Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to congratulate the people of the Northwest Territories on their major success in taking up the challenge of recycling. Yesterday, the Minister of ENR added seven new beverage container types to the list of containers that can be recycled. Responsible citizens can now return 20 types of drink containers for return of deposits. In three short years, the number of communities with recycling depots has risen to 32 and over 100 million containers or 81 percent of drink containers sold are being returned for deposit.

We can see the benefits everywhere. Not only has...

Mr. Chairman, that is good to hear. I wonder if it doesn’t come under forestry in other jurisdictions, it comes under forest management. It is recognized as a wild crafting activity, I believe they call it in forest. I am wondering where that will be lodged. But more specifically, what is the time frame like? We could be facing another situation like this obviously next summer, this coming summer or shortly thereafter if there are big fire seasons. Thank you.

The Minister touched on some of my other questions. Really it’s land access that’s recognized to be a real issue here. Perhaps the strategy will deal with that again. My understanding is that will take the involvement of other departments as well, and maybe the participation of aboriginal governments. While I’m at it, the sustainable harvest levels, I think we had a lot of research to be done through our forestry group and perhaps we can touch on that when we get there. Any comments on those things would be appreciated.

Just in terms of implementation capacity for the Biomass Strategy, I’m...

Page 11-8, information item, transportation, infrastructure investment summary. Questions? Mr. Ramsay.

Page 11-10, Transportation, information item, active position summary. Mr. Krutko.

That’s good news, but, as the Minister said, I think we’re looking at very specific areas around communities and I don’t think we want to wait until we’ve done a forest inventory for the Northwest Territories. We want to know, you know, within a reasonable time limit of communities, what is the sustainable harvest rate for that forest. I would appreciate it if the Minister could provide an update, assuming it’s available, and demonstrate progress on that file because, again, we can have all the strategies we want, but if we don’t have the research information and the know-how on the ground, we...

I wonder if the Minister could provide us with a sheet updating us if there is a trend that’s evident now what that trend is looking like. If there are things that have been added to the things that we’re subsidizing through the rebate program recently, it would be good to see that. Something that lets us know what the uptake is and the trend. That would be great. Maybe I’ll wait for a response on that before moving on here.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. That concludes the general comments. Does committee agreed?

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time is up. Committee, we’re on page 11-9, Transportation, information item, revenue summary. Questions? Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my first question on this relates to our earlier discussion of biomass and the need for sustainable harvest plans and knowledge. I’m wondering where the department is at on that and is there any areas of the NWT, any at all, where we have developed an estimate of the sustainable harvest rate for the forest. Thank you.