Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m familiar with the letter. As the Member indicated, it’s from last November. The letter is somewhat dated. There has been a lot of water under the bridge on that particular issue. The deputy minister has been personally handling a lot of the work and discussions on the Bluenose-East, the issue of the allocation and the discussion with the boards and the communities, so I would ask the deputy just to give a quick update of the circumstance that would address those seven issues which have been, as I indicated, I think, overtaken by some other events.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Before we continue here with Mr. Campbell, because we’re talking about a document that’s not before the House or tabled before the House, I’ll continue to allow the questioning, but I will suggest to the Member to maybe table that document with its proper redaction at a later date. Deputy Minister Campbell.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned yesterday on the caribou issue, the discussion started in August, and we had many, many, many discussions with political leaders, with technical working groups, there were caucuses with the political leaders, there were discussions with renewable resource boards. From then until just recently here, we’ve been able to work out approaches for an interim basis on management actions to address both the Bluenose-East and the Bathurst caribou herds, barren ground caribou herds.
Initially, with the alarming, I guess, information from the reconnaissance surveys in June, it definitely was recognized as an urgent situation. Throughout the number of months to where we landed today, it evolved into a process where we worked with our political leaders, and we worked with our co-management partners, and we recognized their recommendations, and we accepted those recommendations. Today we have an approach for the interim and we all recognize we have to get back together again after we get the photographic survey numbers from the June surveys, so we’ll probably be talking again in August on an approach going forward.
I also recognize we need long-term management approaches as well. But just to confirm, some of the previous letters from communities, from co-management partners, those issues were addressed and worked out collaboratively. In the end, we took the recommendations from the co-management partners. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Campbell. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize. I’ll table the document and I’ll leave my questions for some other venue.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Continuing on with questions on wildlife, I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe we’re on page 113, wildlife. I guess my first question is I see there’s been a $1 million reduction in wildlife research and management. This is a time when I know we’re all aware we have serious issues. Why the drop there? If I can get an explanation on that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Ms. Craig.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department had a strategic initiative related to the Caribou Strategy that sunsetted at the end of this fiscal year, so those funds have been removed from our 2015-16 budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Craig. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you. So that work was completed. We have a strategy and all that that’s adopted now?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This particular line item is one that has been funding a lot of the work that we’ve done on caribou, all the surveys, all the work that’s been done across the North for just about all the herds, trying to stay on top of things. It helped fund our involvement in all different regions with all the different co-management boards and in the unsettled claim areas.
After April 1st we’re going to be working very hard internally to see how we can cover this off from within. So it did what it was intended to do, but we haven’t had that money added to the base in ENR, so our challenge is going to be to still do the work that’s required on caribou.
We have different strategies on different herds and we still have work to do on herds like the Bathurst and the final plan on the Bluenose, for example. Thank you.
I agree, a close look is needed because we have clearly been failing miserably on our management of caribou. The herds have continued to plummet with every new report that we get. So I’m not averse to looking at how we’re spending it, but it is disconcerting to hear that sort of thing when we’re clearly failing.
Just on the caribou situation, I don’t think there’s any doubt that cow caribou, the female caribou, the adult female caribou are worth their weight in diamonds or gold or whatever it is that you value, yet in every case where we have established a quota and assigned a ratio of the number of bulls to number of cows, we have failed and vastly exceeded, sometimes by 100 percent, the cow harvest. That is, we’re reducing the reproductive capacity, the recovery capacity of those herds. I know we’re continuing on that and now we’re going to be even more amazing in how we limit the harvest on Bathurst herds by having a mobile …(inaudible)…based on, I don’t know, a dozen or two collars. This is even more magic. So I don’t see the answer yet.
Can the Minister tell me: Will these quotas be shut down? Will the hunt be shut down once the female quota has been reached?
