Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to our great research staff, I have a very wonderful chart in front of me that shows that the amount of funding to municipal governments for environmental services, that the gap is actually -- will increase this year coming up.
I'm just curious to know what the department's plan is to deal with the environmental liabilities in our communities. I'm aware of a few projects, without naming those communities, that, you know, there is some dispute over whether the GNWT should be responsible for cleaning them up. Some predate the existence of the GNWT so that becomes a bit of a struggle. And in the meantime, I'm worried about people that are living with contaminated ground and -- which can also have a soil vapour component. So it's not only hydrocarbons in our ground water; it can be hydrocarbons in our soils. And I can think of two -- three communities right off the top of my head where I know of sites.
So what is the Minister and the department doing to resolve that and address that, and is there a way that we can actually get more money into these environmental services that's a great way -- there's always a training or a community component to those RFPs? It's a good way also to just keep some money into the communities themselves. Thank you.