Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me Mr. Ernie Campbell, deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources; and Ms. Nancy Magrum, the director of shared services with ENR and ITI, financial services. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Members, as well, for their input into this motion. In this House as legislators we have a number of tasks before us. We make laws and set up programs and policies, and we administer budgets for the good of all the people. We have to take not only the short view of what’s happening around us but we have to plan, as the Member for Mackenzie Delta said, for the future.

When we started this Assembly we had a plan. We were elected into a reality, a reality where we were coming out of a very significant recession where we spent $1.1 billion in capital...

Thank you, Madam Chair. On the exploration side we have the resources that have been laid out in the business plan. We also, as a government with ITI and ENR, have been doing a lot of work on the issue of unconventional hydraulic fracturing. There has been work done with committee. There’s going to be more work done. We’re doing a thorough review of that whole approach to accessing tight oil. That will inform the way forward. If we move from exploration into development, we will, of course, be planning for what type of development, that is. We’ll be looking at the resource requirements on that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. That money flows a little bit later in the fiscal year and will be brought forward as it has been in a supp.

Mr. Speaker, in 1997 the governments of Canada, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan signed the Mackenzie River Basin Transboundary Waters Master Agreement. When we signed, our governments agreed on the principles for co-managing the Mackenzie River Basin’s water ecosystems. We also made plans for signing bilateral agreements between each of our provinces and territories.

It took us longer than we’d planned, but we are making progress on the bilateral agreements. This follows the work that happened in the 16th Assembly to develop a Water Stewardship...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are at the table with the federal government negotiating devolution. This issue has been on the table, the regulatory reform issue has been on the table for some time. The federal government has made it clear they intend to make some dramatic changes. They’ve laid those out, as the Member has indicated. We have our own position that we have laid out that was public, it was on the website, that was dissimilar to the one put forward by the federal government. However, the federal government has indicated their intention to proceed.

The Member is very well aware, I think, of the complexity of the Dehcho Land Use Plan and Protected Areas Strategy listing sites as conservation areas. There’s a process that’s been underway for many, many years now. If there was any wish to change that, it would be done through the table that currently is trying to resolve that issue.

I know as a government we’re committed to trying to get the Dehcho Land Use Plan agreed to and approved. It’s been a long time in the works. That issue would flow through that process and would require, I think, a significant amount of discussion if there’s going...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member raising this concern and I would be happy to share with him the information that I do have on the work that’s been done over the last number of years on this issue that’s come up. The very specific question that he asked, I will have discussions with the officials of ENR and the deputy, keeping in mind that fisheries is a federal obligation and as of late they’ve been under some pressure due to deficit reductions and layoffs and such. We’ll see what is possible. I appreciate the Member’s concern and I’ll once again share the information that I do...

The accidents involving bison are on a fairly significant decline, it would appear, because of the concerns that have been voiced over the years and the efforts that have been made to inform the public, to educate them, to do some of the signage issues, the increased hunting, the tags, which I think has been a great deterrent to bison hanging around the roads. The worst time of the year is October as things get dark and people still drive at speeds that they do in the summer and often get surprised. I also understand, as well, that bison don’t, unlike other animals, turn into the approaching...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The list that the Member outlined I think is fairly progressive and it’s reflected in the number of collisions that ENR has in their database. There’s been a steady decline since 2009. There’s 17 collisions in 2009, six in 2010, five in 2011, none so far in 2012. I think the work is paying off and the ultimate responsibility, of course, for the control and care of the vehicle is that of the driver and making sure they drive appropriately given the conditions on the road, be it the condition of the road itself and if there are animals in the vicinity. Not just bison...