Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This particular line item is one that has been funding a lot of the work that we’ve done on caribou, all the surveys, all the work that’s been done across the North for just about all the herds, trying to stay on top of things. It helped fund our involvement in all different regions with all the different co-management boards and in the unsettled claim areas.

After April 1st we’re going to be working very hard internally to see how we can cover this off from within. So it did what it was intended to do, but we haven’t had that money added to the base in ENR, so our challenge is going to be to still do the work that’s required on caribou.

We have different strategies on different herds and we still have work to do on herds like the Bathurst and the final plan on the Bluenose, for example. Thank you.

I agree, a close look is needed because we have clearly been failing miserably on our management of caribou. The herds have continued to plummet with every new report that we get. So I’m not averse to looking at how we’re spending it, but it is disconcerting to hear that sort of thing when we’re clearly failing.

Just on the caribou situation, I don’t think there’s any doubt that cow caribou, the female caribou, the adult female caribou are worth their weight in diamonds or gold or whatever it is that you value, yet in every case where we have established a quota and assigned a ratio of the number of bulls to number of cows, we have failed and vastly exceeded, sometimes by 100 percent, the cow harvest. That is, we’re reducing the reproductive capacity, the recovery capacity of those herds. I know we’re continuing on that and now we’re going to be even more amazing in how we limit the harvest on Bathurst herds by having a mobile …(inaudible)…based on, I don’t know, a dozen or two collars. This is even more magic. So I don’t see the answer yet.

Can the Minister tell me: Will these quotas be shut down? Will the hunt be shut down once the female quota has been reached?

The majority of caribou herds are under pressure not only in the Northwest Territories but we’ve seen that to the east, as well, with the George River and Leaf River herds and some of the herds farther to the west. The one herd that has been doing well, the Porcupine, they have the benefit of, I think, a very, very good management plan that took about seven years to agree to. They think the Bluenose-East plan is going to hopefully hit that standard as well. The Bathurst Management Plan is still somewhere in the future. Unfortunately, the complex area, unsettled claims combined with some settled claims has made it very problematic, but it’s a challenge for us. The Bathurst mobile zone, we believe, is a good solution in terms of protecting the remnants of the Bathurst herd, and that’s done based on the collars that we have, over a dozen collars, and regular flights to track where the herd is located.

When it comes to the Bluenose, there has been a ratio, in terms of bulls and cows. I fully appreciate and agree with the Member that cow caribou are very, very critical and we still have a penchant in the Northwest Territories for hunting cows. We can show very clearly in 1986 when the Bathurst was about 440,000 animals. At the same time as they put the road north into the range of the Bathurst, the numbers started to drop. So today we have about 15,000 animals. We’ve dropped over 400,000, 425,000 animals and we were harvesting roughly 15,000 animals a year. The majority of that, by far and away, at the most there was probably 3,000 at the absolute best time for resident and commercial harvest, the rest was the Aboriginal harvest and a lot of them were cows.

It has put enormous pressure on the herd and it has taken 28 years to get to this point. We’ve had some restrictions in effect for five years, and I’ve heard many comments by folks saying, “It’s been five years. How come there’s no recovery yet?” It’s because of the extent of the pressure on the herds. It’s taken 28 years to get down to 15,000 and it’s probably going to take that long to recover.

On the Bluenose-East side, we’re looking at allocation. I’ll get the deputy to speak to the bull-cow ratio. We’re pushing and have monitors out and staff out to make sure, because we’ve pretty well hit the cow harvesting number. The pressure now is on everybody to move on to the bulls with the tags that we have left, but I’ll ask the deputy to speak in more detail on that particular issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell, please.

Thank you, Deputy Minister Campbell. Time is expired, but are there any other Members who want to speak on wildlife? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for that response, Deputy Minister. That was interesting information on the mobile zones. Sounds like a unique opportunity there.

We are, again, just to repeat, we’ve clearly failed with caribou management and I can guarantee as a biologist and a keen observer that we will fail with the Bluenose-East herd unless this government gets up the gumption to close the season when the cow harvest is filled because the cow harvest will not stop. If the cow harvest has been filled, then we know that many more cows have been killed than the department is aware of. How many, that’s an unknown.

We also don’t know, the Minister mentioned 15,000; we have no data from back in those days. We completely chose to not measure harvest and I can see going back and looking at the rate of decline we can estimate that and I appreciate that work, but again, here we are.

So I’ll leave it at that. I haven’t heard that the department is closing the season on the cow harvest as yet, and if we don’t do that we will continue to fail and a few people will enjoy their caribou meat at the cost of yet more generations of future people suffering the loss. Just a comment.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll treat it as a comment. Thank you very much. Committee, we’re on page 113, wildlife, operations expenditure summary, $15.096 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 114, wildlife, grants, contributions and transfers, total contributions, $634,000. Does committee agree?

Page 115, wildlife, active positions, information item. Any questions?

Seeing none. Thank you. Page 116, lease commitments, information item. Any questions?

Seeing none. Page 117, Environment Fund, information item. Any questions? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could I just get an update on the plans for the electronics recycling? I have to smile because I ask this every year, as the Minister knows, and I keep hearing positive responses, but no action on the ground. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll get the deputy to respond. We do have five operational pilots that I think are proving out the case, but I’ll ask the deputy to expand further on that. Thank you.

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

Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That indeed sounds positive and I’d be curious to learn more about that. Maybe there will be an opportunity.

Now, I see our opening balance on the fund is continuing to increase or at least remaining stable. Are there any plans? Is that part of the equation here on getting this electronics recycling going? Are there plans for those dollars or is that the amount we want to continue to maintain in the fund? Thank you.