Michael Miltenberger

As the Minister of Lands and Minister of ITI have pointed out before this House, because their budgets were reviewed, the development assessment process we are putting in place, now that we’re going to be the regulator after April 1st, sees an integrated cooperative approach between the two departments chaired by the Minister of Lands. We will do the work on fracking and we will make sure that when it is put out for public feedback, we will consider the Member’s suggestion. We’ll be looking for feedback from people across the North but especially where it’s impacting in the Sahtu as well as...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I think the category you want to look at would be the closing balance at the bottom. It’s projected at $1.892 million. Last year it was $1.742 million.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My note says photo PV systems will be added to diesel community grids as selected communities prefer. It ties in with the smart grid technology to help cover the costs of not only the smart grid technology but the solar requirements and now they have, as well, decided to include wind in that and batteries, so it’s going to be a very unique pilot project that is being watched with great interest by a lot of jurisdictions with remote communities. If we can make it work, we anticipate the penetration to be at least 50 percent of the diesel would be offset by wind, battery...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It won’t change what revenues we have projected. We control hunting licences and the federal government controls fishing licences, and there has been no change in fishing licences of any substantive nature for many, many years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we conclude the Department of ENR, I would just like to ask this Assembly to join with me to thank Ms. Magrum for her years of service. This is her last witness table. That’s her last budget book.

---Laughter

I would just like to thank her for her service. She’s professional, she’s very, very knowledgeable, as you can see, and I’d like you to join me to wish her a very happy retirement. Thank you for your service.

---Applause

As has been pointed out by the Minister of ITI, after April 1st we will be the regulator and he will be the Minister responsible. The NEB’s existing policies and guidelines will stay in effect and the work that we are doing, in terms of reviewing fracking as a government that we’ve been looking at now for a number of months, will come forward sometime after April, that will look at improving upon what is currently there. But in the meantime, the National Energy Board policies and filing guidelines are what will be the policies of the day. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have focused the attention of the Environment Fund folks on the current recycling plus expanding into electronic waste. On our to-do list are things like barrels and vehicles. I was just mentioning to the deputy, I remember in Fort Smith last summer they came into the South Slave, I’m not sure if they made it to Yellowknife, but they came into town and we had mountains, literally, of fridges and stoves and washers and dryers and they shredded it all up and put it into cubes. I think they did Hay River as well. I’m not sure if they came to Yellowknife. But they didn...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I look at ’14-15, I see $3.889 million versus $3.6 million from ’13-14. So it’s gone up incrementally right from ’12-13, so I’m not quite sure what the Member’s question was.

We have an ongoing commitment to work with all the communities in terms of making sure their FireSmart Program is put into effect. In communities, for example, in the early parts of the fire season if fire crews are not busy, they can work on that and they have done that in many communities, help with firebreaks. We have staff that can assist with the design. So, yes, we are prepared to work with communities to see how we can advance those critical initiatives.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My note here says the Milk Container Program was added February 15, 2010.