Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have initiated correspondence and put in the request to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to look at their fishing permits. At the same time we’re also looking at our own hunting permits and looking at bringing those up as well.

We can provide the committee the up-to-date summary of the work that’s been done to date. The focus, as we’ve been discussing here today as we look at biomass, is going to be around communities and sustainable harvest and managed forests, so a lot of the work that’s been done is starting to shift as we look at working with communities to put in pilot projects. That determination almost on a community-by-community basis. But I’ll ask the deputy if he has any further information. If not, we will commit to provide a detailed update to committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order under Rule 23(h) and 23(k). I waited until today to present my point of order because I wanted to view unedited Hansard from Monday, February 15th, 2010. During his reply to the opening address on Monday, February 15th, 2010, Mr. Bromley said, and I quote from page 30 of the unedited Hansard for that day: “The February 11th response to the JRP report says that “the NEB should reject recommendation 8-6 from the JRP, which related to the establishment of the greenhouse gas emissions target or a series of targets in connection with the MGP facilities.”

Mr...

This is an issue, of course, across the whole Northwest Territories. We have some resources. We would like to work at the regional level with our folks as well as the aboriginal governments, possibly the federal government and other possible interested NGOs, but I think if we collaborate we can come up with ways to take full advantage of the traditional knowledge and allow for the type of forum that would give us that input, but it’s going to take that kind of collaborative approach. I don’t think there’s any one organization that has the full resources to do this everywhere that there’s an...

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

We have the Environment Fund that out of the money that we get from recycling and any profits goes in to fund itself to allow us to engage in other activities. That fund is fairly well subscribed to, but that’s where we took some of the money, for example, to do the work on the wastepaper and cardboard. Thank you.

Should a community or interested party come forward with a proposal that would propose to be able to remedy this particular situation in a way that is going to be affordable, of course we’d be happy to look at that, keeping in mind our own limited resources and our capacity that we’re now focusing on these other key areas. But we’d be prepared to look at that. Thank you.

The environmental assessments by the federal government are planned for this summer. I think that it’s a critical first step to make sure we know what’s there and what may require cleaning up and how. We’ll be keeping an eye on this and keeping the Member informed. Once we have that information we’ll be in an informed position to make the right decisions going forward.

When it comes to wastepaper and cardboard we have identified some funds. We have gone out to communities and businesses, organizations, and we’re looking at opportunities either for recycling, true recycling, not just compacting and putting into a landfill, converting to biomass, converting to pellets. There’s a number of other options that are out there.

With e-waste, as we look at our own recycling, I know just from personal experience having taken some loads down, you can go down to Edmonton, Alberta. They have a very sophisticated e-waste recycling plant, I know, in Edmonton, and they will...

This year we intend to do very specific things. For example, the Arctic Energy Alliance is going to be going into the communities to set up workshops for training and certification programs for wood burning appliance installers and inspectors, as well as looking at how to facilitate the delivery and supply of wood pellets to remote communities. We’re going to work with the forest management division to conduct woodlot planning and inventory activities to assist once again with the firewood and wood pellet production business development.

We want to work with communities once again, through the...