Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s been since 2007 that there’s been a fire crew there. So yes, we will have our folks and the deputy will arrange to make sure there are

discussions with Tsiigehtchic about the upcoming fire season. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Continuing on with general comments, I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t have a whole lot to add in terms of what other Members had said yesterday, but just a couple of comments.

I’m really glad to see the investment in the traditional economy programs. I know that some of our residents who used to work in some industries that used to be up and running and don’t have that opportunity anymore because the economy is pretty slow have looked at going into the traditional economy, whether it’s harvesting or trapping, and even though the investment is there, I’m not too sure how much of it is new dollars. I won’t get into the detail as we’ll get into that later. But of this $2.3 million, is that new dollars on top of what was allocated last year? Are these new dollars going into that program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is money that is just being transferred over from ITI that was previously administered through that department and flowed into ENR. So it’s not new money. Thank you.

Thank you. I know I’ve asked questions in the House at one time or another about the need to invest more into our traditional economy and into our harvesters throughout the Northwest Territories, especially up in some of the regions where we did have some development going on and possibly some work that has been going on in terms of having some of the animals migrate in different routes than they used to. In some cases our hunters and trappers have to travel further now to get either fur or to get the animals that they’re hunting. That needs to be addressed.

We do forced growth in a lot of programs and services. I’m not sure this one has seen any increase in that area. I’m just wondering if the Minister has taken that into consideration, considering that our harvesters are travelling a lot more, which means a lot more food and a lot more money for gas. In some cases, chatting with some of the guys back home, they say it costs a lot of money to go out on a day or two hunt, and if you get skunked and get nothing, that’s money that’s lost. Whether or not that’s taken into consideration, and if we can start to see some increases in this area considering that other areas of our economy are not even active the way they used to be in terms of they used to employ some of these local residents. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is an important part of the economy, as the Member

points out, that and the traditional knowledge. We’re committed to carrying on the good work that was done when the funding flowed through ITI. I’ll ask the deputy to just give a bit of a rundown on the various programs we do have that we’ve been administering now for some time both in terms of hunters and trappers assistance, Western Harvesters Fund, community harvester assistance and Take a Kid Trapping and such, with your agreement, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Moses.

I appreciate the response. I think that’s something that really seriously needs to be looked at in terms of increasing the incentives and the grants to our harvesters because they are spending a lot of money and I’m not sure what their return on investment is for going out on the land.

I just want to speak to this Energy Efficiency Incentive Program. I know we talked in the House about that Net Metering Program kind of developed about a year ago today I guess. For businesses, the Net Metering Program is limited at five kilowatts and it’s not feasible for some businesses to invest in their own infrastructure and put that back into the grid. I guess the question is it’s not an incentive for our businesses who want to go that route with the Net Metering Program. So I’m just making a suggestion here on whether the department would look at this and change some of their policies under the Energy Efficiency Incentive Program and maybe changing the policy to give that incentive to

business owners who want to be more energy efficient, whether it’s solar panels, is one that comes to mind, and whether this policy has been reviewed and whether it needs more funding.

What I’ve been hearing is businesses want to get into that area of cost savings and put what they produce in terms of energy efficiencies back into the grid, but there’s no incentive for them with the limit that we have. If there’s no incentive and the limit is not going to change in net metering, can we provide an incentive under the Energy Efficiency Incentive Program to provide a better, bigger subsidy to these businesses?

In some regions, like my region of Inuvik, is the high cost of heating these buildings because of the LNG when they were running on natural gas before. Now they’re having a hard time just maintaining their, I guess, profits, and they’re not really making a profit in terms of the business that they were doing before, alongside with the economy slowing down. I want to get the Minister’s perspective on it.

Will the program be reviewed, the policy reviewed, and whether or not more funding can go into them and a bigger subsidy for some of our small and even big businesses that want to do this energy efficiency but the net metering isn’t allowing them to do that?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have had a change to that five kilowatt. The Power Corp has gone to the Public Utilities Board to eliminate the standby charge for solar photovoltaic systems over five kilowatts in size, allowing the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation to proceed with up to 75 kilowatts of solar installations in five diesel communities over the next two years.

