Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, want to recognize two long-term Yellowknife South constituents, Adam and Donna Pich. Business must really be picking up because they had to go back right away.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document titled Government of the Northwest Territories Contracts over $5,000 Report for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2009. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Mr. Joe Acorn, the chair of the Public Utilities Board. Also, a couple of constituents from Yellowknife South, Jane McMullen and Mark Warren. Also a long-time colleague and a person recently recognized by the Aboriginal Sport Circle for his contribution to sport and long-time former chief, Jonas Sangris. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d be quite prepared to research that, although I suspect there won’t be much space identified on a map. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We’ve already identified the municipality of Hay River, for example, the process by which they could access land for agricultural purposes and that they could tax it at a lower rate for the benefit of the farmers and that process is there.

With regard to the other land claims, the Dehcho Land Claim negotiation, the Metis Land Claim negotiation, the Akaitcho negotiations, all of those are under interim protection. So the aboriginal governments could be approached, they haven’t indicated that they would be open to those kind of negotiations. The other areas where they have settled land claims, I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to think of the biggest word I could use to describe what a good idea it is to promote agriculture. So my colleague suggested I use supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. But the Department of ITI has been trying to promote and develop the agriculture sector for some time and we’ve done some work over the years and we do sector strategies in all areas and certainly agriculture is one of them. Thank you.

Certainly we would like to approach it on a businesslike basis, so we have a number of loan programs, a number of contribution programs that we can work with interested individuals. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thought the Member was asking me about the Growing Forward Agreement, but I guess he’s looking at other programs that are offered by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Certainly we have other programs through our SEED program, and I think that’s where he’s come up with this $10,000 cap. One of the programs under SEED, there’s a cap of $10,000.

We have other contribution programs, applications programs. We even have loan programs. So we have flexibility in working with the different people that are interested in agriculture.

This is an issue that has been raised by other sectors such as the fishermen, the trappers, and this is something that I’ll raise with my colleague, the Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have our normal tool kit of business programs that are available to anybody who wants to pursue farming. We’ve gone and met with Arctic Farmer, for example, I’ve been to Hay River on numerous occasions, I’ve attended meetings of the Territorial Farmers’ Association, so we are definitely aware of the potential for agriculture and we are looking to find ways to provide additional support to those people who are interested in getting into the agricultural activities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.