Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, my understanding is that this issue was raised during the business plans. Maybe it was missed. I mean I don't know the situation with that. Then it is going to go out for an RFP for third party. There will be a lot of accountability on this. The public will have a lot of opportunity to see. It is not like we are tucking this away. I believe in public accountability, too, and public governance, and that is what we are doing in here. I have been here for a while, so I am very familiar with public governance. Anyway, I am going to stop there, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am a little confused here. We may have responded to the report of the Auditor General. I know that there were a number of recommendations that were made in there, and we responded that we were acting on all of those recommendations. I will commit to the Member, because my understanding is that we did respond to that, but I will confirm that and share it with committee.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have some local operators in the Member's region, but the person, if he's looking for a contact, would, again, be the superintendent in Fort Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am appreciative of the Member's support for our hard-working staff, who do a lot of good work over at ENR. I am glad he recognizes that, so I will say no more than that.

As far as the reductions go, initially, when we started the 18th Legislative Assembly, for the first two years departments were given a reduction target. Because some of the proposed reductions or revenue streams that ENR had initially proposed weren't where they should be, ENR had come back to the FMB and said that they may need to put off their reductions for one year. As Members recall, I said that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is, with the Yukon, we are expecting to have updated agreements to be completed during the life of this Assembly. My understanding is Saskatchewan is going through a legal review, and Nunavut is doing some water strategy work. The Yukon one will be updated. We will see what happens with the legal review out of Saskatchewan. I am not sure where Nunavut is at. I would like to see them all done by the life of this Assembly, seeing as it was a mandate commitment, but sometimes we do what we can to try to expedite our end; we just need our partners to work...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is that it is closed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is that the reductions were part of the business plan. I think what may have been a little confusing is that some of the restatements that we have done may have confused it a bit. I have committed to the Member that we are going to be providing them information. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm sorry. Yes, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am here today to present the 2019-2020 Main Estimates for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Overall, the department's estimates propose a decrease of $1.329 million, or 1.5 percent, compared to the 2018-2019 Main Estimates.

Highlights of the proposed estimates for the department include the following:

new forced-growth funding of $381,000, which includes a term position to meet the government's commitments related to the environmental assessment of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway; and

new initiative funding of $540,000, which includes resources to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The short answer is that it doesn't. I think that Dr. Dragon gave an explanation before about the fact that we are trying to use a lot of video conferencing now when we are having some of these discussions, but there is always going to be a need for some face-to-face conversations. I believe that there is still some money that is available for that. No, we don't believe that it is affecting our ability to try to negotiate these Transboundary Water Agreements, and if there comes a time when we feel that it is affecting our ability, then I am sure that ENR will come back to...