Bob McLeod

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will jump on the wagon if I can find one. Seriously, this is an objective and a goal for us. There are some challenges that we will have to address. Anytime you serve food and you provide food, you have to deal with health guidelines and you have to make sure that the food is safe and fresh and so on. These are the kinds of challenges that we have to face, but I think on a go-forward basis we can begin to work at it and we can take small steps. The more successful we get as we go along, the bigger we can get. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for that important question, because everybody needs food to survive on, especially potatoes. I’m reminded of that Stompin’ Tom Connors song of ketchup loves potatoes, so… But this is an initiative of this government. We feel that we need to find ways to increase the production of food locally, and we feel that this is another way to reduce the cost of living and provide for more self-reliance. We are looking at a number of different ways, in partnership with the Government of Canada, to utilize local natural resources, and we are going to be looking...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the past, northern residents have relied on community gardens to provide nutritious locally grown produce. Thanks to dedicated community gardeners, this practice is being revived. During our short but intense growing season this summer, Northwest Territories community gardeners harvested a bumper crop of produce ranging from potatoes and carrots to spinach and lettuce.

Mr. Speaker, reducing the cost of living is one of the five strategic initiatives of the 16th Legislative Assembly. One way to accomplish this is to increase the amount of food that is produced and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With me I have Tom Williams, deputy minister of Human Resources.

Mr. Speaker, yes, we are going to shake things up and especially now that we know they can grow one-pound potatoes in the Sahtu. This is an area that we are looking at and combined we have to also look at inter-settlement trade so that we can move the resources around and so on. I think this is a very important initiative for this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I should point out that it wasn’t that long ago, maybe 20 or 30 years ago, where because of our isolation in the Northwest Territories, that most, I’d say all of the communities were self-sufficient and self-reliant with regard to food production. We’re now at the stage where we’re starting to take baby steps and we’re starting with the Small Scale Foods Program. We’re starting to look at bigger ventures. I think that some Members have raised agriculture as an option, and that’s something that we continue to look at. Even others as we get further into it, we could see how we can continue to...

We are committed to increase the number of business travellers to the North, so we’ll certainly be prepared to look at this area of financial incentives, and we’ll look at what the Yukon is doing, and we’ll also look at how the money that we’re spending through the SEED funding, how that’s working with regard to increasing the number of business travellers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this issue, because it’s very important for us to continue to find ways to attract visitors to the Northwest Territories. As the Member indicated, there has been a significant decline in the business traveller sector of visitors to the Northwest Territories. With the reduced airfares, especially to Yellowknife, we have a significant increase in the number of visitors to the Northwest Territories; but in the business traveller category, the numbers have decreased by 22 percent, which is a significant number. The dollars that represents is...

Our government operates on the basis of merit, so employees that progress through different promotions and different employment opportunities either compete for the jobs and get them on their own merit or if they are direct appointed or on a transfer assignment. It’s based on merit. Senior level positions like deputies and associate deputy ministers, my experience is that the senior management skills are transferrable; that if you’re working with one department, generally you should be able to manage different levels of departments, and we recognize that in our deputy minister cohort where we...