The majority of caribou herds are under pressure not only in the Northwest Territories but we’ve seen that to the east, as well, with the George River and Leaf River herds and some of the herds farther to the west. The one herd that has been doing well, the Porcupine, they have the benefit of, I think, a very, very good management plan that took about seven years to agree to. They think the Bluenose-East plan is going to hopefully hit that standard as well. The Bathurst Management Plan is still somewhere in the future. Unfortunately, the complex area, unsettled claims combined with some settled claims has made it very problematic, but it’s a challenge for us. The Bathurst mobile zone, we believe, is a good solution in terms of protecting the remnants of the Bathurst herd, and that’s done based on the collars that we have, over a dozen collars, and regular flights to track where the herd is located.
When it comes to the Bluenose, there has been a ratio, in terms of bulls and cows. I fully appreciate and agree with the Member that cow caribou are very, very critical and we still have a penchant in the Northwest Territories for hunting cows. We can show very clearly in 1986 when the Bathurst was about 440,000 animals. At the same time as they put the road north into the range of the Bathurst, the numbers started to drop. So today we have about 15,000 animals. We’ve dropped over 400,000, 425,000 animals and we were harvesting roughly 15,000 animals a year. The majority of that, by far and away, at the most there was probably 3,000 at the absolute best time for resident and commercial harvest, the rest was the Aboriginal harvest and a lot of them were cows.
It has put enormous pressure on the herd and it has taken 28 years to get to this point. We’ve had some restrictions in effect for five years, and I’ve heard many comments by folks saying, “It’s been five years. How come there’s no recovery yet?” It’s because of the extent of the pressure on the herds. It’s taken 28 years to get down to 15,000 and it’s probably going to take that long to recover.
On the Bluenose-East side, we’re looking at allocation. I’ll get the deputy to speak to the bull-cow ratio. We’re pushing and have monitors out and staff out to make sure, because we’ve pretty well hit the cow harvesting number. The pressure now is on everybody to move on to the bulls with the tags that we have left, but I’ll ask the deputy to speak in more detail on that particular issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the Bluenose-East the recommendations from the board was 1,800 animals, and we’ve allocated those tags, authorization cards to the Aboriginal governments. The co-management partners informed that they wanted the 80/20 bull-cow ratio to be enforced. Through that process with the authorizations, today they’ve reached the cow limit. The tags that are being utilized by the communities are now bull-only authorizations.
Regarding the Bathurst, of course, the herd is protected with the core mobile zone. The Member did identify 12 collars. We had approval in the past to collar 20 animals and we brought the number up, of course, to that last year. As we know, the herd continues to decline. Cow mortality, of course, we’ve lost a number of collars. However, I just wanted to take the opportunity to explain how we came up with this core management zone. It was because of the way the Bathurst herd had been behaving this year. They came off the calving ground as a core group. They’ve basically remained that way. That’s something unique that we haven’t seen before, and even on the winter range they haven’t dispersed like they’ve done in the past. So we’ve had that ability to use that collared information to identify this core mobile conservation zone.
However, regarding the limited number of collars, we do have approval to up that number to 50 collars and we are undertaking that exercise and bringing those numbers up to that level in the month of March. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Campbell. Time is expired, but are there any other Members who want to speak on wildlife? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for that response, Deputy Minister. That was interesting information on the mobile zones. Sounds like a unique opportunity there.
We are, again, just to repeat, we’ve clearly failed with caribou management and I can guarantee as a biologist and a keen observer that we will fail with the Bluenose-East herd unless this government gets up the gumption to close the season when the cow harvest is filled because the cow harvest will not stop. If the cow harvest has been filled, then we know that many more cows have been killed than the department is aware of. How many, that’s an unknown.
We also don’t know, the Minister mentioned 15,000; we have no data from back in those days. We completely chose to not measure harvest and I can see going back and looking at the rate of decline we can estimate that and I appreciate that work, but again, here we are.
