Michael Miltenberger

Yes, we will ensure that we look at not only the eggs but the harvesting of some of the birds as the Member has suggested.

I think the key question, of course is, is there something we can do? The Member has raised a good issue. I’ve been Environment Minister now for quite a number of years and I must confess this is not one of the issues that has been high on the priority list that I’ve been aware of. Now that it’s been raised and the Member has provided the history, I will restate my commitment to go back to the department and see what options there are to try to address this issue and look at some of the suggestions and advice provided by the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I request unanimous consent to go back to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent granted

Power lineman is a very specialized, highly qualified trade where there are electrical skills required but also the ability to work under very significant and extreme circumstances, often on pole trucks, in some cases climbing poles, so it’s not a type of profession that you can just have folks train partially. But I take the Member’s point and concern about having a permanent facility and capacity based in the region, and I’ll be happy to have a discussion with him possibly tomorrow morning, bright and early at breakfast. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have an emergency rating system. The folks on the ground in the communities, in Inuvik for example, make determinations. They talk with the folks in the various communities and then they look at the severity of the situation in each community. The one that is the most critical is the one that we try to get to the fastest and the soonest. If you have a community where there are hundreds of people with no power for a great length of time, that is a critical emergency in the wintertime. So, we work to the utmost, working around the weather, keeping safety in mind, but...

There are 266 days left to the next election. I will commit to the Member to have a fulsome discussion with the chairman and president of the Power Corporation, and I will be able to report back to the Member on the content of the outcome of that discussion. Thank you.

We have some personnel on the ground. We have some that we use and we try to look to work with other folks who have some kind of similar capacity.

In terms of do we have any particular linemen, I would have to confirm and get back to the Member on that. Thank you.

That program is handled through the Power Corporation, and they’ve been taking care of the communications. If there are specific concerns from the Member, then I would be happy to talk to them about what may be needed to be done extra to ensure that those concerns could be addressed.

I was making the comments about the Member being a fountain of good ideas because we all know he tends to hide his light under a bushel and he’s very self-deprecating and humble, so I wanted to give him that little bit of promotion to help with his battered self-image.

So I will add that to the list that I have as I meet regularly with ENR and we will give it the consideration it deserves. Thank you.

The issue has been flagged. It’s on our to-do list. We’ve been using the resources and capacity that we do have to look at the full rollout of our electronic waste recycling in addition to all of the other recycling programs that we’ve come into in the last few years. The barrel one, one raised in the House, as well, by the Member for Sahtu, for example, for the vehicles that have been abandoned are all things on our list that we intend to get to but not any time in the life of this government.