Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So earlier I spoke about extended producer responsibility, which the Act, the Waste Reduction Act, gives us powers to do. So can the Minister explain what might happen to products like used oil, tires, and electronics if producers have to take responsibility for them? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to reiterate once again that there's a difference between putting something on a piece of paper and then the funding that's required to actually implement the things that are on the paper in terms of, okay, well, we need to actually do these things and expend resources to actually do the preparations that might be laid out on the piece of paper in the plan to actually help prevent an emergency or prevent the severity of it. So I'll leave it there for now, but I think it's important that we think through all the stages of emergency management and make sure that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, garbage is a problem. My colleagues here in the House have spoken about the need to remove large amounts of hazardous waste from community landfills. This is important. And we also need to figure out ways to stop that waste from getting into those landfills in the first place.

One positive local initiative by Kavanaugh Brothers, which is part of the Det’on Cho group of companies, is to look at opportunities to prevent old tires from going into our landfills and also avoid the cost and GHG emissions from having to ship all our old tires back down south for...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What about funding or supports for people to do precautionary, say, evacuations or even just moving of people from one part of the community to another if there's an imminent threat of something like a flood? Is there any funding available to that, or is the Minister interested in advocated for that kind of funding? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. That's it for this page.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm hopeful that funding can be identified to see if we can ensure the continued existence and thriving of the boreal caribou that so many of the communities in this territory rely on.

My next question has to do with -- so we talked a bit earlier about funding for caribou monitoring that's been sunsetting. There's two line items, one called caribou monitoring and the other monitoring and range planning, but it talks about supporting Indigenous governments, local communities in traditional knowledge studies and capacity building around caribou monitoring.

So has that work...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I want to talk a bit about boreal caribou, which have suffered tremendously with all of the forest fires. I don't think we talk about it enough in this House. But it looks like a couple years ago there was a bilateral funding agreement with the federal government to identify sites for boreal caribou habitat restoration and designing treatment trials. And I know that that expired in 2023, and I see that there's an item on this page around landscape level restoration in boreal caribou habitat for 2023-2024, but there's nothing in this year's budget. What are the plans to...

Okay. Can the Minister give any examples of what kinds of water research and monitoring work is being done this year versus things that were being done last year?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's important people have the head's up and know what's coming there.

On another aspect of 9-1-1, I know there have been difficulties in terms of working out a collaboration with the city of Yellowknife that makes sure that resources overall are used most efficiently. Obviously, there's -- you know, there's a dispatch service that 9-1-1 provides, but the city of Yellowknife has always provided its own dispatch service. I wonder if the Minister can speak to whether those sort of disagreements and conflicts have been worked out with the city of Yellowknife and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So on page 89, under the item water research and monitoring (aquatic quality and hydrology), it looks like the budget has gone from, in 2022-2023, from $483,000 and then last year's budget $370,000, and now we're down to $346,000.

Can the department explain why the amount of money for water research and monitoring has been going down over the last two fiscal years? Thank you, Mr. Chair.