All those in favour, 6; all opposed, 8; all abstentions, two. The motion is defeated.
---Defeated
Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, second reading of bills. Item 21, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 9-17 (4 ), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014, and Bill 1, Tlicho Statutes Amendment Act, with Mr. Dolynny in the chair.
Welcome, colleagues. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee wishes to deliberate Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014, with the continuation of ENR.
Does everyone agree?
Agreed.
Good. Minister Miltenberger, do you wish to bring witnesses into the House?
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please bring the witnesses into the House.
Minister Miltenberger, if you could introduce your witnesses to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Ernie Daniels, deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources; and Nancy Magrum, director of shared services of ITI and ENR. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Campbell, Ms. Magrum, welcome to the House. Minister Miltenberger.
Mr. Chairman, apparently I said Ernie Daniels, I meant to say Ernie Campbell. Sorry.
It’s been a long day, Minister Miltenberger. That’s okay. Mr. Campbell. Committee, we are on page 13-18, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, environment, grants and contributions, contributions, $3.199 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 13-19, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, environment, active positions. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you. Pages 13-20 and 13-21, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, forest management, operations expenditure summary, $32.067. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to make just a few comments here. I think we’re still continuing to miss an opportunity in the forest management area and that’s the area of wild crafting and particularly mushroom harvesting. I don’t know where we’re at on that. I know there has been work to look into that, but it’s an industry that is proving to have some potential but it needs some management to really benefit the people of the Northwest Territories, otherwise the benefits go to people that come in from outside and take away the resources. So one question is what are we doing about that.
I’m wondering also, do we have the capacity to ensure that we have surplus forest yields for our biomass projects to meet the demand of our biomass projects and still maintain the integrity of the forest ecosystem. This is something that constituents are hopeful that we do have but want to be assured, and I know Boreal caribou have come up from time to time as sort of the major indicator as being the most sensitive indicator of how well our forests are doing. So maybe I’ll start with that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that answer I’ll go to Mr. Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the issue of mushrooms, we’ve been waiting for a response from the federal government. We’ve talked to them on numerous occasions and written them on two occasions to amend the Forest Resource Transfer Agreement that was done in 1987. There are two areas here. One is the mushroom industry and the other one is the incidental use of forests that we want to have the ability to manage those two areas as well.
We’ve worked with our lawyers, with the federal lawyers, and have drafted a document that will address it. So we’re just waiting now for word from the federal government on approval to proceed in that area.
On the question of inventory and capacity, we’ve undertaken around close to a quarter of the territory in the NWT with our inventory work and some of the proposed projects for biomass, we absolutely do have the capacity for sustainable harvest levels in the Northwest Territories. At this point what’s being put forward is well below the sustainable numbers that we have with our current inventory. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s very good to know that work is proceeding in the area of the fungi, and I appreciate that and I appreciate the update.
In terms of the sustainable yield aspects, I think it’s well known how we do our harvesting of biomass can affect the structure of the forest and the ecology of the forest and what stage the forest is at; an earlier pioneering stage or a mature stage. Boreal caribou are known to have pretty sensitive habitat requirements. I’m wondering, are we looking into or are we ensuring, Boreal caribou being a threatened species in the Northwest Territories, are we looking into how we’re proposing biomass or guidelines to ensure that we’re not impacting the most sensitive of those sorts of indicators? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Part of our work that we’re undertaking right now to establish a larger forest industry and a sustainable forest industry in the Northwest Territories is looking at the Boreal caribou issue and other species. Again, other areas such as water as well. We’re undertaking an exercise right now where we’re calling it an ecological assessment tool that we’re going to use, which takes into account the issue with Boreal caribou. So that’s being done now and, again, we’re hoping in a very short future here we’ll have that work done, definitely before any of the larger harvesting occurs.
Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate those comments from the deputy minister. I hope that we will be public with that information because I know there are concerns in the public amongst both our Aboriginal governments and other people that aren’t just from reading the newspaper and opinion pieces and so on. It’s clear that people want to move in the area of sustainability and where we derive our energy, but they also want to know it’s being done properly and with all due care. So I appreciate that.
