Michael Miltenberger

I can point to the two workshops that were held I believe in October, here at the ski chalet, where we brought in representatives from all the stakeholders from around the lake and from some southern jurisdictions. Many of them were elder status, if we use 50 or 60 as the gauge for elder status. The information, insight, exhortation that we got was very similar to what we hear up and down the valley about the value and importance of the caribou, the need to respect the animals, the need to make sure we do the right thing so that our grandchildren and future generations are in fact able to...

The Member makes a good point. There is a wide range of numbers in terms of the harvest in the North Slave on the Bathurst; anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 a year, depending on who you talk to. The issue is, and part of the harvest management plan is going to have to deal with the issue, the requirement for mandatory reporting from all harvesters. Right now we can tell how many outfitters there are, how many resident tags there are, but we have no clear idea except on a voluntary basis on the aboriginal harvest. So part of the ability to have a good harvest management plan is to set up a process...

Each of the diamond mines was reviewed and I’ve given approval. The issue of cumulative impact is one that has come more and more into the forefront as we look at resource development. What we’re dealing with, with the band, is a short-term period of three to four months that will get us through the hunting season and allow the longer-term process for a harvest management plan to be put into effect. It’s during that longer-term process that the work done to look at what the effects are, what are the variables that are driving the caribou numbers down have to be taken into consideration so that...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to point out one of the factors we are going to have to work around is the fact that three of the Members, Mr. Bromley being one of them, are registered as interveners and there are legal considerations as we go forward briefing MLAs and such. We honour our legal requirements in terms of access to information, treating all interveners the same and it has been pointed out to us that we have to be prepared to work around that consideration as well. You, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Yakeleya, I believe, are registered as interveners, so it just adds another...

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the territorial government, in fact, looks far beyond its own operations as we look at things like the Taltson hydro project to get power up in the North Slave Geological Province. We’re working with communities to help them get their community energy strategies in place. We are a major funder for the Arctic Energy Alliance, which we, I would point out, have taken from death’s door one Assembly ago and we’ve funded them to the point where now they are doing a significant amount of work with us on conservation, on advice on a lot of other energy initiatives. We...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee that plays a very lead role in terms of bringing together all the resources and planning functions that relate to that. Tied into that, in an advisory capacity of course, we have the Climate Change Committee. There are tie-ins with other work that’s being done in terms of electrical rate reviews and those types of things. We’ve also committed to the broad government approach to redo our Greenhouse Gas Strategy, but the central focus for government here in this Assembly has been the Ministerial Energy Coordinating...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. They say at night when it’s dark and cold outside and the stars are glittering like diamonds in the sky and you’re away from the communities, if you listen closely to the wind and the whispers of the wind you’ll hear the caribou asking us for our help, reminding us for centuries that they have helped provide life and subsistence to the people of the North. Now they are in a time of need and they’re asking us not to forget all that they have done for us over those very many centuries. Our job is to now come to the aid of the caribou in this, their time of need, to avoid...

The issue is, when the Member speaks of destruction, making sure that we avoid the destruction of the Bathurst herd, we have, I believe, a very strong working relationship with the aboriginal governments and co-management boards across the land. We’ve successfully done a Water Strategy, we’ve collaboratively drafted and put in legislation the Species at Risk Act, and we’re doing the same with the Wildlife Act; very progressive and unique processes fully engaging the aboriginal governments. The Premier is engaged in a process with the regional leaders on a regular basis to bring them to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First I’d like to point out that the government and the co-management boards and the aboriginal governments across the Northwest Territories have been showing leadership in this issue of declining caribou herds for quite a few years now. We were just in the Yukon, meeting with the various principals to look at the Porcupine herd, for example. They have been hard at work on a quota through co-management process and it’s been working with the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, Sahtu. The Tlicho is not putting themselves into position to do that as well.

The Caribou Summit, as the...

The board, I believe, is working as fast and as fully applying themselves to this issue as they can. They are now looking at being able to be finished their work consultation and such and recommendations that can be considered both by the Tlicho and territorial government by I believe it’s now April or May. In the meantime, the support we’re giving is to do what they asked us to do back in July when they themselves identified the state of the Bathurst herd and the precipitous drop from 2006, 120,000 animals, to around 30,000 in 2009. The need to have these interim emergency measures to protect...