Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This was based on a multi-year average of the figures we got from AANDC. Thank you.

No, Mr. Chair. The herd numbers are such that we think it has hopefully stabilized at 35,000 or so. We are still keeping the hunting restrictions in place for the Bathurst herd, 150 tags for the Yellowknives, 150 tags for the Tlicho and we have agreed to issue and said the herd can sustain the issue of one resident tag to be harvested out of the Beverly-Ahiak herd and we looked at the Bluenose-East and their numbers have declined significantly from what we thought was well over 100,000 to 110,000 down to 60-some thousand. So we are at voluntary harvest on that herd as well.

So there is no light...

Regional baseline studies are going to take some time. We have initiated that process. We are looking, as I had indicated as well, as trying to build off and use the work that has been done with industry, the work that they’ve done on wildlife and groundwater, and we’re going to continue to invest money over the coming years to get that baseline work complete.

In the meantime, the work on fracking that has been done, that we’ve initiated a couple of months ago, is going to continue and we expect early in April to be able to bring that forward for some public feedback as well as industry...

We will provide the information we can to the Member and to committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve been operating from the premise of we will do devolution and then we will evolve from that point. There are a number of areas across the whole spectrum tied in devolution where we’re going to be looking very carefully. We’ve said the same thing about royalties and taxation, that we’re going to be very careful and measured in anywhere, like the issue the Member raises, are going to be getting attention and we’re going to look at how we do business and are we the right size and how do we carefully change things if we do decide to change things, so I would say yes...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in regards to the standby charge, I’ll check. My recollection was that we already had this discussion and we had agreed to waive that standby charge, but I’ll double-check with NTPC, but I’m sure that’s what we did.

With regards to the breakdown of the solar, I’ll ask Ms. Magrum if she has information.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are still working on what we see as some needed improvements to fracking practices. That work is still working its way through the process. We’ve received some feedback from committee and we’re looking at bringing forward revisions reflecting the changes that were recommended as well as the fact that we are now going to be our own regulator.

We’ve laid out the Land Use and Sustainability Framework, which is a broad framing document with some very critical principles. We have money that we’ve allocated through the Environmental Research Fund to start doing baseline...

Our attention has been focused on doing a whole host of things tied into promoting alternative energy. For example, we spent millions of dollars on our Biomass Strategy. We created a market. We’ve converted our own institutions to the tune of millions of dollars both in retrofits and in the savings. We are working hard to get our own biomass industry set up in the Northwest Territories. We spent millions encouraging people with rebates and subsidies to convert to alternate energy, biomass in particular. For example, the Power Corporation is going to be covering the whole Northwest Territories...

I would say that that’s a goal that has not yet been achieved.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have 29 fire crews, combination of contract and our own crews across the North, understandably all in the boreal forest area. So we do have a significant commitment in employing local folks in the regions and communities to fight fires. Oftentimes, if there’s a big fire season like there was last year in the Deh Cho, we import all the folks we can find from other regions. In some cases we even have to import them from outside the territory if we are really pressed, as we were last summer where there was a flare-up, as well, in the South Slave. We were hard at it...