Bob McLeod

Thank you. As I said in response to the first question, the Business Incentive Policy predates land claims negotiations with the Gwich’in and we have a number of possible solutions. One is to change the policy. If the Members want us to consider businesses that have less than 50 percent ownership by northern business, then the policies can be changed. Otherwise, the ownership structure can be changed to increase ownership by northern residents, or, as I understand, NewNorth Projects is proposing to apply for BIP approval. So that’s another way you can deal with it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I’d like to point out that the Business Incentive Policy has been in place since, I believe, the 12th Assembly and every government has tried to change it, without success. In this case, the Business Incentive Policy is a Government of the Northwest Territories policy. There’s a requirement for this government to use only BIP approved facilities. In the example the Member uses in Inuvik, there are three hotels. Only one of those hotels is a BIP approved business and that is why we are only using that hotel. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to recognize Mr. Ron Ostrom, director of marketing with NWT Tourism and also Janine Carmichael with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, an organization powered by entrepreneurs. She is a representative for Western Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last weekend our territorial parks were opened to the public in every region except Inuvik where those parks will open on June 1st. This kicks off the summer tourism season here in the Northwest Territories. We will also celebrate NWT Tourism Week from June 7 to 13. With these events taking place and with this being the last session until the fall, I think this is an appropriate time to highlight the importance of the tourism industry to our Territory.

That importance is demonstrated in dollars and cents. Last year tourism contributed $130.3 million to the Northwest...

Thank you. P1 and P2 summer students are a priority. We then go to aboriginal casuals and then we go to P3s. There’s really no issue here because every summer there is less than a 5 percent likelihood of an aboriginal casual employee being hired between the summer because we do give direction that all departments should be hiring summer students. Thank you.

By all means, we’d certainly be interested in talking to the Alberta government about exporting of fish from the Northwest Territories to Alberta. We would be quite prepared to move on this fairly quickly to have those discussions. Thank you.

I don’t expect that we’ll be able to do it by as early as this fall. We still have to work out the exit arrangements from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. We still have to go through due diligence with this Legislative Assembly and we still have to work with the fishermen to set up alternative processes. It’s not our expectation to replace FFMC with a son of FFMC. We would take a brand new approach which would focus on developing northern markets.

I’ll work very closely with my colleague, the Minister of ECE, and make sure that we do provide for this coverage in the appropriate places.

At the meeting we talked about trying to dovetail with the Government of the Northwest Territories business planning process and the call has gone out already. As you know, working with the new initiatives we’ve put in place a marker already. In the discussions that we had in our meeting it became quite obvious that there are different parts to filmmaking and there are different parts to it. I think as part of the terms of reference, we will be looking at all the different sectors of filmmaking. My expectation is that through a combination of existing programs and using the business planning...

Mr. Speaker, the town of Norman Wells is known for many things: friendly people, a rich oilfield, the CANOL Trail and the scenic beauty of a place that lies on the banks of the Mackenzie River and at the foot of the Mackenzie Mountains.

What Norman Wells probably isn’t known for is that it was the potato growing capital of the Northwest Territories last year. In 2009 more than 10,000 pounds of potatoes were grown there and then distributed and sold in the Sahtu region.

And how did this come about, Mr. Speaker? Well, thanks to the commitment and efforts of local producers with contributions from...