Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the deputy indicated, as we conclude the reviews the intent is to take it through the process to committee and when there is agreed to recommendations, then we’ll look at the policies being adjusted to reflect whatever changes are finally agreed to. Thank you.

The Gwich’in Tribal Council and ENR jointly put on a conference last week. The focus was the Mackenzie and the Peel. The work is proceeding on the bilateral that we have with the Yukon. We’ve been in contact with the Yukon Minister to indicate we think it’s time to review that. It was the first one done. It was done under the aegis of the initial signing of the transboundary agreement where they’re not legally binding, they’re just instruments of good will. We now know that we’ve come to the point where we all need legally binding agreements. So we’re going to have to be revisiting that over...

Mr. Chairman, we are, as a department, spending, I believe, about $225,000 specifically on traditional knowledge. We have a Traditional Knowledge Policy as a government. We have a government-wide implementation plan. We are looking at best practices. In addition, there is traditional knowledge built into all the work that we are doing. When you look at all the money we are spending on Water Strategy, when you look at the work we are doing on caribou, when you look at the work that has been done on the development of the Wildlife Act in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, it is...

Mr. Chairman, given the fact that we have just signed the agreement-in-principle and we are just sort of organizing ourselves in our jurisdictions to start the negotiations, that is an issue that will have to be resolved. I would anticipate there would be possibly some type of period of time to allow for those types of loose ends or oversights. At this point, I am not in a position to speak specifically what the final detail will be on that very specific issue that the Member has raised. Thank you.

That was a federal announcement based on the result of the findings of a panel that looked at the work and there were some current studies like the one done by Dr. Schindler and Dr. Kelly. A panel came out and said that there were significant gaps in the role the federal government was supposed to be fulfilling. They announced that they were going to set up this monitoring. They announced they were going to set up a panel to oversee that. We do have, as I indicated, the benefit of having one of our staff on there, Dr. Kelly, who is sitting on that panel.

As we conclude this budget process and get geared up over the summer/fall, I will commit that we will consider the issue of how we provide support service in this area as we look at the business plans for 2012-13. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, there are some like Giant Mine where there is a separate agreement that will be separate from the agreement-in-principle where we have a signed arrangement with the federal government and ourselves, and then I will ask the deputy to speak about our responsibility on Commissioner’s land and some of the other waste site issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first question, just so it’s clear, Minister Bob McLeod and I had supper with Minister Kent and we raised the issue with the monitoring program, encouraging him to have Aboriginal representation on the board for it to be truly representative and successful, and we made the case. The Premier initially was there, but we made that case and that’s where we left that one.

The clearing house of information, we’ve talked about that. That’s one of our goals going out of the Water Strategy over time, is to be able to connect and make sure that we’re coordinated in terms of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the more remote and isolated communities there is a lot of interdepartmental cooperation as well as cooperation with the communities’ hunters and trappers groups, dog mushers, if they’re there, to deal with issues like rabies, like shots, pooling our resources, because there’s no specific clear program for this particular area that the Member’s talked about. As well as working with those, working with those universities that have veterinary colleges and where we’re able to work with veterinarians in the communities. So our intention would be to continue that...

Mr. Speaker, I think it behooves us all to have as energy-efficient building standards for all people in the Northwest Territories as possible. The issue is going to be to sort through the regulatory and government’s issues to, in fact, be able to allow ourselves to do that so that we, in fact, as the Member indicated, will have a common standard that is as high as the government sets for itself. Thank you.