Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the Minister for his opening comments. I’d like to start, as he essentially did here, with the energy programs. I’m very disappointed, obviously, in the decrease. We established $1.7 million last year. What this government wants, and I think it’s spoken clearly on, is increasing spending in energy initiatives. I suppose I have to make it clear that I’m not talking about subsidies on fossil fuel, which is where we seem to be putting literally hundreds of millions of dollars. When I add it all up, it’s that sort of number. It’s pretty startling. So I’m very disappointed on that front and, again, I know we will get into some details on that.

I want to note the challenge, recognize the challenge, for preparing for funding for fires. It’s totally unpredictable. We do know, though, that with climate change, the fire characteristics are changing and the costs are changing. Here, we didn’t have so much as big or numerous fires as very expensive fires. That’s the sort of characteristic that is predicted to become more and more problematic. As our land dries out, we’re already sort of a remnant of glaciation, and our land is drying out in geological time. But now with

climate change, that is being accelerated and will be expressed most prominently in the area of forest fires. So I recognize that’s a real challenge. I know that there has been a lot of thinking that has taken into consideration climate change in the forestry strategy. So it will be interesting hearing how that is impacting our programs.

I am wondering if there’s a budget for implementing solar energy. I haven’t seen it. It must be there somewhere, but we have a new Solar Strategy. I think it’s a good one, a very progressive one and will be challenging to implement, but it will certainly take a dedicated budget.

I’d be very interested in the Minister’s thoughts in terms of protecting territorial waters, improving environmental stewardship and this sort of thing, given the present climate that we’ve got and the decimation of our environmental protection regime. I know the hope is we’re going to complete devolution and get resources to do that. I guess it’s not too early to start thinking about how. What is our strategy in putting together a recovery program and planning for the budget that it will, very obviously, take.

The recent conversation, I think we need to start recognizing that MVRMA, for example, if and when we take it over, it’s well known that it’s been underfunded from the start. I know the Minister is aware of that and many reviews have pointed to that. I would say, people in the Northwest Territories want that addressed. So what are we doing right now to get ready for that eventuality?

I have some concerns about the expansion of community-based water monitoring programs; not the community-based aspect of that, obviously. But we have aggressively expanded our water dollars. We’ve created a land and water department, I believe, division. I believe the last time I asked, something like 85 percent was being spent on the water, and here we are increasing it again and these are federal responsibilities. They’re not being carried out by the federal government, so I’m very happy to see us participating in this.

But I do, at the same time, hear the Minister talking about austerity and living within our means and so on. I am frequently faced with the impression that it’s within the Minister’s means rather than our means. So I would appreciate some detail there on what’s going on with that.

With barren ground caribou, we’re still way behind on that front. Well before I got into politics I was working in the area of environment and wildlife, and I saw a request for proposals – it crossed my desk – to design a Bathurst Caribou Management Plan. I don’t know how many years ago that was, but that was a long time ago and we still don’t have one. So we’re really behind the eight ball on that. We’ve got to get going on that. There are obvious problems. So I’m looking for the Minister to show where there

are obviously and clearly surpluses, that we will be providing all users with access to caribou now. I think it was very irresponsible that…(inaudible)…so I’d like some expression of how that’s going to be done in the near future.

Participation in the environmental assessment process, again that’s going to be challenging since there’s not a lot of processes left to be participating in. So we need to be considering that in our long-term planning.

We’ve talked about electronic waste programs implementation and so on. I’m looking forward to that, and I wouldn’t mind some details on that, or we can leave that to the detail. I’ll leave that to the Minister’s discretion.

That’s it for general comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.