One of the other things that’s happened, as it was announced earlier in the House, we’ve consolidated our energy functions now into Public Works and Services, and they’re now going to be looking after those types of issues and building on a lot of the skill and expertise that they’ve developed in the installation experience. Those kinds of questions are very legitimate questions. A lot of the systems, we’ve designed them, so if there’s a need to have a discussion about amending or fixing, then we have processes to do that. But there’s nothing in any of these processes that are carved in stone. We want to be as supportive as possible. Public Works and Minister Beaulieu will be coming to the table here, I believe, in the not-too-distant future and have that discussion. But we have heard the concerns about the five kilowatt cap.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Continuing on with general comments, I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a few general comments for this department. Obviously, I think almost everybody has spoken of the disastrous fire season and we talked about in the past and business plans and stuff like that about the base, and I guess it’s the cost of fire suppression is going to be the cost, I guess. Has there been any consideration in this budget to up that base of fire suppression? We know over a period of time there have been expenditures, and obviously last year was an exceptional year. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to set that as the benchmark, but is the department looking at increasing its base for fire suppression over the next little while? I think we talked about a three or a five or even a 10 year running average of what we did for fire suppression and going from that basis for future years to budgeting suppression so that we actually have a closer to an average amount, obviously, maybe excluding some of the exceptional years like last year. I would like to hear what the department has to say about our base for fire suppression.

I’d like to know what this department’s involvement has been with the fracking regulations and where we are going forward with regulations on fracking. Obviously, I would think this department would be highly involved as far as a baseline study to finding out what areas where we may potentially be doing fracking. Let’s say in the Sahtu area, getting involved in the baseline study. We need to have that baseline to know, going forward, what the effects of any activity would be. We know that some of the oils and stuff like that in the Sahtu are naturally occurring right now, so obviously we’d want to know what the base is before industry gets in there too far and gets too involved, obviously, for comparison.

Like my colleague, obviously, the energy that was there before, I’m not sure if everything has been transferred over to Public Works and Services for energy. Obviously, the funding of the Arctic Energy Alliance has been very effective. I think since we’ve gone to the Energy Charrette, one of the big questions there and discussions was about efficiencies and people taking action to make their homes and their appliances more efficient and trying to alleviate cost of living that way. I’m not sure if everything is transferred over there, going from some history notes that we had at business plans, but some of them may be dated now that we’ve transferred some of that to Public Works and Services. Again, if there’s any of that stuff still in ENR.

Obviously another project of interest is biomass, where we are going forward with biomass. The forest industry, from my understanding, we finally actually have maybe an opportunity to actually have a forestry industry that will require a forest management team there in place. That opportunity

is obviously very exciting for the South Slave. I’m looking forward to maybe seeing what the department is doing to linking that opportunity with some of, maybe, the fire suppression as far as smart communities. I know the department is going around to communities right now and talking about how to make your communities fire smart, and maybe there’s an opportunity to do some of that forestation in communities and maybe tie it in with our biomass potential project.

I know we are close to signing some of the transboundary water agreements and if the department could just give me a little bit of an update where we stand. I think we’ve just about dotted all the i’s and crossed the t’s with Alberta. I’m not sure where we’re at with BC and Saskatchewan, so if I could get a little bit of that information, it would be very interesting.

I guess we’re dealing with operations, but the whole budget has capital included in it, and I guess I am concerned that we didn’t evaluate that much more the 802 versus 215 units and even the option of privatizing some of the fire suppression. I’m still getting reports in of some of the assessment of the 802s, concerns with them, incident reports, capabilities for fire suppression in heavy, dense areas. I know we’ve used some of them lately, but I still continue to get some reports from other jurisdictions that they’re finding them to be ineffective in some areas, so obviously a concern in an area of the Northwest Territories especially after the fire suppression system that we just had. I think those are most of my comments.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. We’ll go to Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The fire suppression budget for this year, the base budget remains as it’s laid out in the main estimates. We are looking at next year probably a five-year average approach that would see a change, especially if one of the five years includes the $60 million. We’ll see what this fire season brings. The assurance to the people of the Northwest Territories, of course, is that we will, as a government and as a Legislature, put the resources that we need to to protect the homes, people and the safety and property values that we hold dear in the Northwest Territories. We will put the funds there to make sure that we do the job necessary. We will be doing that again, as we do just about every year, through special warrants when the need arises or as the need arises.

