Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement by asking whether — I believe it’s the Minister of ITI or ENR looking after the regulatory process here — the important conclusions of the environmental audit of 2005 are being followed up with some very important and critical recommendations requiring additional resources, the implementation of the cumulative impacts program and so on. Are they actually getting done? We’re in 2008; the next review will be in 2010. What’s our progress on that?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Work is being done in that area. As well, work continues to be done to address and analyze and be able to give a thorough response to the McCrank report, about which we want to deal with the new government once the election is over. That work is expected to be done for the McCrank report sometime in November, I believe.
Just for clarification, I want to be sure I got that right. The report that’s coming out at the end of October, soon after the election, will include an assessment of where we’re at with the 2005 audit as well as address the McCrank report. Is that what I’m hearing? In one report?
Mr. Speaker, very clearly there is a link. We’re going to do the analysis, look at the gaps and address our specific recommendations on going forward, as well as raise some of the concerns that we do have with the McCrank report. We expect and anticipate that it will be thorough.
Mr. Speaker, the point I certainly agreed with in the McCrank report has already been highlighted by the boards and agencies themselves and by other reviews and the environmental audit. But a big one is the lack of funding to our agencies, especially the Mackenzie Environmental Impact Review Board. Will that be addressed in the report, and is this government lobbying to get that big gap taken care of so we can do a better job there?
Mr. Speaker, clearly, those are responsibilities of the federal government, but we share the concern that there are things like cumulative impact work that are identified and are not properly funded. There are other concerns that some of the boards aren’t adequately funded, as well. We’ll be looking at all those issues as we come forward.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you again, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for those comments. Probably everybody agrees to the recommendation that we get some land use planning and land use frameworks underway. I want to compliment the Minister and this government for getting that started. Hopefully, we’ll see some results there.
I want to stress that to the extent we are in deficit here, that these regulatory programs are underfunded. While we seek devolution, we will be left with those deficits, because along with devolution and responsibility come all those deficits in funding. We need to get these gaps filled before that transfer happens.
I’d like to hear again what the Minister will do to ensure appropriate levels of funding so they can do their job and participants and communities can participate in the process as required under the legislation and as the federal government has committed in that legislation.
We will fund the programs we are directly responsible for to the best of our ability. As well, we’ve taken on new initiatives like the water strategy and the proposed land use framework that’s currently under development. Those are all being dealt with under our new strategic initiatives. We, of course, are committed to working with the federal government and all the other stakeholders to make sure we continue to work, once the election is over, for adequate funding for the regulatory regime that’s in place.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
