Bob McLeod

Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories holds a virtually untapped wealth of oil and gas resources. The jobs, income and revenues associated with the responsible development of those resources represent an enormous economic and social development opportunity for the people of the Northwest Territories. Our government is taking steps to realize those opportunities on behalf of our residents. The Government of the Northwest Territories has made a commitment in its mandate to develop a long-term strategy to attract oil and gas development in the territory. I look forward to presenting a draft NWT...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, that’s correct as well. Thank you.

To date we haven't had any requests for very large areas of land for agriculture purposes but we do anticipate that happening in the future. And so the strategy does speak to potential land use within municipal boundaries and authorities. Part of the implementation will be guided by the land use and sustainability framework which serves as the underpinning of all decisions in respect to land, including the development of land for the agriculture sector in the Northwest Territories.

The issue of access to land for agriculture will be reviewed through collaborative processes with municipalities...

Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories has a centuries-long history in trapping and the fur trade. We have a high regard for the cultural values entrenched in this tradition, which set Northerners apart from other Canadians, and for the activities of the traditional economy, which have helped shape our North and remain in many of our communities today. As a proud founder and partner of the Fur Institute of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories continues its tradition of leadership in this industry.

This week, the Fur Institute of Canada will hold its Annual General Meeting in...

The Growing Forward 2 Agreement provides up to $1.2 million annually in cost-shared investment to the Northwest Territories agricultural sector to increase resource capacity to grow food in all NWT communities. The Small Scale Foods Program is delivered in all 33 Northwest Territories communities through ITI's regional offices primarily in support of community gardens. We have seen much success with the insulation of community greenhouses in communities on the Beaufort Sea. Many of the initiatives are community led and the department is pleased to provide insight, support and expertise.

As the...

In regards to your specific question, our department has been working with the Zhahti Koe Friendship Centre since late 2015 on developing a community garden. They secured a land lot recently and fencing has been ordered. Twenty raised garden boxes, a tool shed and compost bins are ready and will be shipped to the community. The department has not received any applications specific to commercial gardening or greenhouses at this point. We also run the Take a Kid Gardening Program in the schools. We have a regional office that's very ready and willing and prepared to work with anybody that's...

But I agree it's important to make sure our programs are effective. We have seen increased interest in our agriculture program as more and more people are growing their own food. We're still in early days as the strategy has not been released; however, we will review the effectiveness of this strategy as we move forward into implementation.

The draft Agriculture Strategy has many recommendations on how to develop and support educational programs and educational resource development for agriculture. We will encourage and support the development and delivery of courses for community and regional trainers. The goal with the strategy is to improve overall capacity by having more people involved in northern agriculture, and we will develop foundational safe agriculture and food production, education resources including community and private sharing agriculture and harvesting of non-animal products. And the draft Agriculture Strategy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Agriculture is a very important sector to our government and part of the Mandate of the 18th Legislative Assembly. We have provided the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment with a draft Agriculture Strategy for review and look forward to hearing back from the committee. A key recommendation of the proposed strategy is that various organizations need to work together, including departmental collaboration to ensure that we all use our resources efficiently and effectively.

Another recommendation is the creation of a central repository or a common...

We are always looking for opportunities to maximize the funding reach of our scarce resources and certainly we've been approached by other bodies including I guess different non-government organizations I guess is the best way to call them that and we also have very good connections with universities, so we certainly want to get the best bang for our buck and we look at all of the different sources of funding.