Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right in that we have agreements with Ekati and with Rio, although I guess I would probably add that they’re more like understandings as opposed to specific contracts that we knew would be very difficult to enforce. In fact I think we realized early on we needed the companies to want to leave the diamonds here. We needed them to be willing participants in this venture. For the most part, I think they have been. I think it’s been very successful. Aber is complying with the spirit and the intent of the value-added industry here, as the Member knows, by...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a host of sites that need to be dealt with. It is, and I believe it is, and the government believes it is, a federal obligation to deal with those. Because of the ongoing devolution discussions, we have to get this squared away. As I’ve said, we are not interested in inheriting all the baggage from the resource extraction or baggage from past military sites. So we have to find a way to force the federal government to clean up these sites. I think it was a positive step to see the amount of money earmarked in the recent budget for contaminated sites across...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right. In the early '90s, this temporary solution and the creation of this engineered soil in Tulita was constructed, and 10 years indeed seems like a long time to be temporary. We do know that the low level radioactive waste management office has done a number of studies and surveys. They assure us that the contaminated mound poses no risk to people or the environment in its present condition. Nevertheless, obviously it needs to be cleaned up. There was a federal government commitment to do that cleanup. As I said, I’ve just recently, in the last...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Agricultural Products Marketing Act 2003-2004 Annual Report. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We can do that. We can certainly engage the regions in this discussion with communities. I think the first thing we can and will do is, in fact, confirm what the Member is suggesting, that there are increased incidents and run-ins of people with grizzly bears. I think that’s the first step. But even if we find that there isn’t a dramatic increase, I think it’s always a good practice to sit down and talk about safety and safe practices when out on the land. Obviously, when you go out into bear country there are a number of steps that you need to take to make sure you’re...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m still awaiting some of the input from the committee to determine what makes the most sense in the application of these fees. My sense is there will be an amount paid by consumers as they pick up these beverage containers which they will get back if they recycle. So I think the incentive is there for people to recycle in order to keep costs down. It also made sense, I believe, to have industry involved in the development of this program. The last thing we wanted to see was people finding a way to circumvent our fees by getting beverage containers from other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member indicated, the legislation in the life of the last government was in fact the Waste Reduction and Recovery Act. The first program falling underneath that legislative piece of work was the Beverage Container Recovery Program and that’s what we’ve been working on. The Member will remember that we struck an advisory committee a few months back. I think there were nine members from environmental organizations, from communities, from industry, who sat down to discuss the program and come up with some advice to us on regulations and a methodology for development...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will. Support to the traditional economy and for the traditional economy is very important for this department. We’ll have continued discussions with committee about how we can continue to raise the profile of trapping. I think it’s very important, and I agree with the Member that if a generation loses their trapping skills, it would be very difficult to get them back. We have to do what we can to make sure the people who want to live this lifestyle can do so. Mr. Speaker, obviously it’s not an easy living. I think we recognize that. This is very...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This agreement is very important for us and it was signed a number of years ago by the Prime Minister. The European Union was concerned, or said they had concerns with our humane trapping standards. We agreed that we would fund research as a country to ensure that we were doing the most we possibly could to find the most humane methods of trapping, and this Vegreville facility was where that work and research was done. Without the continued funding of this facility and in effect without us complying with the agreement, we were in real danger of having the EU step in...

Thank you. I can certainly work with committee to do that. One of the unknowns here is how successful we’ll be at recycling. There is a cost to setting up this program and I suppose if we do a very poor job of recycling, then that program cost will be paid off much more quickly. If we really take up this recycling ethic in earnest, then it will be over a longer period of time. I hope that we do take that up, and certainly we’ll work with committee so we can analyze this and discuss, in fact, how well it’s progressing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.