Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the things that we're looking at doing in terms of the ongoing accounting of all the different activities that we're doing on this file is ensuring that we're having a quarterly conversation at the end, so we're having a normal accounting on all the different items that are going on.

I can assure the committee that we are line in step with the energy plan and the carbon strategy. We've been working together. Our departments work very much in lock and step. When we look at the climate change action plan, really, goal number one is from the energy plan; it is improving and tracking and monitoring GHG emissions. That is one of the goals of the energy plan. We look at having that ongoing discussion about all the different activities, but we're going to be doing a yearly report of all activities that we've done, and also put a performance management methodology towards the 100 actions that we're looking for part one of the action plan so that we're able to see how well we're doing in terms of what we proposed as actions and how well we are able to deliver on those actions. At the end of the five years, we'll also be looking at a summary report that goes through all of this plan, but also looks at the next five years. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Agreed.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The O and M savings that were initially identified for the 802s that we were buying, initially there was $500,000 identified for contract savings. During the initial evaluation of those planes, the original estimates were based on U.S. dollars. At the time of the estimates, the Canadian dollar was actually 10 cents higher than the U.S. dollar. By the time the planes were bought, the American dollar was then $1.26 to our Canadian dollar. So the $500,000 was not realized as a contract savings as initially thought of in 2016.

In addition, there was thought that, given that they were going to be a new fleet of aircraft, that the O and M would be substantially lower because it's a new fleet of aircraft. Unfortunately, when we saw that we didn't get the $500,000, what we asked committee was to delay the second $500,000 so we could get a year under our belt with the 802s to see how much operations and maintenance were. What we realized is, based on the fleet of eight versus the CL215s, where we had four planes, we actually didn't realize a savings in terms of O and M.

Upon realization of that, what we did was looked at, again, the areas within our forest management division, and we were able to find $800,000 in savings that was manageable from an ENR perspective. On the basis of that, what we looked at, the $800,000 breaks down to $350,000. We are not hiring a long-term fixed-wing aircraft for pre-suppression activities. These are for smoke controls and services to camps, and when we move people. This is really aligned to a risk measure, depending on if we have a lot of fires or don't have a lot of fires.

$250,000 of the $800,000 was reduced training costs for the aviation contract, and there will be little impact, as the contractor now has trained flight crews for two seasons, so we don't have to have that level of training. In addition, we found $200,000 for reduced consultant support for aviation services dealing with aircraft maintenance and inspection scheduling, and, as well, weather forecasting. We've been able to now, as we've had staff work through this process, actually acquire that competency, and we have them now working in the department and using weather-forecasting tools to predict fires. Again, we feel that those series of reductions will be better identified versus the 802 that we did not realize. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, as we looked at the operational and the functional review of looking at the department and where best to identify money, because the costs weren't realized within the 802s, we then looked at other parts of the department as we were going through our operational and functional review to be able to see if we could find efficiencies. The remaining $200,000 came from the following areas: $100,000 came from wildlife, and this is reduced biodiversity conservation section. This is funding related to the Wildlife Act and worked toward Phase 2 regulations that should require less support in the future. The proposed regulations are expected to be completed in the near future. We don't see that as needing that expense anymore.

We had additional $40,000 under wildlife. That is reducing operational requirements for the wildlife management information system. All past data has been uploaded within that system. Now, efficiencies can be realized with recent operational enhancements. In addition, $35,000 in wildlife, this is a savings in office administration and support. No positions are impacted with this reduction. We saw a savings in equipment, supplies, training, and operational costs associated with that position. The position was removed in the beginning of 2017-2018 and ended in 2018-2019.

Finally, the last of the $200,000 was $25,000 in environmental stewardship and climate change. This is the reduction of a contract service for air-quality monitoring stations in Fort Smith and Norman Wells. The budget allotted to this work with third parties for monitoring the air quality stations is greater than the actual realized costs, so we were able to find $25,000 within that file. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.