Seeing none, thank you, committee. Page 101, environment, operations

expenditure summary, $4.539 million. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I have a number of questions on this page. I note the intent of this division is to prevent and reduce the impact of human activities with a conservation goal. Yet, when I read about the climate change program section, there’s not a word about prevention in there, there’s not a word about forecasting the impacts of climate change and providing expert advice to our government on the likely costs and impacts of that. I’ll use, for an example, forestry. We heard a forestry expert interviewed this morning on CBC, and he noted that the average area burned… I can’t remember; I didn’t catch what geographic area it was in, whether it was Canada’s or North America’s increase by 100 percent since the ‘70s and that’s expected to double again over the next number of years.

Again, just looking ahead to the forestry section, I don’t see that sort of awareness and planning. I wonder if the Minister has any thoughts about the need for a more proactive role. Prevention, first of all, has to be part of our gig on climate change, but also I say there’s a real need throughout government for expert advice, which I believe would come from this division and this section specifically. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree that we’re going to be challenged more and more to try to anticipate the plan for the future. Prevention, as the Member indicates, is one thing; mitigation and adaptation are going to be the other two. So this particular division has a role to play, but if we’re going to link all the pieces not only in this department but other departments that have that prognostication function and as we move through Managing This Land and other committees that we have, that type of work and the budgeting side as well as we project our fire costs, for example, and costs that we’re going to need to just try to stay ahead and deal with some of these extreme weather events are going to be a challenge. I agree that we are going to be put upon more and more to try to anticipate more accurately. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s thoughts on that. Right now we’re dealing with things sort of in an ad hoc way, and I think it would be great to see a very defined role which recognizes the things that the Minister has mentioned.

I wonder if the Minister would commit to getting that sort of thing into the transition document we’re contemplating or into the policy of his department if that’s more appropriate. I realize he’s not the only one that would be doing that but it needs

leadership. I appreciate the leadership he’s provided on water. I’m not seeing the same thing on climate change, and as a result, I think we’re paying greater costs and perhaps not doing the prevention activity we might otherwise do on a more progressive basis. I’m looking for that sort of commitment if the Minister is there.

I appreciate the Member’s comment. I think if you look at all the things we’re doing as a government, we’re doing, I think, a very significant amount of work as it pertains to climate change. However, I take the Member’s point and we would look to the advice, as we move towards transition, to the Member, to committee as to their suggestions as to things that should be flagged. We will look at this to make sure there is a more fulsome reflection of the things we are doing. We are fully committed to doing a whole host of things as a government and ENR in terms of the climate change, the greenhouse gas emissions, the renewal of the strategy, all the things we’re doing with alternate energy, construction standards and those types of things, but post-division there are a lot of things more to do, and I agree with the Member that we should probably be looking at flagging those right from making sure we do the review of fees to what kind of expectations we’re going to have with use of alternate energies not only as a government but in industry and other areas. Those are all things that need to be dealt with, so I’ll make that commitment.

Thanks to the Minister for those comments and the commitment.

My last thing was just on the contaminated sites side of things. I recognize the statement that these liabilities increase and decrease based on the remediation of contaminated sites and the booking of new contaminated sites, and being a guy that’s always looking at prevention whenever I can, I’d say the biggest factor is the success or failure of preventing the development of new sites. I’m sure that’s part of the department’s overall goal, but again, other sections may deal with the prevention side. I just want to make sure that that loop is closed and managed for prevention as opposed to just managing it once it happens.

Once again, it’s a point that I would not disagree with the Member that the idea would be that yes, we have a long backlog of contaminated sites that need to be remediated and on a go forward basis we want to design our processes to avoid the creation of any new ongoing costs that are going to weigh us down, which is why we have invested the money we have in terms of securities and managing all those arrangements and making sure that as we do the project planning and assessment that there are the proper counterbalances in there to accommodate

and prevent the type of contaminated sites by being created.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Committee, we’re on page 101, environment, operations expenditure summary, $4.539 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 102, environment, grants, contributions and transfers, total contributions, $463,000. Does committee agree?

Page 103, environment, active positions, information item. Any questions?

Thank you. Page 105, forest management, operations expenditure summary, $32.632 million. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, we’ve had some major issues in this activity in the current year and the forecasts are for at least a possibility of similar-scale challenges in the coming year for which this is the budget. I recognize that the budget is not adjusted; in fact, it’s even down considerably from a couple years ago. How is the government handling this? Are we going to again borrow dollars or plan on saving dollars somewhere else if we do have another $60 million forest fire year?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The intent would be to use special warrants and short-term borrowing.

Obviously, there’s a lot of planning and whatnot, preparation that takes place as things develop, and the short-term borrowing and warrants. Would that still cover off the cost of those sorts of expenditures?

The planning work is going on and has been going on now since the end of the fire season. We will have a compilation of all the feedback and responses and recommendations on a go forward basis by the end of March. That work is being done and funded through the forest division and the staff we have on our payroll. With an internal exercise, as well, we’ve been going out to the regions. I’d ask the deputy if he would want to add a bit more information about the work that’s been in done in anticipation of wrapping up last year and lessons learned for next year.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Bromley.