Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeantatarms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
For the record, I'd like to get the Minister to please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, back again beside me on my left is deputy minister Bill MacKay, and on my right deputy secretary to the financial management board Mr. Terence Courtoreille.
Thank you. Committee, we will resume where we left off yesterday with consideration of the Department of Environment and Climate Change on page 4. I would like to remind Members that we will go through the estimates by activity. Please keep your questions to the activity under consideration.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 20232024, Department of Environment and Climate Change, environmental management monitoring and climate change not previously authorized, $939,000. Is there any questions? Member from YK Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, of course, before I begin my questions, I'll note that being first in the cue and then the power goes out, and I won't say that's suspicious or incidental. Ah, the government will do anything to deny questions, so.
But no, on a serious note, Mr. Chairman, under this section we have water surveillance and we have climate change preparedness. And I'm wondering if the Minister can flesh out both of those two categories as in what the public would see and how they'd be reported for and that's specifically more for the wastewater surveillance. The second piece being, of course, the climate change preparedness, what would the public actually see in this activity? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we are in an effort to actually answer questions, I'm not clear we were asking what in the wastewater surveillance and what in the second item go public facing? Like, as in what the programs and services are? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have two-line activities. One says wastewater surveillance. So what does the public actually see and know about this, and how does it get reported? It's these are powerful words but they're kind of generic. So, you know, somebody would say well, what does that mean and how is it reported? So what information do they gather, where do we find out about what these mean? And setting aside it’s federal money, which is nil, in other words nil to the cost to the Northwest Territories, people are often curious of these types of things as just generic headings. So thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So there's two positions under the wastewater surveillance funding. This was is an interdepartmental initiative, so it involves work across multiple departments. The first of the positions funded through these dollars is an environment laboratory technologist which is responsible for doing a daily analysis of wastewater samples. The second is a molecular microbiologist. This is an individual who can support and liaise with the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer and with Taiga lab, and that responsibility is to develop and refine protocols that can help detect virus in wastewaters. This, you might recall, started during COVID19 when there was a realization that this was an avenue by which viruses can be detected in wastewater. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to the two positions, are they currently staffed? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.
Yes. Thank you.
Member of YK Centre.
I may not have heard the answer because I was writing my next question down. So in fairness. So the climate change preparedness for the North, is there any type of public reporting of this particular initiative? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Firstly, those two positions are staffed and just to follow up. But then with respect to climate change preparedness, public reporting, Mr. Chair, I believe there would be. There is sorry, I'm just trying to see that one. So there's the panterritorial adaption partnership which runs over this fiscal year. And, yes, as far as what kind of reporting is under that, I don't have the detail here, Mr. Chair. I can certainly ensure that we provide it to the public.
YK Centre Member.
Any chance they could provide it to the Members? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just to be clear, both the flood and the geological mapping are public, and they can they're already being made public. With respect to, again if this is about the evaluation of the effectiveness, I will confirm that there is public reporting or that there is some form of evaluation metrics and if so confirmed, I will certainly provide it to the House. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.
No, that will be fine. I mean, as I pointed out earlier, some of these are generic headings and from time to time you get people curious on what they actually are. Thank you. No question.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake. Member of Range Lake.
So thank you, Mr. Chair. The wastewater monitoring or Wastewater Surveillance Program is, I believe, related to COVID19 funding. So are we discontinuing this program after that funding sunsets? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The positions may not be sunsetting. But with respect to what will happen, the funding itself is going to be sunsetting at the end of this fiscal. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Any further Member questions from the Members? Okay, I don't see any. We'll continue on. Thank you.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 20232024, Department of Environment and Climate Change, environmental management and monitoring and climate change, not previously authorized for $939,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Continue on to Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 20232024, Department of Environment and Climate Change, wildlife and forest management, not previously authorized $27,813,000. Questions. I have Member from YK Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I see that there's $24 million plus earmarked for the fire suppression. This is supplementary funding. Is the so this is on top of what's also been provided earlier. Can the Minister start the this round of questioning off with clarifying how much to date has been allocated for the I'm assuming last year's firefighting season? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we are looking at total projected expenditures for the year will be at just over $121 million. And that's anticipated expenditures. So in terms of the base budget, that comes in at around just 21.7, just over $21.7 million. In August, you may recall there was a request for a supplementary appropriation at $75 million. So that leaves with the projected expenditures of 121, that leaves the projected shortfall of 24.3, which brings us here. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.
Thank you. My understanding is the Government of the Northwest Territories has already received a we'll call it interim or partial payment, which is unusual, if I understand it, being accelerated so quick. That was probably based on the assessment or assumption that it would be quite expensive coming this firefighting process. Could the Minister confirm how much has been received to date and how much are we anticipating? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we certainly have received an advance under the I was going to say the DFA; I hope I've got the acronym correctly but I don't have that in front of me. That, though, goes to MACA. That's more on the recovery side as opposed to on the recovery and a response as opposed to the firefighting. The firefighting we may see some recoveries. There's a division as between firefighting generally versus firefighting as it applies to a community for which the federal government would provide some supports. But we've received $84 million to date, again as an estimate, advance on the recovery side. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.
Thank you. So just to be clear, whether just for me or potentially others, this $24 million is anticipated or sorry, is going to be used for the cost to fire fighting the fire, but the money received to date isn't applied directly to that overall cost?
Thank you. Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are some very, very detailed breakdown charts of all of the efforts, both in terms of recovery costing as well as the firefighting. I think there may be some firefighting associated here but or sorry, some firefighting that's under the MACA envelope. But this portion under ECC, this is exclusively with respect to fire suppression. And the fire suppression will include both community fires activities as well as wildfires away and outside of communities. So this is entirely for that. It is not the recovery amounts or the response amounts that would relate to, for example, evacuations or people returning to their communities. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from YK Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my next question with respect to this activity and sort of and beyond, because I think it's all related, is when can we expect a reasonable reconciliation time on this cost? So in other words, an assessment to breakdown and some transparency on when the cost will sort of be fully aggregated for the expense of last year's, and that includes the whole process? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Minister Wawzonek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that would certainly be in the public accounts. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to Member from YK Centre.
