Thank you. Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It'll actually be $154,029. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
No, thanks for that, the accuracy of those numbers, much appreciated. I don't have anything further. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Are there any further questions from Members from the expenditures on behalf of Members?
Seeing none, Legislative Assembly, expenditures on behalf of Members, operations expenditure summary, 20232024 Main Estimates, $10,930,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. We will now go to Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, beginning on page 11 with information items on page 12. Questions?
Seeing no questions, Legislative Assembly, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, operations expenditure summary, 20232024 Main Estimates, $1,973,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Next is Office of the Clerk, beginning on page 14 with information items on page 15. Questions.
Seeing no questions, please turn to page 14. Legislative Assembly, Office of the Clerk, operations expenditure summary, 20232024 Main Estimates, $10,081,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Office of the Speaker, beginning on page 17 with information item on page 18. Question. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, on page 17, I guess there was quite a anyway, back in 20212022, actuals were about $1.4 million and 20232024, it's around well, 545. What happened in 20212022? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll hand it over to Ms. Wickens for more detail.
Thank you. Ms. Wickens.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, in 20212022 we had a sole inquiry, and those costs were used to cover that.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Oh yes, no further questions. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Are there any further questions to Office of the Speaker from Members?
Seeing none, please turn to page 17. Legislative Assembly, Office of the Speaker, operations expenditure summary, Main Estimates 20232024, $545,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Statutory offices beginning on page 20 with information items on page 21 and 22. Questions.
Seeing no questions. Thank you. There's an additional information item on page 23. Are there any questions? If there are no questions, please turn to page 20.
Legislative Assembly, statutory offices, operations expenditure, Main Estimates 20232024, $4,926,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, Members. Please return now to the departmental summary found on page 5. Revenue summary information item on page 6. Questions. No further questions, committee, I will now call the department summary.
Legislative Assembly, operations expenditure, total department, 20232024 Main Estimates, $27,655,000. Mr. O'Reilly.
Merci, Madam la Presidente. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the estimates for the Legislative Assembly at this time. Mahsi, Madam Chair.
The motion is in order. To the motion?
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried. Consideration of Legislative Assembly 20232024 Main Estimates, operating expenditure, total department, is deferred.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us. Sergeantatarms, please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.
Committee, we've agreed to consider Tabled Document 81319(2), 20232024 Main Estimates. We will now consider the Department of Environment and Climate Change. Does the Minister of Environment and Climate Change have any opening remarks?
Yes, I do, Madam Chair.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here to present the 20232024 Main Estimates for the Department of Environment and Climate Change. Overall, the department's estimates propose an increase of $2.671 million or 2.2 percent over the 20222023 Main Estimates. These estimates support the mandate objectives for the Department of Environment and Climate Change while continuing to meet the GNWT's fiscal objectives to prioritize responsible and strategic spending.
Highlights from the proposed estimates include:
An increase of $1.7 million for barrenground caribou research and monitoring offset by a sunset of $560,000 for previous increased funding for some Bathurst and BluenoseEast monitoring activities, for a total of $1.14 million in additional funding;
Additional sunsets of $3.598 million which includes $960,000 related to the Section 11 Conservation Agreement for Boreal Caribou, $2.259 million for the Nature Fund Protected Areas Agreement, $219,000 for the Approach to Unauthorized and RightsBased Occupancy, $110,000 for Sustainable Livelihoods, and $50,000 for Flood Impacts. The department has a commitment for a bridgefunding agreement with the federal government for Section 11 and Nature Fund activities to offset most of these sunset amounts;
Forced growth funding of $1.091 million for forest management personnel, that includes fire crew extensions and two new fire crews given longer wildfire seasons;
An increase of $3.535 million due to a change in accounting treatment to move funds from the work on behalf of third parties fund to the operations and maintenance fund for the Alberta/Northwest Territories Bilateral Water Management Agreement, the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement and the BarrenGround Research, Monitoring and Management Agreement; and,
A $219,000 reduction in funding for contract services.
These estimates continue to support the priorities of the 19th Legislative Assembly and vision of budget 2023 by:
Continuing work on the 20192023 NWT Climate Change Action Plan, and ensuring climate change factors are integrated into government decisionmaking;
Supporting initiatives that promote economic diversification and jobs in communities by supporting jobs related to protected areas, a sustainable forest industry, expanding waste diversion programs, and support for the traditional economy including the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur Program;
Contributing to the GNWTwide efforts to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and support regional based decisionmaking through participation in the NWT's long standing comanagement systems for land, water, wildlife and forests, and ECC’s support for sustainable livelihoods;
Supporting the GNWT's work to improve food security through country food, landbased programming, effective management of harvested species, their habitat, and assisting with agricultural land uses;
Modernizing land management, including how we serve our land administration clients, supporting sustainable economic development and taking leadership on climate action;
Supporting efforts to reduce the municipal funding gap through the transfer of land to communities.
That concludes my opening remarks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Do you wish to bring witnesses into the House?
Yes, I do.
Sergeantatarms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Minister, please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm pleased to be here today to present the proposed 20232024 Main Estimates for the Department of Environment and Climate Change. With me today I have Dr. Erin Kelly, deputy minister of environment and natural resources and acting deputy minister of Lands. She's on my right.
On my left is Julian Kanigan, assistant deputy minister of Environment and Climate Change, Environment and Natural Resources.
We also have Dr. Brett Elkin, assistant deputy minister, operations, for environment and natural resources.
And Blair Chapman, assistant deputy minister of operations for Lands.
So we may be switching people in and out, Madam Chair.
All right. Thank you. Can you just clarify again, I didn't get so the gentleman's last name to your
-- Kanigan.
Kanigan.
Thank you. And if you want to just introduce the witnesses, if you have to switch them out and just let me know if there's a question that you can't answer. I'm just going to let Members know that if we have to switch during the question time, I'll get the clerk to pause the time just while you're switching out so it doesn't eat up time if it comes to that. All right.
This is a new department, you know, there might be lots of questions. All right, so does committee agree to proceed to the detail contained in the tabled document?
Agreed.
Committee, we will defer the departmental summary and review the estimates by activity beginning with corporate management, starting on page 79, with information items on page 80 and 81. Questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. When can we expect to see an organizational chart for the new department? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Dr. Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There's a highlevel organization chart that can be found in the main estimates as it is, and we're currently working with staff in the department to go through the organization design. We want to make sure that we do it right the first time. Our hope is that we'll have that the majority of it done before April 1st but there will be some optimization that occurs into the new year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I guess it's my hope that before we approve the budget for this new department, MLAs would be able to see some sort of even if it's the draft before April 1st, detailed organizational chart. I'm going to drill down a little bit more into some questions about that.
Can someone explain to me how we go about deciding you know, presumably I'm looking at this, there's obviously duplications. You can only have one director of finance, you know, and one manager of comms or policy or how you go about deciding and when you will decide who of the duplicate positions gets the job? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
