Michael Miltenberger

I point out, as well, that I looked over one. The Tlicho as well have concluded, I understand, their land use plan.

One of our priorities in this Assembly that has been handed down from Assembly to Assembly for 17 Assemblies now is the whole issue of the sustainability, the balance between economic development and the environment, the land, the water, the animals. We still have that as a fundamental principle that guides us. We’re spending an enormous amount of time and money and effort not only to look and see if we can support economic development, but we’re doing many, many things on the...

What exists today is voluntary targets for the Bluenose-East, no resident harvest, no outfitters, no commercial harvest. Just a voluntary harvest for Aboriginal subsistence hunting. So what we have started is the process, given the numbers that we do have that tell us the Bluenose-East, in our opinion, even though we weren’t able to complete the full survey, are in the hundred thousand animal range, that we’re back to being able to sustain additional harvest.

That process has to go through not just ourselves and myself as Minister making the determination, but we have to work with all the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this juncture, as I laid out for Ms. Bisaro, we’re consolidating and trying to make sure we have all these other broad planning pieces in place before we proceed any farther or faster with existing wildlife areas that have been nominated and definitely not adding any others at this point. I will ask the deputy minister if he could give some of the background information of the sites and any sort of catalogue of the work that’s been done over the years.

We have one of the best deals on a per capita basis when you compare us to any other jurisdiction, with the possible exception of Nunavut, for how much we get from our relationship either through equalization or Territorial Formal Financing with any other jurisdiction in the country. We have a budget of $1.6 billion for 43,000 people. So we have a budget of $1.6 billion for 43,000 people.

I know we have a huge list of demands that outstrips the resources available. But we get well over $20,000 per person in this territory. So what we’re going to do is manage our finances.

We have one of the...

Thank you. This agreement we have with the federal government has stood us in good stead and will continue to do that. It recognizes the commitment from the federal government to provide certainty until 2018, especially with the health transfer and the social transfer. In fact, we’re one of two jurisdictions that saw an actual benefit and increase on the health side because of this new arrangement.

We’re doing the things that we’ve talked about as a government to control our expenditures, to put money aside for infrastructure to do all these types of good things. We have devolution coming which...

This is an area that we cover under what is called values at risk, and priority area is focusing first on human life, personal property, public safety, and working our way out.

As the Member will recollect from the amount of times we’ve come back for supplementary appropriations, the fire seasons are getting longer and hotter and our costs are going up just to try to manage those key areas. We do, though, recognize that there are times when trappers are affected and we do have a fund to help compensate individuals. I think the maximum payout out of that is $37,000.

All the related offshore issues tied to devolution will be negotiated and there will be a process triggered once negotiation is signed and implemented. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are some resources. Interestingly enough, ITI has a permafrost individual. We know and we’ve seen, and I’ve had discussions with and work with, to a certain degree, the university is doing work as well. In fact, some individuals have spent good parts of their professional lives in the North looking at the permafrost issues, the very issues that the Member is talking about. As we see what’s happening and try to adapt to the impacts of the warming and the melting of the permafrost, the slumping of the banks, the impediment, it can cause rivers and creek flows and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The discussions are focused and engaged mainly with Alberta. We had some preliminary meetings, as well, with BC and Saskatchewan, but the Alberta negotiations are the most critical. They are, we believe, within about two meetings away and the next meeting is scheduled for April. So sometime subsequent to that, before fall, we hope to have the negotiators prepared to initial an agreement that will lay out and meet the mandates that they were given from us and from the Alberta government.

Once that’s done, we have to turn our attention to concluding the agreements with BC...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Given the way these projects seem to evolve, we believe we would be in a position to be responsive and be able to have that information by the time it’s required to make a business decision. Thank you.