Bob Bromley

I agree, a close look is needed because we have clearly been failing miserably on our management of caribou. The herds have continued to plummet with every new report that we get. So I’m not averse to looking at how we’re spending it, but it is disconcerting to hear that sort of thing when we’re clearly failing.

Just on the caribou situation, I don’t think there’s any doubt that cow caribou, the female caribou, the adult female caribou are worth their weight in diamonds or gold or whatever it is that you value, yet in every case where we have established a quota and assigned a ratio of the...

I would just like to mention that I have probably accessed it a dozen times from my chair here, so that doesn’t tell us anything, Mr. Speaker. What we need is a meaningful consultation, a meaningful interaction, a discussion back and forth.

Who is going to interact meaningfully between a screen and themselves on sweeping devolution legislation like this that is complex and so on? Will the Premier get real and get a real process in place that starts providing opportunity for interactions with our public and making this northern legislation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just under the Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program budget, I believe the federal government bumped this up quite a bit. They committed about $8 million or something to it just before devolution. It just seems like a modest amount to that, but I don’t know that for sure. It just seems like it from my hazy recollection.

Could I get some understanding of where that ended and how that’s being carried forward? I think there are some very pithy issues. The defining thresholds seems to be a big research topic and so on with which to interpret things that we’re monitoring. If I...

Mr. Chair, thanks for that update. I’m just getting a little concerned that this pause on protected areas could last for years upon devolution. I’m just finding there are all kinds of costs to devolution that weren’t discussed before. Here’s another one.

Is the Minister in touch with Lutselk’e people on the northern tools and are they at least privy to the Minister’s thinking on this more than those few words? Are they looking at northern tools?

Mr. Chair, we’re not talking about people that live outside community boundaries; we’re talking about people that live on the land away from civilization and make their living on the land. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reason I see a difference here is because there are land use plans in place for the Mackenzie Valley Highway and we don’t have those for the area for the road that’s being discussed. As the Minister knows, those things take in the order from five to 20 years to do. To do it right, we need to get started yesterday in land use planning in this area.

On the establishment of protected areas and development of an ecological representation network, where are we at on ecological representation? I know what we’ve done on the cultural representation side, working with our...

I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s aware of a policy gap associated with the compensation for fire losses only being available to trappers and not to others that live on the land and make their living off the land and through important roles in remote locations.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is on… I note the division is responsible for regional land use planning and I know through our Aboriginal government partners we’ve got a lot of land use plans in place, Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, Sahtu, Tlicho, I believe even the Dehcho have done some work there. But there are two major areas, the North Slave and South Slave, where there hasn’t been much work done.

Has the Minister initiated processes there to get that work done? For example, this government is talking about a road to resources, Slave Geological Province highway. Where’s the land use plan...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and the deputy minister for that. It sounds like a very comprehensive look. It would have been very nice, of course, to have had that in hand as we review this budget and as the department develop the budget. I understand that the Minister will bring this to committee at the end of March. I guess I want to confirm that.

Is that the intent, that committee will hear about that at the end of March and discuss any budget implications at that time?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for that response. I see what’s happening is not in line with what’s been said is going to happen. I think the Water Strategy recognizes that we’re undervaluing our water. The Minister’s on record as saying we’ll be working to correct that situation. I guess I’m asking where we will see that and when we will see that reflected in this budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.