Thank you. I have no further questions right now. Thank you.
Thank you. No further questions, please turn to page 93.
Environment and Climate Change, policy and strategic planning, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $13,322,000.
Read this part out again. The Environment and Climate Change, policy and strategic planning, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $13,332,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to the regional operation, beginning on page 97 with information items on page 99. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 98.
Environment and Climate Change, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $7,212,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to regulatory assessment and authorizations, beginning on page 100 with information items on page 103. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions, please turn to page 101.
Environment and Climate Change, regulatory assessment and authorization, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $10,339,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to wildlife and forest management, beginning on page 104 with information items on page 108. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So under forest management, there is a section for forest resources. I believe they are helping in terms of the supporting the forest industry as outlined in the business plan, but maybe the Minister could confirm. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct.
I'll go to the Member from from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister. I wasn't entirely sure.
So under the business plan, one of the actions to support economic activities includes supporting a forest industry development, and I note that over time -- sorry, had it here a moment ago.
Yes, I do. Okay, so in 2022-2023, it was $75,000. 2023-2024 it was $50,000. And now it's reduced again to $25,000. So I guess my question to the Minister is, you know, how are we going to support a forest industry with a diminishing budget line? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, despite the reduced budget line item here, there are other programs that are available to fund this work, and there are also potential partnerships that the department is exploring. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, yeah, I know it's not necessarily always the budget line item here that would make all the difference, but I guess could the Minister speak more to what they're exploring to support the forest industry. I know there's interest on the Regular MLAs' side to see that industry flourish. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, currently, there are forestry management agreements in place with many Indigenous governments that have just recently been completed over the last several years. But we are also primarily exploring a federal funding option to support the industry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister for that.
Switching gears ever so slightly and moving into wildlife, I notice that the contributions on page 106, caribou monitoring, remote sensing, monitoring and range planning, all of these line items are reducing. Could the Minister please speak to whether, you know, that's sort of just a cyclical nature of range planning and monitoring herds or if there's more funding that needs to be found in this area? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is the result of a reallocation of some of the contracts and some small sunsets on some of the funding that was funding these programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Only really one more question. I understand that the reason the line item in forest management is so high in the actuals from last year is due to the unprecedented season. I can respect that. I know we fund that with supps. Whether I think that's the best way to go about things or not really doesn't matter to me, I'll leave that up to the Minister and his department. But why is compliance and officer services gone down over the last two years? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the 2023-2024 Main Estimates were $713,000, which are the same as the 2024-2025 Main Estimates for compliance and officer services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I take it that was the last question, or you had more questions? Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Sorry, Mr. Chair. And thank you, yes -- I'm sorry, I'm reading the 2022-2023 Actuals as being slightly higher than that. I was just curious. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my question is about the fire damage compensation grants are available to hunters and trappers to replace equipment lost as a result of a wildfire -- forest fires. What is considered equipment? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think if the Member would like a detailed description what would qualify under the program, we could certainly provide that information.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member for the Deh Cho.
Okay, great, thank you. My other question is how many applications were received for this grant from last year's wildfire? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that essentially reflects back to the number that I had mentioned earlier, around the 33 claims. With some of those claims, they were group claims so there was multiple participants on one claim application that was supported by local Indigenous governments or Indigenous organizations.
And maybe I can just briefly add to the previous question that items used for traditional hunting and trapping activities would sort of be a summary of the list, if you will. So it could be fairly broad. And I think it's -- yes, there is some latitude there in how it's looked at depending on case by case. So thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And another question I have is because of some of these things were lost in the wildfire and these are located out in areas that are not close to a community, the question I have is any of this going to be used for disposal of some of the stuff that's left out on the land? Like, is this part of that? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies, could you repeat the last part of that question.
Thank you. I'll go to the Deh Cho Member.
Is there -- in this compensation, is that -- because you're giving out a grant to it, are you giving out -- does this grant look at how -- or is it going to cover the disposal of the equipment that was lost in the wildfires? Because they're being left out on the land. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that's not considered as part of the program. The details of what's eligible within the program information could be obtained for your member that are interested through the local ECC office, and they'd be very, very happy to support any applications or provide any information that was requested.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you. That's -- I have another question. That's just about that disposal of burnt equipment or lost equipment that is sometimes might be left on the land when people leave their campsite that got burned down. So I was just asking about that one. But that's probably another question for a different area in ECC. Thank you.
Thank you for the comment. I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I got a couple questions on this activity here. The first one is I had the opportunity of touring the regional, at the time, ENR office here. It was during the summer months, and I was quite impressed with the monitoring global satellite technology that could be done sitting from a chair and watching what's going on out on the land. And with our experiences from the disasters of last year, what process or steps is in the decision-making for the initial attack decision to go or not to go to that particular fire? Like, what happens in that initial stage?
We keep hearing some stories about oh, the government always waits for it to get too big and then they say okay, well, let's send the bombers. But with that technology to identify fires that are out there, what happens in that phase? When is the decision made to send the bomber over there to blow it out? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
