Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is in regard to accountability and I want to know who is accountable for the tiny morel mushrooms.
---Laughter
So my question is to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I just became aware recently, to be quite honest, in terms of the significance of mushrooms. I wasn’t very aware. I knew they existed and I have actually personally seen them in the bush when you walk through the bush and come across these small vegetative growths on the ground and sometimes you find them in trees. I didn’t understand their significance until recently.
Of course, in that exercise in finding out the significance of the mushrooms, there is a growing interest in terms of their monetary value, and recently there have been discussions on another form of mushrooms, which is chakra that grows on trees.
Because of the growing interest and need for some interim steps so that the department regulates and manages perhaps the onslaught of people that might come up to the NWT, my question to the Minister is: Can the Minister explain what his department has achieved in addressing the motion since it was passed in March 2014? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of ENR, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government, we have been aware of this issue now for some time. It was brought up in this House, if I recollect, very clearly in the last government. There was a commitment made that once the Wildlife Act was passed that we would be moving on to the Forestry Act. It is outdated and right now does not give us legal authority to manage things like the morel mushrooms. We recognize that.
At the same time, we’ve worked with the communities, we’ve worked with ITI, ITI has been providing business support to the Member’s constituents and we as a department have been working with the communities to try to make sure that the pickers that come in from out of territory at least have a business licence and that they are complying with all the local laws of the land. At this point that type of coordinated effort is what we are doing as we look at coming forward with a legislative proposal to modernize and update and redo the Forestry Act. Thank you.
I’d like to thank the Minister for working with communities in terms of trying to get a handle in terms of the growing interest in these mushrooms that grow abundantly in the wild and especially this time of the year.
In developing the interim measures, can the Minister state to the House who was consulted in coming to the interim measure that have been put in place at this point? Mahsi.
As we’ve dealt with this issue, it has evolved over the years. The morel mushrooms tend to follow the season after the fire season. So as fires have come and gone across the Northwest Territories, the issue of morel mushrooms has come up in the South Slave, outside of Yellowknife, in the Member’s constituency, and we’ve been looking at ways to try to deal with and make sure we can manage within the incoming of significant numbers of pickers, given the amount of morel mushrooms. But it is a very transient, intense industry that’s tied to the brief lifespan of the morel mushrooms. We’ve been working with communities. The Member himself has been very active in writing to the department, to myself, to Minister Ramsay at ITI, so we’ve been working collectively over the years with the MLAs, with the various regions and centres, Fort Smith, Yellowknife, wherever the issues have come up. In this case now in Fort Providence, to see how we could best manage this as we try to improve the arsenal, we have tools available to deal with this issue in the most effective way possible.
Part of the measures that have been put in place is a price, and I want to ask the Minister what is the cost of a business licence for mushroom harvesters and how were those rates determined?
I don’t have that exact figure or the process for setting the rates for business licences. I will talk to the Minister of ITI and I will commit to get that information for the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger, final short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister for his reply and, of course, working with communities. I know some have predicted, especially people that work in, of course, predicting the weather. They have indicated that it could be a hot, dry season this year, and of course, the department is also equally responsible for forest fire management, but with this tiny little morel that grows in the wild, I mean, are we ready in terms of managing and monitoring and regulating perhaps the transient people that might come up North?
We will continue to deal with the issue of morel harvesters as we have in the past, recognizing that it’s work and a process that needs improving, which we are embarking on, and we will continue to work with the Member and with other communities where this issue comes, depending on where the fires are, and what happens with the morel harvest itself. Right now we have to deal with the tools we have, but we are committed to improving our ability to regulate that particular transient industry.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