The fracking regulations, ENR worked very, very closely for the last couple of years with ITI. ITI and Minister Ramsay have that file. They are moving forward with the regulatory update and I think we’ll find that as we move forward with that, that the best practices will be clearly evident. We have been and continue to be involved. We work with all the other

involved departments, with ITI, along with ENR, and I think, Lands and such, so that we are there at that table.

Energy programs, rebate programs, incentive programs are part of what’s been moved to Public Works and Services. We have a continued role to play on the supply side of the biomass initiative where we’re working with communities on their forest management agreements. We’re playing a role with not only the communities but the proponent for the Aurora Wood Pellets, in this case, trying to navigate through the challenges of starting up a brand new process. We know that there are interested communities, as well, that are watching, and Kakisa and Jean Marie River are too.

As we look at the areas and the forest management agreements and inventory that are there, the Member mentioned the possibility of fire smarting being integrated into this biomass industry. If possible, I think that’s not out of the realm of possibility. I know in Fort Smith, for example, the community and the government worked to make the whole area around the airport right by town a wood harvesting area for regular wood burners and folks that use wood, and it’s been a great boon for everybody. You’re five minutes away from your wood supply and it’s definitely helped fire smarting the community. So I think those kind of options are there to be looked at.

Transboundary updates. We have, for all intents and purposes, concluded the Alberta agreement and we’re working on the logistics, trying to nail down the signing date and time with Alberta. BC, we expect within the next few days to conclude the final discussions on the last i to be dotted and t to be crossed. Saskatchewan, we are confident that, if all goes well in April, before the May/June session we may have an agreement with Saskatchewan, as well. As we sit here today, the folks are over in the Yukon meeting with the Yukon officials in, I believe, Whitehorse, in terms of modernizing, updating the only bilateral agreement that exists, and that’s the one with the Yukon.

In regards to the 802s, the decision was made. We’re moving forward with the purchase of the 802s as we’ve laid out in the plan. We’re in the queue. In the meantime we will continue to use the 215s. One of the big issues, of course, has been affordability, quality, fire protection and the air force that will give us that capacity at a level that is affordable within our fiscal parameters. Anyways, that decision has been made and we’re moving on the purchase of the eight 802s. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. As we continue with general comments, I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m going to first of all say to the Minister and the staff that there were a lot of really concerned people last year

because of the fires that happened in the south part of the Northwest Territories and the situation that called for additional dollars and resources to be used in the North to fight the fires.

So, my first point and my first comment is the ability of having well-qualified firefighters prepared and ready for any situation that might be in a similar situation as last year. I want to ask the Minister if he’s looking at the firefighters training program this year. It’s quiet now, and we can have some qualified, certified, trained firefighters using the Aurora College campus as having firefighters training while it’s really cold outside. Do you know what I mean? So, you know, you have some qualified people in the community ready to go when they’re needed and called upon. I think we can use, through some agreement with Education, Culture and Employment, people who are on income support can go to these, you know, and learn. That’s what we want to do. We want to get them off income support, and maybe some of them want to, and maybe learn further as they learn about firefighter training. That’s something I wanted to mention to the Minister.

