Agreed.
Thank you. Page 13-22, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, forest management, grants and contributions, grants, $100,000, contributions, $25,000, total grants and contributions, $125,000.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 13-23, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, information item, forest management, active positions.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 13-25, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, wildlife, operations expenditure summary, $15.125 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question here is on the contract services end of things. Considerable jump up there. I know we have a lot of capacity in the department. Just in terms of getting some information on that, what is that extra $600,000 or so going to be directed to? I suspect it might be directed to some of the caribou herd estimates but I’d like to find out that detail.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Ms. Magrum.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The increase in contract services is due to an increase in the requirement under the biophysical study. That will be related to survey work in the regions.
Can I get a little more information than that? What are our commitments under the biophysical whatever it was? What specifically would the extra $600,000 do?
We’ll have to get back to you with more detail on that.
The reason I raise this is because we do have a lot of capable public servants in our workforce and there has been a trend in the past to contract out more and more. We hire the experts in the field and then they sit there and do administration when they were hired to actually do the work because they are experts in that field. That is an ongoing concern.
The second question I have on this page is the department is committed to surveying all the major herds, as we learned from the Minister, this fiscal year. Yet I see really a reduction, if anything, to the wildlife management budget. Again I’m perplexed here. Are these costs being borne by other dollars not represented here?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that response we’ll go to Mr. Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the reductions that are in that area, I know that we do get some funding through our co-management partners, but the $200,000 reduction here, I’m not aware specifically on exactly where that is coming from.
I know the caribou population surveys are very expensive and we’re surveying all the major herds, so we’re talking about millions of dollars. I’m wondering are we giving up programs. We must be giving up programs if our budget is actually shrinking slightly – perhaps not significantly, but shrinking – when in fact we are taking on major additional tasks, and cumulatively because we’re surveying all these herds at one point in time. I’m wondering how that can be, what we’re giving up, or if those dollars are coming from elsewhere, where are they coming from?
The dollars that we have for the caribou studies again are working with our co-management partners and base funding that we have from the Churchill program and the reduction there is reflective of a PY that’s sunsetted under our wildlife management information system.
Thank you for that explanation of the reduction, that clears up that mystery. I’m still concerned about where we’re getting the millions of dollars required for the caribou surveys. These are core activities that this government is responsible for and we do bring in partners and so on. In terms of funding, unless things have changed mightily since the last time we looked at this, the GNWT is sort of the major agency responsible for funding those surveys. Perhaps I can start with is there an estimate for the cost of surveying all of our major herds this fiscal year?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve had some money added to our base to do this on an ongoing basis so that we’re not always in a position of reacting or trying to come back for funding periodically that we recognize there needs to be work done on an ongoing basis. My recollection is that to do all the herds this year, harkening back to my Minister’s statement, is in the neighbourhood of a million dollars plus.
Thanks for that information. It sounds like we’re both operating a little bit on recollections here. It would be good to have some solid information on this. Do we spend about a million dollars on caribou surveys each year and this year? I know we don’t survey… People have been calling for caribou herd population surveys – frantically calling for that – and it was held off and held off until finally this year. I’m having a hard time understanding the situation. If you can help me out, maybe the Minister can find more detail for us. I guess I’d like to know if it’s about a million dollars. That seems like it would be a heck of a deal to me, based on what I know as a biologist in my past life, for surveying all the major herds. Do we do a million dollars’ worth of caribou herd surveys every year?
It is in the million dollar-plus range. We’re going to survey the herds. We do some of the work on an ongoing basis and then we do a major amount of work every X number of years, as we’re doing this year, just to bring all that information together and to double check the decisions that we made in terms of, in this case, a lot of the hunting restrictions and herd health. The number is in the million dollar-plus range. I will commit to get the Member the number to the dollar; to the nickel if you’d like. I would be happy to share. I think he already has the notes we have from the 2011-2015 Barren Ground Caribou Management Strategy.
