My question today will be for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Miltenberger brought to the House here a Minister’s statement the other day regarding a joint Canada-Alberta implementation plan for oil sands monitoring. In his discourse he mentioned, and I quote, “This new oil sands monitoring plan is based on sound science and incorporates world-class tools to monitor and assess air quality, water quality…” And it continues. It talked about transparency and accountability in the monitoring.
Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard today from two of our Members here on this side of the House the issues of their fish up the Mackenzie River. This was not the first time this was brought into the House and this is not the first time this was brought into this Assembly. This has been brought in other Assemblies. There is grave concern. As a chemist by trade, I’m also concerned with the fact: do we have a proper baseline as we move forward with this type of monitoring plan for the oil sands monitoring. In my Member’s statement earlier last week I talked about the drinking water quality and I have to make a comment that the City of Yellowknife did bring forward their quality of chemical testing and I thank them for that. However, we have not heard anything to refute our own test samples here in the Territories. We have no chemical testing for our own data for Hay River, Nahanni Butte since 2009. There have been no chemical tests according to our data in Trout Lake in 2011 and many of the missing test results were in the Deh Cho community administrative region.
Mr. Speaker, how can we move forward with such an important initiative and yet we have no baseline to create this assessment? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a case where we have a situation of a critical service, a critical part of the environment where there is overlapping jurisdictions. We have the political and moral authority. The federal government has the legal authority as it pertains to the water. We take all the steps necessary to make sure that the municipalities and communities have safe drinking water, but in terms of protecting the ecosystems, the aquatic ecosystems, the groundwater and the watersheds in the Mackenzie River Basin, we have a role to play but the legal responsibility lies with the federal government. We are in the process of negotiating those transboundary agreements with the federal government so that we can, in fact, take that over. There have been some announcements south of the border that give us some pause and some comfort that they are on the right track, but we also know that in the Territories, the Member from the Sahtu and I were discussing in this House about the need for additional community-based water monitoring that allows to build on the work that has been done in terms of source water protection and broaden it out to the aquatic ecosystems. Thank you.
Again I do appreciate what the Minister is trying to portray here. The bottom line is that we still are dealing with missing test results. I did get some reassurances from the Minister of MACA regarding this information coming forward in the House. We are waiting for that information to come forward, but in the interim, I guess, where are we getting our baseline information as we prepare for this plan?
We are talking about a very futuristic plan about testing the water up and down the river, but as of today we have missing test results. I am asking the Minister of ENR when can we see or get reasonable access to these missing test results for the Members here so that the people of the Northwest Territories feel safe drinking their water.
Mr. Speaker, listening to the Member’s questions today and over the last few days, it would seem to be that the issue the Member is talking about, he would like some specific confirmation and assurance that what water testing is taking place in the communities at the community level where the water is being put into people’s houses and they are using for daily use, that is one issue that would be an area that MACA has responsibility for. The issue of the broader aquatic ecosystems, the water basin, working with Alberta and the federal government and regional governments up and down the valley to look at the type of water monitoring system we are going to have for the general flow and what is coming down river from the south, monitoring the impacts of resource development, all those types of things, those are the areas that we are building on when we talk about community-based water monitoring. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
