Thanks to Mr. Williams. Where is the money for this environmental liability work? Where does it show up in the budget?

Thanks for the explanation. It seems a little strange that the department is required to do work and doesn’t have any funding for it. Is this something that is minimal to no cost, or you’re overfunded and we don’t need to give you money for liability assessments? It just seems strange to me that if there’s work that the department has to do that there’s not an amount earmarked in the budget. Can I get a guesstimate of how much might be spent on environmental assessments in any one year?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Schauerte.

Thank you, Mr. Schauerte. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last question here. Can I ask the department, over time we’re going to get more and more closed sites and sites that need to be remediated, so is it the intention of the department to put money into their budget to fund environmental liability assessments?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Williams.

Thank you, deputy minister. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That was my last question, but I have to comment that if we think that remediating the environmental liabilities sites is important, then I would urge the department to request funding to make sure it gets done.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We’ll allow the Minister a final comment. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We appreciate that support.

As the work picks up, there will be opportunities where we will have to come forward to request more money to deal with all the work that we are doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we are on page 355. Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just briefly, I know in the past it was a huge issue of solid waste but also waste soil and other materials like this in all the communities in the Beaufort-Delta. I know that the communities, at one point, were looking at cost-effective ways to find a way, whether they all pitch in, to bring the costs down to get a lot of this waste soil and everything out of the communities. I know in some communities we have anywhere from 50 to 100 forty-five-gallon barrels of waste oil and other materials like this. If we don’t do anything with this, eventually it is going to leak through the barrels that they’re in now. I think now is the time to start preparing and getting these materials out of our territory and into the proper storage in the South. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Member is absolutely correct. If the communities can work together to try and find good options for disposing of their waste oil and whatever else they may have. You go to a number of communities and you see a number of old trucks that are down at the dump. If they can come up with a way and cost share that, I think that would go a long way and get rid of a lot of their old oil, old vehicles and old tires. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Continuing with questions on community operations, I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just wondering, under the drinking water quality in the Northwest Territories initiative and management by MACA, who is responsible for this particular area. Maybe you could describe on how they manage and monitor the fluoridation of the water and at what levels they monitor it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. For that we will go to Mr. Williams.

I actually support the principle of fluoridation so it’s not a question of mine, but it is driven by a constituent concern, and I think it comes up every couple of years, so it’s always good to remind ourselves of this. Fluoridation is known as a potential carcinogenic element that we are putting into our water, but that said, it’s not as if we don’t know that. I guess in some ways, how do we communicate its risks and gains? I know the dental industry strongly supports that, fluoridation in our water, and that is part of the reason why I certainly support it. But that said, how do we communicate the risks to ensure that our citizens are informed? Thank you.