So I’ll leave it at that. I haven’t heard that the department is closing the season on the cow harvest as yet, and if we don’t do that we will continue to fail and a few people will enjoy their caribou meat at the cost of yet more generations of future people suffering the loss. Just a comment.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll treat it as a comment. Thank you very much. Committee, we’re on page 113, wildlife, operations expenditure summary, $15.096 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 114, wildlife, grants, contributions and transfers, total contributions, $634,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Page 115, wildlife, active positions, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Seeing none. Thank you. Page 116, lease commitments, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Seeing none. Page 117, Environment Fund, information item. Any questions? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could I just get an update on the plans for the electronics recycling? I have to smile because I ask this every year, as the Minister knows, and I keep hearing positive responses, but no action on the ground. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll get the deputy to respond. We do have five operational pilots that I think are proving out the case, but I’ll ask the deputy to expand further on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Campbell, go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do have a pilot project underway with the electronic and recycling. It involves five communities at this point and this fall the program will be fully implemented. So, there’s a positive new story. We will be underway with the program in the Northwest Territories in the fall of 2015. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That indeed sounds positive and I’d be curious to learn more about that. Maybe there will be an opportunity.
Now, I see our opening balance on the fund is continuing to increase or at least remaining stable. Are there any plans? Is that part of the equation here on getting this electronics recycling going? Are there plans for those dollars or is that the amount we want to continue to maintain in the fund? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those dollars absolutely are to address this one component, the electronics, but they’re also there to maximize the program so that we can continue to explore other areas that we want to undertake. We do know there is a lot of interest, of course, with tires. There’s also a lot of interest, as part of the review in the recent past, on household hazardous material and we heard, of course, some other area as well. So again, the dollars are to continue to attempt to be successful on the Recovery Act. Thank you.
Thanks for that response. The last question I have is I believe the deposit on oil drums has been removed and no longer is in place and I think that’s causing some issues. Well, I know that’s causing some issues for cleanup and a lot are being left out on the land and so on.
People that are in the business of cleaning up sites are no longer bringing them back, because that $50 deposit enabled them to do that. Is there any contemplation of this division for going after that issue and seeing what can be done about it and re-establishing some sort of deposit and ensuring that those materials are cleaned up? Often they’re, of course, left out there with fuel in them and they are a risk, contamination risk and so on. The great thing about the deposits was that it enabled the cleanup companies to go out there, drain all of those out into a few barrels, bring them back, deal with those contaminants and it was paid for by the deposit they got back on the drums. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This issue was touched on a bit yesterday with some of the questions in the House and it’s on our list that we’ve been working our way through and we’re not there yet.
We recognize the need, the same as we had this discussion with Mr. Hawkins on things like shredders for tires and vehicles. Mr. Yakeleya raised the issue of cleaning up all the old vehicles that are scattered across the North and it’s a question of time, resources and capacity. Just this rollout of the electronic waste issue, for example, has taken a considerable amount of time to get operational.
So we recognize it, we’ve got it on our list, but we are not in a position to be acting in the near future on being able to move forward on it at this juncture. Thank you.
Thanks for the Minister’s comments there. Perhaps there’s another way to deal with this issue. I mean, I understand Mr. Hawkins, but those are drums that are in our possession. These are drums and contaminants that are being left out on the land in remote situations that by law are, I’m sure, supposed to be cleaned up but aren’t, simply because of this mechanism that’s been removed. Perhaps there’s another way the Minister could conceive of dealing with this in another section of this department. I’ll leave it at that. I’m just raising the issue and it sounds like it’s not going to happen in this division anyway in the near future but, meanwhile, it’s an accumulating liability. I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll take that as a comment more than a question. We’re on page 117, Environment Fund, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 118, Fur Marketing Service Revolving Fund, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We’re going to combine pages 119, 120, 121 and 122 under the title of work performed on behalf of others, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I will ask you to turn to page 89, Environment and Natural Resources, department total, $85.981 million. Agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that consideration of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is completed?
Agreed.
