David Ramsay

I appreciate the Member’s comments. Those are the type of comments that we’re looking for as we advance the discussion on energy through the Energy Plan.

We recently had the energy charrette. Those are the types of things and comments that we need to hear. We are going to have to present alternatives and options, new options, on how we get this done. I look forward to that discussion. We have to continue moving in the right direction and, again, through planning that’s how we’re going to arrive at the alternatives and make some decisions on where we go next. That has to happen. I thank the...

Madam Chair, absolutely. We certainly will look at suggesting a joint meeting. That could happen. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my left I’ve got Mr. Peter Vician, deputy minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and to my right, Ms. Nancy Magrum, director of shared services, finance and administration, ITI and Environment and Natural Resources. Thank you.

Madam Chair, I have a lot of sympathy for the outfitters. I have constituents that are in that business that have camps out there north of Yellowknife. The fact of the matter remains. We’ve been funding this for the past four years. The Bathurst caribou herd are not scheduled to be surveyed again until 2015. By the time the results come in, that’s 2016. At some point in time, we are going to have to ask ourselves a question about how long do the taxpayers of the Northwest Territories continue to fund these outfitters that are up there with no caribou to hunt. I can’t put it much more bluntly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two Pages: Jaida Edjericon and Walker Adjun, both from St. Patrick High School, here with us paging for the Legislative Assembly. I’d like to welcome them and recognize all the good, hard work that Pages put in to provide for the House. Also to the visitors that we have in the gallery, happy Education Week.

Madam Chair, that won’t change our contributions to the Northern Frontier Visitors Association at all. We will continue to fund them to the level that you see in the budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe it’s subject to the program review currently, so it’s inactive. Thank you.

There are some great opportunities and the Member has a good suggestion. We currently don’t have a half a million extra dollars here, so it’s a bit hypothetical at this point, but certainly the money would be put to good use and we will be working with the Members, through committee, to find out where the best investment would be made with that money. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That comes under the purview of the board and, certainly, I appreciate the Member bringing that to my attention. I have the opportunity to meet with the board quite often. Actually, I just met with them last week and I’d be more than happy to raise the concern the Member brings on the number of managers in the organization to the board, and I’ll get her a response from the board after I meet with them. Thank you.

Madam Chair, yes, and it’s this fiscal year, not next fiscal year. At the very earliest opportunity, I am sure, through MECC, we will bring the Energy Plan through committee, share it with committee sometime before the next session in May. We will get that there. We’ll have this discussion and I think it’s going to be a very good discussion. The plan is going to be multi-year. Obviously, some of the bigger projects would require large investments and be carried out over multiple years. There will obviously be some smaller things that could happen in the near term over one or two years.

This...