Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding – and I’ll ask Mr. Campbell to speak further to this – is that the majority of outfitters that the Member is talking about harvest the Bathurst herd for the most part. We have commenced discussions with the various boards, with the Bluenose-East as well. We’re having discussions with Nunavut as well as the Beverly Qamanirjuaq Board and we’ll be talking to the appropriate Aboriginal governments, as well, about the Ahiak-Beverly herd and the numbers that have come in. At this point the restrictions in the Bathurst ban area are going to continue until the...

The Protected Areas Strategy is one that’s under review with both ourselves and the federal government. There are currently six candidate areas that we’re looking at that have reached, I think it’s about step five or so of an eight step process, consolidating all of the information. As we move towards devolution, the issue of how do we manage this is becoming more critical.

We’re pulling together all of the work and reports and recommendations. There are national wildlife areas that are being proposed. In some cases we have a major area, Edehzhie in the Deh Cho that has been under discussion...

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. This agreement we have with the federal government has stood us in good stead and will continue to do that. It recognizes the commitment from the federal government to provide certainty until 2018, especially with the health transfer and the social transfer. In fact, we’re one of two jurisdictions that saw an actual benefit and increase on the health side because of this new arrangement.

We’re doing the things that we’ve talked about as a government to control our expenditures, to put money aside for infrastructure to do all these types of good things. We have devolution coming which...

This is an area that we cover under what is called values at risk, and priority area is focusing first on human life, personal property, public safety, and working our way out.

As the Member will recollect from the amount of times we’ve come back for supplementary appropriations, the fire seasons are getting longer and hotter and our costs are going up just to try to manage those key areas. We do, though, recognize that there are times when trappers are affected and we do have a fund to help compensate individuals. I think the maximum payout out of that is $37,000.

All the related offshore issues tied to devolution will be negotiated and there will be a process triggered once negotiation is signed and implemented. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are some resources. Interestingly enough, ITI has a permafrost individual. We know and we’ve seen, and I’ve had discussions with and work with, to a certain degree, the university is doing work as well. In fact, some individuals have spent good parts of their professional lives in the North looking at the permafrost issues, the very issues that the Member is talking about. As we see what’s happening and try to adapt to the impacts of the warming and the melting of the permafrost, the slumping of the banks, the impediment, it can cause rivers and creek flows and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The discussions are focused and engaged mainly with Alberta. We had some preliminary meetings, as well, with BC and Saskatchewan, but the Alberta negotiations are the most critical. They are, we believe, within about two meetings away and the next meeting is scheduled for April. So sometime subsequent to that, before fall, we hope to have the negotiators prepared to initial an agreement that will lay out and meet the mandates that they were given from us and from the Alberta government.

Once that’s done, we have to turn our attention to concluding the agreements with BC...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Given the way these projects seem to evolve, we believe we would be in a position to be responsive and be able to have that information by the time it’s required to make a business decision. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Ernie Daniels, deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources; and Nancy Magrum, director of shared services of ITI and ENR. Thank you.