Environment committee  It will be a short answer. Thank you for the question. I don't have all the details with me today. It actually is a project that's managed by Public Works as well as the Province of Nova Scotia. But I think this is something that we could certainly prepare a response on and get back to your committee.

Environment committee  I can't tell you. There have been several stages of it, so I can't. But I could certainly provide you with the chronology of that. There have been a number of different starts of different phases, and I don't think I could do it with any accuracy at this point.

Environment committee  In the environmental assessment process--and the environmental process can be a provincial, federal, or sometimes a joint process--Environment Canada scientists quite often are asked to appear as expert witnesses. We would bring our science and we would indicate what we feel the likely impact of a particular development would be.

Environment committee  To clarify what I think I said, we've been talking primarily about the community-based cumulative impact monitoring. But the data we collect for all sorts of other reasons--for research purposes, monitoring of weather, monitoring of climate, all sorts of things--can be useful in doing an assessment of whether a particular development, or a series of developments, has made an impact or not.

Environment committee  We wouldn't define it specifically that way. We don't have a budget item that says “cumulative impact is this amount of money”. But there will be a variety of programs that would contribute to that goal.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. Environment Canada has provided technical and scientific advice in support of CIMP since the program's inception 10 years ago. This is a program that's been going on for 10 years. The program has been governed by the representatives of the land claim groups, INAC, and the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Environment committee  Sure. I think it's important to distinguish between some of the monitoring we're talking about that's specific to cumulative impacts. Particularly, we refer to the cumulative impact monitoring program, which is a community-based program, so there are government scientists but also community members doing some of the monitoring.

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my remarks will be very short. As the land management authority in the north, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is the lead department responsible for monitoring cumulative impacts in the Northwest Territories. Recommendation 4.62 from the Auditor General's report states that Environment Canada should support INAC “in identifying the information requirements for cumulative impact monitoring, and for planning and implementing programs to monitor cumulative impact in the Northwest Territories...”.