Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have 29 fire crews, combination of contract and our own crews across the North, understandably all in the boreal forest area. So we do have a significant commitment in employing local folks in the regions and communities to fight fires. Oftentimes, if there’s a big fire season like there was last year in the Deh Cho, we import all the folks we can find from other regions. In some cases we even have to import them from outside the territory if we are really pressed, as we were last summer where there was a flare-up, as well, in the South Slave. We were hard at it with all our crews. It varies.

The issue of Shell Lake, I’m assuming it might even be older than Moose Kerr School.

---Laughter

We do have it on the capital plan in a couple of phases. The critical first step is going to be the warehouse space and then the lab has to be rebuilt so that it meets the new standards as safe and meets all those tests. Subsequent to that would be the replacement of the actual office space itself. Thank you.

For a minute there, I thought they were going to replace both those buildings.

Just on another note, it has to do with forestry as well. Two of the communities, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic, are looking to do some preparation

around the communities in the way of firebreaks. Both communities are in line with the forest and we need to ensure there’s some kind of break in case of a major forest fire.

Would the Minister be willing to work with the communities to ensure that happens? Thank you.

We have an ongoing commitment to work with all the communities in terms of making sure their FireSmart Program is put into effect. In communities, for example, in the early parts of the fire season if fire crews are not busy, they can work on that and they have done that in many communities, help with firebreaks. We have staff that can assist with the design. So, yes, we are prepared to work with communities to see how we can advance those critical initiatives.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Does committee agree we’re completed general comments?

Page 13-7, department summary, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditure summary, $87.528 million. We will return to this once we’ve gone through the pages.

Page 13-8, information item, infrastructure summary. Questions?

Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could the department give a breakdown of the large capital projects for $3.026 million, please?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Ms. Magrum.

Thank you, Ms. Magrum. Mr. Dolynny, I’ll ask you to ask that question again, please.

No problem, Mr. Chair. Page 13-8, infrastructure investment, large capital projects, $3.026 million. The breakdown, please.

Ms. Magrum, right towards the bottom. Ms. Magrum.

I appreciate the breakdown. If I caught some of the information correctly, some of them were studies or plans. Are those subject to capital asset depreciation? Thank you.

You learn something every day here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. We are on page 13-8, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Questions?

Page 3-9, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to follow up on my colleague Mr. Yakeleya’s questions. I see our water use fee is $80,000. That’s incredibly low, given the use of this public resource. As Mr. Yakeleya said, 10 billion litres of water at Norman Wells by Imperial Esso. We know, in fact, that that will be put to shame, in terms of the amount, very quickly by the activity with fracking, which is a very, very intensive water use.

Letting industry use these resources at this rate is an incredible subsidy. It’s an environmental subsidy, but it’s much costlier than some; for example, $15 million in the development strategy is pale compared to this subsidy. It’s more along the lines of the hundreds of millions that we are subsidizing with infrastructure.

The big concern here is that in many cases this is permanent loss with fracking. The water is permanently removed from the ecosystem and stored underground forever or returned in a polluted state to the ecosystem. We know that the North has very limited renewable water.

Will we expect to see some recognition of this, now that we have some authority here, in the water use fees? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve been operating from the premise of we will do devolution and then we will evolve from that point. There are a number of areas across the whole spectrum tied in devolution where we’re going to be looking very carefully. We’ve said the same thing about royalties and taxation, that we’re going to be very careful and measured in anywhere, like the issue the Member raises, are going to be getting attention and we’re going to look at how we do business and are we the right size and how do we carefully change things if we do decide to change things, so I would say yes, we’re going to be looking after, as we evolve, those things will be looked at. Thank you.