Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have with me to my right Mr. David Stewart, who is the deputy minister of the Department of Finance. To my left, I have Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the Financial Management Board. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, it is. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair I am here to present Supplementary Estimates, (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2017-2018. This document provides for an increase of $10.6 million to the operations budget.

Major items in these supplementary estimates include:

$4.4 million for the New Canada-NWT Agreement for French and Aboriginal Languages. These costs are fully offset by revenues from the Government of Canada.

$1.4 million for the Great Slave Lake Commercial Fishery Revitalization initiative.

$1.2 million for the runway surface repairs at the Inuvik airport. An offsetting amount was lapsed in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my understanding is they are two separate projects. The second one, the contract is in place and the estimated completion is in June 2017, of which we have another 29 days. I will find out. I know the first one, I believe, was on the Aurora Research Institute. I will find out where the second one is and share that information with the Members. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, shipping and shipping-related activities are administered and regulated under the Canadian Shipping Act and Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act which falls under the purview of Transport Canada. ENR recently participated in Transport Canada's panel discussion as part of their tanker safety expert review process, and we also participated in an Environment and Climate Change Canada science table that was formed to respond to the grounding of the barge in Tuktoyaktuk. Any opportunity we have, Mr. Speaker, to bring it to the attention of our federal counterparts, we use that...

No, Mr. Chair, I will not. We have significant funding that is earmarked towards those particular initiatives, and this is one that the work needed to be done to update the study. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, ENR is currently working with its partners at the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs as well as Northwest Territories Association of Communities to support municipal waste management in various capacities. They range from training courses, household hazardous waste collection, and public education material. In addition, the department continues to expand the product stewardship programs that see recyclables removed from the NWT communities for proper disposal. Working with our partners, we are exploring the possibility of establishing a system of coordinated...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, with such an influx of capital money, a number of things may have contributed to this; the timing of getting the contracts out there, maybe the capacity in some of the areas of the Northwest Territories to get the projects done, and so there are a number of contributing factors to this, in fact that we had fairly significant capital budget as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to use this opportunity to recognize Shane Brewster, who was inducted into the Education Hall of Fame. Mr. Brewster dedicated his entire teaching career to elementary education in Inuvik, first at Sir Alexander Mackenzie School -- we all remember where that was -- and then East Three Elementary School. Congratulations, Shane, on your well-deserved induction in the hall of fame. Also, sitting next to Shane is his very proud daughter, Jasmine. Welcome. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our information reports will be publicly available on our website. Any updates to the precautionary public health advisory will be made publicly by Health and Social Services. The office of the Chief Public Health Officer is examining the recent data for Kam and Grace Lakes, and will be updating the map to reflect more recent data on these lakes. The office of the Chief Public Health Officer is able to provide advice to agencies and community governments on possible messaging for residents and visitors.

For example, ITI worked with the office of the Chief...