Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. That $55,000, would we know how much water that entitles industrial users to use?

I appreciate that answer because I just want to make it clear: when the City of Yellowknife is requesting the municipal lands in their boundary, they are not requesting the land that the Akaitcho is requesting. That is a separate issue that the City of Yellowknife is not requesting that land. My next question is: I am concerned that we underfund our municipalities, and they have been asking for this land. I am concerned that the Department of Lands is then going to make the city pay an arm and a leg for it. My question is for the Minister of Lands: is there an intention to charge the city for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that, in some conservation circles, there is hesitancy to put a value on wildlife, but I think, as we are going forward in this Assembly, looking at food security, and we are talking about increasing the harvesters assistance program, I really do think that there is a value to putting a value on what all of our caribou herds are worth to providing food security and then doing some of that assessment of what ultimately that benefit in food security is, being provided by local harvesters. Would ENR be willing to begin that work?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, committee has received that information. I guess I'm trying to get a little more public information on this. Can I confirm that $55,000 is the total amount we have received for all industrial users to use water in the Northwest Territories?

Given that we want to get this right and given that I think there is overwhelming public support to get this done, I mean, based on everyone I've talked to, could the Minister commit that we will begin some formal public engagement, reach out to the relevant stakeholders such as Alberta, such as the airline industry, and start the steps forward to prepare us to make that change?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll have further discussions with the Minister about this. I also believe that the federal government, through its climate change plans, is looking at reforestation as one of the many tools, so I think, looking at the pilot that we're doing and leveraging the money that we currently have set aside through stumpage fees, that there is probably an opportunity to leverage some more federal funding for reforestation efforts. I'll just leave that as a comment.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm trying to get a sense of what we charge industrial users for using water. If someone has a Type A water licence and they're going to be using millions of litres of water, what would we charge them? Where is that set out?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to commend all the people of the Yukon who woke up and will never have to change their clocks ever again. It seems what happens here, there's a bit of a gridlock here where Alberta is looking to doing this once again. BC is, California is, and no one seems to want to move. My question for the Minister of Justice is: can we take the lead and get rid of time change?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I do think that there is actually quite a bit of potential in working with ITI to make sure that we develop our forestry industry, and there's a whole spectrum here, whether it's community wood lots or a person building log cabins, or the large BC forestry companies who have come up and harvested in the past in the Northwest Territories. I would encourage the department, or the Minister of ENR, to work with ITI to see if there is some potential economic growth there. My other question is: do we presently conduct any tree planting, or are there any plans to do any...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that that process will continue, and I look forward to hearing more about piloting it for regulations, too, because there are a number of very important regulations that this department has. I guess my other concern is, in using this process, what happens is there is a very confidential and arduous co-drafting process, and then it comes to committee and, ultimately, through this House. As is the nature of public government, we can change whatever we want. I think that it can lead to some tension and some misunderstanding of who ultimately controls...