Mr. Speaker, today in my Member’s statement I spoke of the need to have environmental monitoring in the Tu Nedhe area around Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution. I have questions for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I would like to ask him if he could tell me if ENR has allocated any money in the area of environmental monitoring that could be transferred directly to the communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the budget that’s currently before the House, there is some money to train Northerners in the area of environmental monitoring mainly focused on the regions that are going to be directly impacted by the proposed pipeline. How the money is going to be allocated has not been finalized, as far as I’m aware, but there is that money in addition to, of course, recognizing that the broader issue of environmental monitoring, especially of the water, is mainly a federal jurisdiction. But we are starting to invest money in there because it’s such an important issue. Thank you.
There is a limited amount of monitoring going on around both Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution. What I’m interested in doing is seeing if the Department of Environment and Natural Resources could expand that environmental monitoring. I’d like to ask the Minister if he would be prepared to have his staff meet with the environmental workers in both Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution so that they could start to develop some sort of plan for the future environmental monitoring in those areas.
What I’d like to suggest as a first step would be that the Member and myself and the deputy sit down to talk about the issue, frame it out thoroughly, see what’s possible, and then map out next steps from there.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that response. I recognize that we’re just going through the budget process now; however, I’m interested in seeing if the Minister can commit to adding more money that’s targeted directly to the communities in the area of environmental monitoring.
We’d be prepared to look at that whole issue, as I indicated, with the Member, myself, and the deputy, recognizing that the budget is currently before the House. While there may be some latitude, we may also want to consider how we would best address this through the upcoming business planning process, which will be starting once this particular budget is passed. I am willing to commit to sit down with the Member to look at this issue in its entirety.
I recognize that even in the recent federal budget announcement that there is money put in for environmental assessments all pertaining to the Mackenzie Gas Project. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could commit to increasing the GNWT’s share of the Interim Resource Management Agreement so that more money can be put into environmental monitoring in the non-settled areas.
Once again we can add that to the list. We’ll pull the IRMA agreement. The Member is very familiar with that. As we look at the issue and mapping out next steps, we’ll include that as part of the discussion, recognizing that there is also federal money in that mix.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