The other one, Mr. Chair, I wanted to mention to the Minister, also I heard it from the Minister of ITI, is that the Sahtu and the other communities have a really strong fur trapping program and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Ramsay has mentioned that the Asian countries are really keen on the northern furs and our people are also very keen on what the outside people are saying. I wanted to look at a program in the communities as an out-of-the-box concept as maybe implementing a trappers certificate program in the Northwest Territories. I know they do that in Saskatchewan and other areas. They could take a program and that may have many benefits to attending this program and you have whole bunch of good things that could happen with this trapper certificate program. You would be a certified trapper and I think that might be something that is worthwhile to look at again. Again, it’s a concept that could do a lot of good things for our people in the communities. You know, people can be a certified trapper with many benefits. So that’s something I want to ask the Minister to look at.

The point I want to make, also, is that especially in the Sahtu there’s a lot of young men and women who like to hunt. A lot of families take their children out to a spring hunt. Last year I understand close to 400 people were out during the spring hunt, the ceremonial hunt, and even during the winter seasons here. I want to ask if the department would be willing to look at a gun safety program in the schools as part of that safety for the young ones.

I do want to raise a couple of concerns I have with the waste management, especially – and it might be down on the list of waste management recyclables – the old vehicles we have in our

dumps right now. I think that’s a good program, a long-term program. I think the Minister mentioned something about looking at this in the future and that was a couple of years ago, so this is now the future. So I want to see if there’s still an appetite to look at how to get rid of these old vehicles that are sitting in our dumps through a program. So that’s something that I want to ask the Minister about in my comments.

Mr. Chair, I wanted ask the Minister in regards to the trapping program for the kids. I just talked with an elder outside, from Deline, and he said that it’s good to have education within the schools and that, but you also need to have a strong educational program on the culture and on the land and using our own language in that program. I know kids get really excited when they go on these one or two day on-the-land programs, but it’s not long enough. They really get excited when an elder goes out with them and starts teaching about the land. I know it requires some coordination and some work from other departments, so I want to raise this with the Minister.

I wanted to raise some more concerns from the Sahtu leadership, specifically from the Renewable Resources Board they had on caribou, but I don’t have the information in front of me so I won’t be able to say very much. But the Sahtu Renewable Resources Board had some concerns on the caribou issue. I just want to let the Minister know that once I get the information, I will raise it with him on this one here.

I want to say to the Minister and his staff to continue to work hard on the transboundary agreements that we have with the other provincial governments. I’d certainly like to see some progress in that area.

They have really good staff up in our region. They work well with the people and the community. I noticed that when one of our ENR personnel has to go to Colville Lake and they have to either drive or fly to buy furs… Again, I’m going to make another request to see if we can put some type of personnel in Colville Lake, either a patrol person or someone who can look after the furs, because a staff member has to leave Norman Wells and has to drive. Do you know how long it takes to get to Colville Lake? Eight hours by truck. Maybe they need to look at adding an ROI in there because it’s valuable time taken away from the regional office. I just ask if that can be considered to monitor other issues and to help the community.

I want to leave it at that, Mr. Chair. I want to say that to the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the firefighting issue, we

started training Northerners very seriously last year, so we have at least two levels. We have an elite level trained to the national standard that can be exported if they have capacity as part of our agreement with all the provinces and territories. So if they need to go to Alberta or any other province, they can go just as they ship firefighters up here. They are trained to the national standard, the elite firefighting contingent. Then we have emergency firefighters and firefighters trained not quite to the same stringent standard but can still successfully operate in the environment in the Northwest Territories.

I’m going to the deputy to talk to a whole host of very specific issues here about the trapper training and the gun safety and your concerns about the Take a Kid Trapping Program and more evidence in our curriculum and our schools. When you are ready to talk about the Renewable Resources Board – I am assuming it’s the Bluenose-East – we’d be happy to have that discussion.

In the life of this government, we expect to be concluding just about all the transboundary agreements we had on our to-do list, which will be a huge, huge accomplishment. We are prepared to sit down with the folks in Colville Lake to talk about your suggestion of a renewable resources officer I even on a part-time basis to see what needs to be done not only with furs but other monitoring issues. Mr. Chairman, with your agreement, I would ask the deputy to speak to some of the specifics, fur trapping certification, issues that Mr. Yakeleya raised. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell.