Bob Bromley

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today I want to salute the City of Yellowknife and Ecology North as the co-winners of the 2013 Federation of Canadian Municipalities Sustainable Communities Award in the waste category. The award recognizes the impressive achievement of piloting and then implementing the first phase of an organic waste composting project.

From 2009 to 2012, the city partnered with Ecology North on a centralizing composting pilot project to learn about and test the process and to evaluate the feasibility of a full-scale operation. The three-year project looked to composting in cold...

What of those dollars are going to land use planning?

I guess there’s the obvious concern that this government is pushing very hard on development of resource extraction and we’re doing this in the absence of these land use plans. Obviously we need to take a cautious approach in the absence of these plans. How is the weight being given to that cautious approach, just as in managing wildlife?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just some quick follow-ups there. I know the Protected Areas Strategy is going through a number of five-year plans. I think the average to actually get a nominated area protected, should it be protected eventually, is in the area of 12 to 15 years. What is the general status of the Protected Areas Strategy? Where are we at? Perhaps that’s a question being asked in the reviews that are going on, but perhaps I could just pose it as what have we achieved of what we set out to achieve, and when can we expect to see the results of the reviews, and what input will committee...

Thanks for that comment. I hope the Minister does use the fastest way to get that information out there. These days it’s possible.

My last question has to do with bison, Mr. Chair. I know we’ve gone through, again, some serious kafuffles with the bison herd, the Mackenzie Bison herd. I know at one point we had opened harvest up to those with Aboriginal and treaty rights to shoot cows and calves and whatever they wanted along the road and so on, or even off the road, shortly before we had the anthrax issue and now we’ve got a decimated herd. I don’t believe there were any extraordinary harvest...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the Minister’s comments. I hope that the boards are aware of the science that’s available on what is harvestable for the caribou in a conservative way, and that their decisions are based on that best information and, in fact, that they can be encouraged to make timely decisions when the evidence is clear.

I would like to ask a question with regard to the Wildlife Act. I know we’re still working at it and I’m hoping that it gets tabled soon. I do appreciate the Minister’s support. I believe he formed a committee he’s calling SWAAG, I believe it’s the Stakeholders...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to start with the Bathurst herd of caribou. As we all know, they have essentially been closed for just about three years. With the residential harvest being well below a few hundred for several years before that, I know many harvesters that quit hunting three or four years before the closure, as did I. Yet there’s been essentially no recovery and certainly not in the reproductive potential of this herd where there’s been no change in the number of females. I’m wondering if the Minister knows why and what additional measures are being taken this year to address this...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the department summary for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ main estimates, 2013-2014, on page 13-7 at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the comments and commitments from the Minister there. Obviously there are some real linkages with Municipal and Community Affairs here. The savings in landfill costs is in the $100,000 range. Organics, I believe, are often in the order of 25 or greater percent of the waste stream. Here is another opportunity for cooperation: the possible examination of helping communities set up organics drop-off points at the landfills.

Will the Minister commit to gathering the information I’ve requested from his staff and then consulting with the MACA Minister on possible opportunities and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really just have one general comment for this sort of activity. It is about six or eight pages long. I did a little survey and found that the majority of projects we’ve listed with the federal government are ending or dropping significantly in funding. There are zero new programs planned. Seven of them are being maintained. There are about 16 or 18 of these. One is actually increasing in funding, but zero new programs and it just seems like, looking at the numbers, we typically do add programs. I’m wondering, will we be entering into new agreements later in the fiscal...