Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on the Minister’s statement earlier today on the update on the Protected Areas Strategy from the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources and see if I can seek some more clarity. He did state we will continue to support the completion of working group reports and the extension of interim land withdrawals for candidate areas, which I really appreciate. He also says we will continue to advance the establishment of core representative areas within each eco-region, which makes sense.
My question is: Are any of the five areas currently scheduled for consideration as national wildlife areas included in these representative areas, and as national wildlife areas being contemplated, will they be put on hold for some unscheduled amount of time until the northern tools materialize or what’s the plan for those? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The ones that are most advanced, of course, are the Edehzhie and there are the other candidate areas mainly in the Deh Cho. The work is being done, as I outlined in my statement to the House, and we intend to keep moving. We do have northern tools that exist and we’re prepared to be more proactive in actually looking at using them and not just talking about using them. We will continue to have discussions with the federal government about the federal designation as well. As I indicated in the House yesterday, I have to have discussions with Minister Kent to that effect. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I also would like to know exactly what are these new and existing northern tools that we hear referred to explicitly. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as I’ve indicated, I believe yesterday, as well, we have the ability in the North to set up parks conservation areas, critical habitat, wildlife habitat. As we move to devolution and we take over with all the enhanced responsibilities, there may be other types of tools that will come up and make a certain amount of sense as we lay out work that’s going to be within the Land Use and Sustainability Framework and regional land use plans.
Thanks to the Minister. Some time ago committee commented on the NWT Land Use and Sustainability Framework but it seems to have disappeared into the quagmire. Will the Minister be bringing this forward for consideration by committee before it’s finalized? Mahsi.
This is a critical piece of work. It has a history that dates back to the previous Assembly. We have been working on it diligently. As the Member’s indicated, they see some of the work. Yes, as we move forward to the next stages we will be, as per protocols, working closely with committee in the proper sequence to make sure that they have their input at the front end of this process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question is: What will our role be in land use planning, actual land use planning on the ground under the new auspices of devolution? Mahsi.
We will look to have a key role at the table. The federal role won’t be as visible. We need to have our thinking clear, which is why we’re working hard on the Land Use and Sustainability Framework as well as all the other subsidiary and interrelated strategies that we’re working on. We’re going to be at the table and we’re going to be much more proactive because we’re going to have the authority, plus, with our thinking much clearer coming from the Land Use and Sustainability Framework, we’ll be able to hopefully move these processes with more alacrity. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
