Mr. Jerry J. Ouellette: My question is for the Minister of National Resources. CWD, or chronic wasting disease, affects white-tailed deer, elk and moose-cervids, basically. It's a fatal disease that affects these animals' brains.

The reason I mention this is because of the escape of the game-farmed animal red deer in the Sudbury French River area over the past two years. These escaped deer have the potential to infect wildlife with CWD. Not only that, but red-tailed deer also have the ability and do mate in the wild with elk. This alone threatens the elk gene pool in the Sudbury area.

In January this year, the MNR was informed of the escape, but failed to take action. Why has the ministry failed to take any action to protect the wildlife in Ontario?

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: I appreciate the question. Certainly, chronic wasting disease is a progressive and fatal disease of the nervous system of deer, moose and elk, and our government continues to take measures to minimize the potential spread. The good news is that it hasn't been detected in Ontario. It has been detected in two other Canadian provinces and several US states, so we continue to take measures to ensure that it doesn't come to Ontario.

We're developing a CWD surveillance and response plan. We've tested over 7,000 wild deer, moose and elk since 2002, and so far, all the results have been negative. We've implemented a regulation prohibiting the possession of high-risk deer and elk carcass parts that are harvested in other jurisdictions.
We're working with farmers to make sure that we have a plan that works with them, to capture and relocate as many of the escaped deer as we can.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Jerry J. Ouellette: The 2002 program that came into place was a program designed to establish protocols in the event that it was identified.

Here is a quote from Dr. Terry Quinney, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters' provincial manager of fish and wildlife: "It is inexcusable that the government has failed to heed all the warnings and learn from the experience in other jurisdictions

where the spread of the disease has resulted in the death of tens of thousands of deer.... The abundant, healthy white-tailed deer population in Ontario, and the much smaller elk population, are being put at risk by inaction on the part of the MNR. Once CWD strikes in Ontario there will be virtually no means of eradicating it."

Minister, there is evidence that these red deer are also reproducing in the wild and becoming a self-sustaining population. Why has the ministry not bothered to recapture, contain or manage the escaped deer, which have the potential to infect wildlife with CWD?

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: The ministry is monitoring a small population of red deer. Certainly, the numbers have been fluctuating, based on people telling us stories, so we're monitoring it. We've been making sure that the escaped deer from the farms in the North Bay area have been monitored.

We take this issue very seriously. Immediate action was taken by staff and a cull was initiated. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency test results showed that red deer that were culled by MNR do not have chronic wasting disease.

Escaped or released farm deer pose a risk to public safety, farmers' crops and domestic livestock. Due to the risk these escaped red deer pose to our native wildlife, a plan to dispatch the animals was put in place. I want to take this opportunity to thank local farmers and hunters for their assistance in removing the red deer.

We understand the gravity of the situation, and we'll continue to monitor-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.