Again, I have no problem accepting the Minister’s estimate that it’s about a million dollars. We are dealing with budgets so it doesn’t hurt to have exact amounts, although those will vary according to the reality of conditions during the survey. I’m sure the Minister is aware of that. I’m just wondering, obviously we must give up some things to do that degree of work in this program. Like I say, I’d be happy to learn more detail on what that is when that information is available to the Minister. I will leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. More of a comment. I know the Minister has already responded on that question a couple of times here, so I’m sure they’ll get us the numbers. Any other questions on page 13-25? I’ll just read it again for the committee here. Page 13-25, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, wildlife, operations expenditure summary, $15.125 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 13-26, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, wildlife, grants and contributions, contributions, $1.093 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 13-27, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, information item, wildlife, active positions.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 13-29, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, land and water, operations expenditure summary, $4.827 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question on this page, the land and water program, we’re at about pushing $4 million and I’m wondering how much of this is land and how much of this is water expenditures.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this juncture the majority, over $3 million, is water.
I’m wondering what is the land component of this figure.
I have to ask the Member for clarification. Is he asking in terms of what’s left of the money or in terms of what type of work we do in relation to the land?
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley, if you could provide a bit more clarity in your next question.
Yes, sorry, Mr. Chairman. I was referring to the programs. What land programs are in this division and receiving some of the funding, albeit a small proportion? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The dollars in relation to lands in this division is basically in three primary areas. It’s under the protected area work that we do, also working with our partners on land use plans, and the third one is the environmental assessment side of things where we do work on the regulatory and environmental assessment for the GNWT as the lead department.
That’s fine, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that information.
Activity summary, land and water, operations expenditure summary, $4.827 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Page 13-30, activity summary, land and water, grants and contributions, contributions, total contributions, $40,000.
Agreed.
Page 13-31, information item, land and water, active positions. Any questions? Being none, page 13-32, information item, lease commitments, infrastructure. Any questions? Being none, page 13-33, information item, Environment Fund. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee was concerned at one point and, in fact, passed a motion in the House during the 16th Assembly, on the Milk Container Program. It seemed a little bit against our general goals. We want people to be healthy and our children to grow up healthy, and probably the single most important factor nutritionally is milk or an equivalent, so that we didn’t want the extra payment for a deposit to be additional to the cost of milk and we had proposed in the motion, which was passed in the House, that that down payment be returned, but we agreed with the idea to have a deposit so that we would get those containers recycled.
I think that there is still an interest in that and I’m wondering if the department has given more thought to how we can return that deposit to people somehow or implement the mechanism, I guess, might be more accurate, that was recommended in that motion. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, we haven’t done a lot more work on returning that particular amount of money. What we have done is put our minds to trying to expand this whole fund and recycling effort to now include electronic or e-waste. That was where we’ve been trying to focus our attention with the resources we have available. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s response there. Again, I hope that at some point in time there will be somebody who could turn their attention to that a little bit and see if we can’t be a little better to our people in terms of getting them to drink milk and not expect higher costs. I still think that’s an interest of the House.
On the other hand, I really do support the moving into the e-waste side. I’ll just note we now have an accumulated surplus, apparently, of $1.2 million in this area, so it’s not a question of affordability, which I think was one of the aspects that the Minister had raised originally. With that sort of accumulation, I think there is room and resources to entertain that motion.
On the e-waste side, I’m very pleased to see that moving forward. It’s something we’ve asked for years. I know the Minister has aimed to do that for years, so it would be great to see that actually happening this year on the ground. I’m very supportive of that and I know the public is too. I did participate in the survey on what electronics we have accumulated in our household and I hope other people in the public did participate in that survey too. Can we expect that there would be some income at all resulting from a wholesale recycling of electronic waste? Thank you.
We’ve been looking at this and it’s always been my opinion, unsubstantiated by necessarily an expensive study, but that in dealing with e-waste that we would be much better off to work out an arrangement with a large jurisdiction like Alberta, in particular, or in our case Edmonton, where they have the facilities set up and we would make arrangements to process our e-waste through their infrastructure as opposed to us trying to set up a similar kind of service. We’re trying to sort out what’s the best way. I don’t necessarily see it at this point, once again not having seen the final report, as a revenue generator. It will be something that will generate us savings if you do full cost accounting and the amount of waste that won’t go into our landfills and the savings that that would entail for starters. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s remarks on that. Just to confirm, I do indeed try and do full cost accounting, so I appreciate the Minister’s remarks there. Generally, I think it’s been a very successful program, the Waste Reduction and Recovery Act, and I support its further implementation. I am very happy to see this going ahead. Thank you.
