Shane Thompson

For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my far right is deputy minister Erin Kelly. And closest to me is director of finance Jessica St. Arnaud. Thank you.

For that detail, deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. There is no looking at shrinking the mobile zone. The mobile zone is done with where the caribou are, where our collared caribou is. And it's also working with our Indigenous governments and the renewable resource board of Wek'eezhii Renewable Resource Board. So we work with Indigenous governments. We work with the councils, the leadership, and we explain it; we work with it. And it was developed in collaboration with our Indigenous government. It was with the Tlicho. They talked about it. If you look at the Bathurst right now, we're at about 6,200 caribou left. The Beverly is...

Yeah, that there, I would ask the Member to ask questions on that with the Infrastructure Minister, what plan B is, because I don't have what plan B is in front of me. But maybe the deputy minister may have further clarity on how we move forward on this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 20222023 Main Estimates for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Overall, the department estimates propose an increase of $849,000 over the 20212022 Main Estimates. These estimates support the mandate objectives for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources while continuing to meet the GNWT's fiscal objectives to prioritize responsible and strategic spending.

Highlights of these proposed estimates include:

Increases for collective agreement of 1.42 or 35 million and for the Bathurst and BluenoseEast Caribou of $1.03...

For that detail, I'm going to the deputy minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, and I thank the Member for her questions. As we all are aware, the Bathurst caribou herd is facing serious conservation concerns and is currently at record low numbers. The government has worked closely with our wildlife comanagement partners to put a range of management actions in place to support the recovery of this herd. It is important to note that the Wildlife Act and the regulations differentiate between commercial hunts and outfitting hunting.

In 2006, ENR began to reduce the number of tags issued to outfitting numbers given the conservation concerns for the Bathurst herd.

Al...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT is not supportive of the plan to release treated tailing water from the oil sands to Athabasca River until we have all the information, data, and science to assess whether this can be done safely.

In this House, I've stated this publicly and make this clear to Alberta and the federal government. We will keep our Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations, committee, and other water partners, informed of our work on this matter which we know is a great importance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to be clear, there's no releases of oil sand process. Water is currently allowed under the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act or the Federal Fisheries Act. The Alberta government has said its regulations will not be in place until at least 2023, and the federal government regulations will not be in place until at least 2025.

At ENR, we have employed sciences and experts as part of the GNWT water management and monitoring team who are reviewing the proposals to authorize each release, including those with regulatory expertise. We are also...