Page 17, Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures,

wildlife, special warrants, not previously authorized, $4.451 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we heard today in the House with the Minister’s statement, severe loss, up to 50 percent of this herd, due to anthrax. This is the Mackenzie Bison Herd, one of the few herds of this threatened species, so this is a very serious loss. I’m wondering, just so that we’re learning along the way and making sure we are taking advantage of any opportunities to us, I wanted to ask, is there such thing as an inoculation program for anthrax that we might consider taking advantage of to help strengthen the herd and also help the population recovery. Thank you.

I understand, having talked to some of the biologists and such, that anthrax is a treatable condition if you capture it in time, but there’s no inoculation that I’m aware of. In cases with wild roaming herds, we are responding late in the day after we, through our aerial surveys in this case, happened to find some dead bison that turned out to have anthrax, so we were playing catch-up the whole summer trying to identify the outbreak in the animals after the outbreak had already occurred. The short answer would be, no, I don’t believe there’s an inoculation for anthrax.

I do realize the current situation and how that works and why we’re always behind. I guess I would just encourage the Minister to – obviously prevention would be much better – stay on top of any opportunities there.

My second question is, I know it’s a learning path on how to deal with these carcasses in an effective way. People, I think, have been amazed at the degree of this infection, this epidemic, and how it’s spread over quite a large area. Although, I guess, it was pretty defined in some areas as well. But, obviously, 50 percent of the herd; that says something.

In terms of the treatment of the carcasses, both in terms of costs which we’re dealing with today, and in terms of effectiveness which is an issue with respect to the spreading of the disease directly related to our costs, what have we learned this year, and will we be able to be more cost effective in the future as a result of our lessons this year?

In my discussions with one of our very skilled veterinarians that we have in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources when I was on-site doing a tour, it was pointed out to me that on almost every site they were tracking the type of fuel mixtures that they used. They tried some with dry wood and green wood and no coal, some with coal, some with coal and green wood. They tried just tarping some to see how natural decomposition would work in the heat. They were going to go back

in the fall and test all the burn sites with all these carefully identified and catalogued burn sites to check the spore count to see the degree of success in eliminating the anthrax spores, and the lower the number, of course, the better.

We’ve had some discussion, as well, and some suggestions from the folks on the ground that work, really, like Trojans, in the incredible heat of summer disposing of the carcasses, suggestions similar to the suggestion you made, Mr. Chairman, for future outbreaks, coming up with a better way to dispose of carcasses that would see us possibly coming up with basically a big lid that you could put over a carcass once it’s burning, to capture all the heat and have improved incineration of the carcass and destruction of the anthrax spores. We’re looking at that as well.

From what I understand, as well, talking to the veterinarian, that this is a scientific issue of great concern across the land, so there’s going to be papers written on this. There will be a comparison with other scientists, other jurisdictions as they track what they do. This is an evolving science.

My final comment would be, I was told that in the old days they used to think it was best to dig a pit, put the animals in and dump in quick lime and that would dispose of the carcasses. Then they found out over time that in fact the spores thrive on the calcium and the quick lime ingredients. They went back to check some of these other sites where they had done that and there were literally cauldrons of anthrax spores as opposed to a site with no spores left. We’ve learned a lot from that case and we’re going to learn a lot from this one as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.

That’s all I had. One last request, I guess. I want to thank the Minister for those comments, once again, and just ask if he would bring forward a report, a briefing on lessons learned, say by this spring or winter session, and how we’re better prepared to handle things when the next outbreak occurs. Mahsi.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, wildlife, special warrants, $4.451 million.

Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, wildlife, not previously authorized, $172,000.

Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, land and water, not previously authorized, $21,000.

Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, total department, special warrants, $18.242 million.

Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, negative $245,000.

Does committee agree that consideration of Tabled Document 84-17(3), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2012-2013, is concluded?

Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. We will wait for the motion to be circulated. The motion is in order. To the motion.