Robert C. McLeod

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as I said, we will go back, have a look at the information, and see where it goes. I mean the Member is right. A Minister is always looking for -- Minister, this whole Assembly should be looking at other sources of revenue, and this may be one of them. We will do our due diligence, and then we will come up with a plan from there, but then I need to know that, once we decide to do that, that I have got the support of committee and not have people running in 10 different directions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In 2017-2018, there was $30,000 spent of this money. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, because the federal government declared this a species at risk, I mean, they are going to fund the monitoring of the caribou, and my understanding is it is going to be significantly more than the $150,000 that is being reduced. We will have the necessary appropriation to do all of the monitoring on the boreal caribou, and I will turn it over to Dr. Dragon to add on to some of the Member's other points that he raised. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Member is absolutely correct. We have a lot of good people whowork over at the department. I think, as far as the funding goes, they obviously feel they are able to do the job with the resources that they have. If they needed to seek more resources, then they would go to FMB. I think they will continue to do the work with the resources they have.

ENR has been very good at, as we get into the information items later, getting a lot of external funding as well. In fact, I think we have brought on one person to do the work going after external funding. We...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we feel that it doesn't affect our capacity to deliver on our programs. On the $469,000, the re-election to eliminate one helicopter contract was based on historical fire behaviour, and the department proposed to reduce the rotary wing contract in one of the regions.

The $155,000 was decreasing the number of helicopters in pre-suppression to rotary wing contracts, which was to reduce the hours from 250 to 150. In addition, for the two contracts, it would reduce hours from 250 to 200. Should any additional rotary wing aircraft be required, they will be contracted...

That is correct.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would have to do some research into that, but, as the Member pointed out, in 2007 a new deal came in where a lot of the capital money went to the communities, and that may have replaced some of the money that ENR was contributing towards this. I am sure, if we did not have the new deal, then you would see the appropriation for ENR probably still at historical levels. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the Member for sharing that information. Again, it just points to the importance of the fact that the Aboriginal governments, and I'm going to use this opportunity again to commend the Tlicho Government for taking a leadership role in the preservation of the caribou herd that they've hunted for hundreds of years. They work closely with ENR on a mobile zone. This is how it's going to work. They have a lot of respect for the caribou and they've taken some steps as a government to limit the number of caribou. As you get into some of these projects or proposed...

Yes, it has been considered. Mr. Speaker, yes, it has been considered. The economic viability and lifecycle analysis reports on utilizing burned wood has been provided to Aurora Wood Pellets and Forest Management Agreement holders where the viability of using burned wood declines over time. It has been considered.

The annual sustainable harvest level for the inventoried areas in the South Slave and Deh Cho combined is approximately 500,000 cubic metres per year.