Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That is what I suspected, but we still have outstanding negotiations with Saskatchewan, Nunavut, and the Yukon. The agreement from 2002 needs to be updated in light of what was negotiated with BC and Alberta. I know BC and Alberta were big ones, but Saskatchewan and Nunavut are still presumably fairly large, and then you have implementation now on top of that. Why does this continue to climb? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. If I wasn't confused before, I certainly am now. What is the right number then for active positions for headquarters on page 69 for 201718? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the explanation. I guess I’d be much more favourably inclined if we could find then a way to re-profile this money to actually support communities preparing source water plans, but we could probably be debating this for a lot longer. That’s enough for me. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is the area that was of greatest concern for me, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. On page 69, you can see that the positions that are being eliminated in corporate management. There are four of them here in headquarters. Can someone from the department tell me what the titles of these four positions are? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I’m happy to have an offline discussion with the Minister about this. There was a difference between the business plans that we reviewed in September and was publicly available. It’s always a bit of a balancing act for a number of different reasons. I’m happy to chat offline about that. Let’s go back to the numbers that are presented here in the mains.

There is something else going on within the watershed management. I think my colleague from Yellowknife North talked about source water protection being reduced. Can someone from the department talk a little bit more...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think this is another example where the fiscal strategy is driving the bus here again, and we are developing an action plan, yet we're cutting staff while we are doing that, or at least maybe the position is vacant, but we are cutting positions while we are developing the policy and the framework to do it. We have seen this whether it is Aurora College or whatever. It is just a repeating pattern within the government where we are cutting positions for a fiscal strategy before we have the policy work, the action plan to actually get the work done.

Can the Minister convince...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Is this $2 million in funding, a new initiative or is this a renewal? Is it an increase? Just maybe if I can get a little bit better description of what happened here. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think it’s probably fair for me to say that the Protected Areas Strategy, or what was known as the Protected Areas Strategy, has languished somewhat over the last couple of years. I understood that there was a renewed push to try to complete this network of protected areas. It’s in the mandate for the 18th Assembly and I know that the Minister -- it might have been the previous Minister -- made announcements about renewed effort to try to get this moving again and so on. I know the position was vacant, but how can we, you know, say on one hand we’re interested in trying to...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I was just reflecting on the Minister of Finance's response to my earlier questions around the capacity of the ENR. Just so we're clear, I guess, what I'm looking for is I want to know what kind of capacity there is within ENR with regard to climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, how many staff they've got, how they collaborate with Public Works and Services and Finance. It sort of sounded to me like Finance is going to take over the lead on carbon pricing and that's fine. They are bean counters, but I'm interested in making sure that the people that know something about...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’m looking at page 63, and there’s a reduction in conservation planning from 2016-17 to 2017-18. It’s around $105,000. Can the Minister explain the reduction here? Thanks, Mr. Chair.