Bob Bromley

As I outlined in my Member’s statement, this is quite a valuable industry that’s out there waiting for some support. There is a small core of harvesters that I’m sure poked the government to get something going earlier but they are still awaiting support. I will ask this Minister again if he will commit to working with them to develop those necessary licences and whatever regulatory supports are needed to ensure that the industry benefits our residents rather than walk straight across the border as has happened again this past summer. Thank you.

Is there anything impeding progress right now or is it that things are going slowly or going well? Any role that the Weledeh MLA should be playing here? Thank you.

I appreciate those remarks. Again, I think there probably are some important opportunities for communities here. Is there a plan to involve them or the Association of Municipalities or something like this in a meaningful way at some point soon in the planning? Again, because I think these are important opportunities that the communities should be brought into as soon as possible just to help build the capacity there in the uptake. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

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Thank you, committee. Page 12-29, activity summary, Industry, Tourism and Investment, economic diversification and business support, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement and direct my questions to the Minister of ITI. I noticed that the 2009 edition of the NWT Economic Review contains a lot of statistics about our major resource sectors but there’s no information on agriculture, forestry, or cultural industries outside of our arts and crafts. As I said the other day, our statistics people tell us that if we don’t measure it, we don’t care about it. That may be extreme, but struggling local mushroom harvesters are working hard to get that industry going and we need to take their needs into...

No. I appreciate that commitment. Thank you.

It’s good to hear that there’s still attention being directed to these. Again, I’m interested, we’re 10 years down the line, what’s the construction date and do we have the dollars lined up or a strategy laid out for the upfront costs for that construction? Thank you.

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