Thank you. Seeing no further questions. Please turn to page 84, Environment and Climate Change, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $14,530,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to environment management, monitoring and climate change, beginning on page 87 with information items on page 91. Are there any questions? Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to return to the climate change action plan. In the draft plan, some of the actions appear to be funded but, in fact -- well, so 78 of the actions appear to be funded but 20 of the actions are only partially funded and 23 of the actions appear to be completely unfunded. Can the Minister explain whether all of the funding to implement the climate change action plan, is that located in one of these line items, or is it sort of sprinkled across the budget? I'll start there with my question. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we haven't released the action plan yet, and as we try and work within our current fiscal reality we're working on prioritization of those items, so the funding at times will be reallocated from within. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Member for Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. So I guess my next question is there are clearly some items that are at least being contemplated in the action plan that we're not prepared to fund. Can the Minister explain why we would put items into our own action plan but not put aside the funding to actually action them? What's the point of having actions in our own action plan that we can't do because we won't fund them? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the items within the action plan and the action plan itself is a document that we're using to work with the Government of Canada in our approach to get additional funding to support some of those items that are currently not funded. But I'd like to pass to the deputy minister for a little more detail. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Deputy minister Jenkins.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So the climate change action plan lays out a number of actions, and obviously, we're working with a number of partners, Indigenous governments, other levels of governments, and other organizations to advance the work that we need to do to address the challenges of climate change. One of the things that we've heard through discussions with Canada is that they often like clarity in a document that our government with actions that we feel need to be taken in our jurisdiction, and that's something that they can then use in their own approvals for funding requests to be able to allocate their funding. So in many ways, some of the actions that we lay, we want to be able to lay out the actions that we need, and then it is -- provides us an opportunity to point to a document for discussions with other funders. We know we get substantive funding from other jurisdictions, and they appreciate having it in a document when we have those conversations. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Is there any way to -- does the Minister have a total number or amount of money that we're proposing to spend in this budget on climate change actions; have you tried totalling that? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, $2.6 million. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Member for Yellowknife North.
Okay, thanks to the Minister for that. That's somewhere to start and continue our conversations.
I wanted to turn to a few other questions I have on this section. Can the Minister explain why under environmental protection and waste management -- so the number allocated clearly drops significantly between 2023-2024, and then last year down from $4.8 million down to about $3 million, and now we're back up to $4.1 million. Can the Minister explain why there is such big fluctuations from year to year in the amount allocated for that? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the increase of 485K between the 2024-2025 revised main estimates and the 2025-2026 Main Estimates is due to an increase in the expanded waste sites federal agreement, a reduction to travel, and controllable assets, collective bargaining increases, and amortization adjustment, and the decrease to the one-time supplementary appropriation. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Is it fair to conclude that the number has gone up and down so much from year to year because of variations in federal funding for certain programs; is that correct to conclude? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Yes, Madam Chair, that is a good explanation, and there's a one-off due to the collective bargaining in 2024-2025. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Is the Minister able to explain, you know, in plain language for most of us, because most of us are not experts, but what -- what we're not able to do this year because of changes in federal funding or what new things we're able to do? Like, if we're quite reliant here on federal funding, can the Minister, you know, explain in a nutshell what kinds of things we're not doing this year or new things we might be doing due to federal funding changes? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll pass that to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Deputy minister Jenkins.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So one of the areas is the excepted waste sites. We've got an agreement with Canada that expires, I believe, in March 31st, 2026, and so we're in the process of sort of negotiating dollars for some of the historic accepted sites that are included in the devolution agreement. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Okay. Thanks for that. That's something we can follow up on in our discussions.
Under the transboundary waters -- the line item under transboundary waters, can the Minister explain why last year's revised estimates went way up to $1.18 million. Perhaps just jog our memory, and then why we're back down to 285 for this coming year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll pass that to director St. Arnaud. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Director St. Arnaud.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So the biggest thing with transboundary is there's a transboundary bilateral water management agreement with a few different provinces, and those groups meet frequently to decide what projects they're going to be doing. So that budget will fluctuate based on availability of contractors, coming up plans for the next fiscal year. So you'll see every year the revised will be different as we load a certain amount of money for those projects each year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
It's still with North.
Yellowknife North, sorry.
We do share a lake. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can the Minister give any more specifics on what happened last year that cost the $1.18 million under transboundary waters. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'll pass to director St. Arnaud.
Director St. Arnaud.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have specifics on me right now, so we'll have to get back to the Member on that question. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'll -- my final question here, my colleague was talking about the environmental audit, and we see here that there's no money at least listed in the budget to cover the cost of doing the NWT environmental audit. And my impression was that this was a year when we were going to be doing a new audit. Can the Minister explain whether we are intending to do the environmental audit independent review this coming year, and if so, where the money's going to be coming from. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that specific item is under the accumulative impact monitoring program, and it's part of the $3.65 million. I will pass to deputy minister Jenkins to provide a little bit more detail. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Deputy minister Jenkins.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So just to give a little bit of status update on the 2025 audit, so we will be doing some engagement up until the end of March, then the auditor will be preparing and drafting the final report -- sorry, engagement happened last year. The auditor is still preparing and drafting the report. We hope that we would have a final audit report and recommendations released to the public this October. Thank you, Madam Chair.