The last question I have here is the climate change and the Greenhouse Gas Strategy and so on. Both are obvious components of forest management considerations and I’m wondering, in the recent work that’s been done to review our forestry practices and so on, what are the considerations being given to those aspects, both the Greenhouse Gas Strategy support and the climate change aspect. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that answer we’ll go to Mr. Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On those two items, absolutely we’re looking at both the Greenhouse Gas Strategy and, of course, overall climate change. Part of our work here is working with CanNor and we received that federal funding and, again, the initiatives under the Biomass Strategy for an example is going to be to look carefully at what this industry is going to entail. That work is going on right now and part of it is, or a big part of it is, of course, implementing those areas under the Biomass Strategy, which link to, of course, the Greenhouse Gas Strategy and so that work is being done. On sharing that work on the previous comment, absolutely we’re open to share that information.
Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. I know people used to rely on biomass for many of their energy needs. Biomass and good high-quality food, that was our energy sources way back. Today, obviously, when we’re proposing to use it to heat much larger facilities and so on, it’s a different scale of demand on our forests, so I appreciate that this work is being done and I appreciate the commitment to make sure that the word is getting back out to people who want to know that we’re on top of those sorts of questions. So I appreciate that and that’s all I had on this page. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll take that as a comment. Moving on with questions I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of questions here with regard to two things. Two questions, two things. The first one has to do with forest resource inventories and with the development of a potential wood pellet business in the South Slave. I know the department has done some work, I believe, on forest resources and doing inventories of our forest resources. I gather that it was done in the South Slave. But I believe there was also plans for the department to try and do forest resource inventories throughout the NWT.
Could I get an update on what percentage of the territory we’ve managed to do and what the plans are going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I mentioned, we are closely to a quarter of the NWT land mass that has been done on the inventory side. Again, the majority is in the South Slave. We’ve done a bit of work on the southern end of the Territories – South Slave, Deh Cho – and we’re undertaking a major project right now in the Tlicho Deh Cho area. Further north in the Sahtu area, some work has been done, as well, in the Gwich’in area, but a lot of work still has to be done in those areas.
With the existing information that we have, at this point the information tells us that a sustainable harvest for our existing inventory is around one million cubic metres. Thank you.
Mr. Campbell, we’ll go back to you for the completion of the last comment.
Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’m sorry if I missed the question earlier. If you’ve already covered that, my apologies.
My next question would be, there is some interest, I believe, in the Sahtu of potentially developing a wood pellet industry there. If the inventory hasn’t been completed in an area where somebody wants to develop a pellet industry, is that something that the department has the resources to do within a short period of time, to try and encourage a business to get established? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
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.
Thanks to the Minister for that information. That’s good to hear.
My other question has to do with communities and what I think the department calls wild land fire risks. My recollection is that there were assessments of wild land fire risks around communities that were being done. I guess I would like to know two things. Have all the communities been assessed in terms of wildlife fire risk? I’ll start with that.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All NWT communities in the forested area have wild land risk management plans completed at this time.
My brain automatically said, so why not all communities? But I totally understand why we’re not doing them all.
I guess my next question would be, in relation to the plans, if the assessments have been done, presumably the department is assisting communities to develop a plan to reduce risk if there is any. Are plans being implemented in the communities where these wildfire risk assessments have been done?
The answer is yes. In many of the communities we are working with MACA and the community governments there, with existing resources to implement these plans. Again, it’s a struggle to do everything in the plans but, again, we’re doing what we can to minimize the risk to these communities from wild land fire.
I appreciate the work that you’re doing and I think it’s really valuable work. I’m sure the communities appreciate it as well.
If there is a community that feels that they need to get some assistance from ENR, if they feel that they aren’t quite sure what they need to do, or they have a particular plan that they want to put in place, is it conceivable that they can go to ENR and ask for that assistance and presumably get it in fairly short order? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is a modest pot of money available to work with communities for risk management plans implementation. I would point out, as well, this is another area where personal responsibility is a big one and we, as well, encourage homeowners to make sure that their underbrush is clear, the trees are limbed, their house has as few flammable exterior products as possible, in addition to reliance on governments to come in and make sure the communities are fire smart.
We’re also doing a number of creative things, working, for example, in Fort Smith. They’re working with Transportation and they’ve opened up all the area around the airport for wood lots, as part of that FireSmart Program, which is a great boon to the wood burners in the community and it helps thin out the brush that otherwise Transportation wouldn’t be able to afford to do. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Moving on with questions I have Mr. Yakeleya.
