 13-35, 13-36, 13-37, 13-38 and 13-39, information item, work performed on behalf of others, $6.203 million. Any questions? Being none, this concludes the Department of ENR. Unfortunately, we have a deferral on 13-17, so the committee will be returning back.

I’d like to thank the Minister and his delegation, Mr. Campbell and Ms. Magrum. We’ll be returning to the House. At this time, I’d like the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses out of the House.

Committee members, we’ll just take a very brief recess. Thank you.

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