David Ramsay

Mr. Speaker, yes I am aware of the market in Hay River and the efforts here in Yellowknife. Certainly, the Member is correct, we have to be putting the money in the hands of people who can do the most with it. In a lot of cases in agriculture, it is not much different, and that is the hands of the NGOs, people that are in the business. With the Growing Forward 2 money, I would anticipate that that is going to be the way forward, is trying to get money where it is going to make the most difference. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Growing Forward 2 would be an investment of $1.2 million on an annual basis and give us $6 million to put towards agricultural initiatives in the territory over the next five years. The current program expires at the end of this month. We are moving forward in looking at signing the new deal with Ottawa on a way forward for the additional funding.

Some of the areas of investment would include small scale foods, mentorship, traditional harvesting, as well as building industry capacity here in the Northwest Territories. It is very exciting for us. This represents about a...

We had the opportunity to stop into Wrigley. We talked with the band manager. The Member and I both had the opportunity to drive through Bob’s Canyon and Strawberry Creek. Pehdzeh Ki Contractors, the folks in Wrigley are doing work on both of those areas. Not all of the work is going to be concluded this year. We will continue to work on some of that next season, but certainly from a safety perspective, Bob’s Canyon, when we did get back to Yellowknife on Monday I instructed the department to address the concern with the ruts in the road at Bob’s Canyon and they had somebody get on that right...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I enjoyed the Member’s song earlier. It was a good song. Good trip with the Member down the Mackenzie Valley. We did see a number of things. One of them was the bridge at Oscar Creek. We took a number of pictures of that bridge. There was some engineering that went a bit awry back about 10 years ago on that bridge. When I got back in the office on Monday, I had an opportunity to talk to the department about the Oscar Creek Bridge and what was happening with that. There are plans to use the bridge on Oscar Creek. It might not be in the location that it’s in currently...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled GNWT Response to Committee Report 6-17(3), Report on Hydraulic Fracturing Study Tour: Toward a Policy Framework for Hydraulic Fracturing in the Northwest Territories.

The answer to that would be yes, it’s for the entire Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are responsible for the socio-economic agreements and, obviously, industry here in the Northwest Territories, but the responsibility for training and skills development rests with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. So we work closely with the department on advancing their training initiatives. Certainly, in any meetings we have with industry, training is first and foremost in their mind in trying to identify a workforce here in the Northwest Territories, and accessing younger people is something industry is very interested in here in the NWT. Thank...

Mr. Speaker, the economic benefits will be great for all of the communities in the Beaufort-Delta for visiting family and connecting the communities of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. It will lower the cost of living in Tuktoyaktuk. We won’t have to build the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk in the winter months any longer. Long term, this road will have tremendous impact on the exploration and development of oil and gas in the region and lead to many more jobs and opportunities for residents in the Beaufort-Delta.

Also, I should mention tourism. Currently, in the summer months, when tourists drive the Dempster...

That would be a capital cost, and we don’t have the capital dollars to do the improvements right now. That’s why it was going to be put as a spare, but that’s not to say that it can’t be put back into service and we can find the capital dollars to upgrade at a later point in time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That confidential briefing was provided to Members two weeks ago. It included a risk matrix. I also committed during that meeting to provide Members with an updated risk matrix.

We don’t have a funding agreement with the federal government. We haven’t wrapped up negotiations with the Inuvialuit on royalties and land tenure. There are some things that we have to finalize before we can get that number into committee and get another presentation before the standing committee. No decision has been made on this project. We are still awaiting word from the federal government...