David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his questions. Over the past seven months, related to the MGP, I’ve been speaking directly with industry. I’ve been meeting with the APG, and we continue to support the APG. I believe, as a government, we have to remain optimistic. We have to remain positive. It’s a matter of when that project does go ahead. The key mandate of the office is to work with communities, to explain opportunities to communities, to explain the regulatory process and help build capacity.

When the Member was talking about the $500 million socio-economic funds that the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand what the Member is getting at and I appreciate his point of view. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments. I do certainly support the advancement of the film industry here in the Northwest Territories and take any and every opportunity to promote the shows that have been filmed here when I am in other jurisdictions. When I was in Whitehorse, this is a competitive industry and certainly was impressed with what they had to offer in the Yukon.

Going forward I think it’s very important that as the Minister I’ve worked with the Regular Members to develop and advance what we have to offer here in the Northwest Territories. So as we move through...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. That question is similar to one that I had responded to from MLA Menicoche earlier during this session. He was saying that we are cutting back the marketing initiative to NWT Tourism. But, in fact, that is not the case. There is, through Tourism 2015, marketing money, and I believe that this isn’t the case. I would be more than happy to discuss this situation with NWT Tourism. Thank you.

The Aboriginal Tourism Champions Advisory Council is an important step for us. We will be looking to review the suggestions from the Aboriginal Tourism Forum. It’s going to go through the advisory council and then we will be able to plan and develop and implement an Aboriginal tourism strategy here in the NWT. So it’s exciting for us to be moving forward with this, and what we’re hearing out there is that travellers want a real experiential type of trip. They want to be immersed in culture and they want to learn something when they’re here. We’ve got lots of culture. We’ve got lots of history...

I appreciate the Member’s questions. We did look at that through the business plan review and it was still our belief that the position was better suited to work with other scientists at the geoscience office. It’s a permafrost geologist position. There would be increased costs if we were to locate that position, say, in Inuvik.

Again, I want to go back to something I mentioned earlier, and I think in the bigger context when we look at decentralization and with devolution coming, I think we need to look at this more as a comprehensive overall look at government and where positions are, instead...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With the funds that we do have, we will continue to put those to the best use possible and continue to pursue solutions. I think that’s the most important thing. Through MECC we are continuing to pursue a solution. Again, I believe we will be meeting with the IJV and the town again later this week. We have been front and centre when it comes to the situation in Inuvik and we will continue to be so. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, there is. What I might suggest, though, is at some point in time we can look at mining and get in front of the standing committee and the Regular Members just to give you an update on where projects are at. In the past six months I’ve been at the Cordilleran Round-up in Vancouver and also to PDAC with some of the Regular Members, as well, and I’d be more than happy to give Regular Members an update on the advancement of mining projects around the territory. We’ve also got the Mineral Development Strategy, which we’re going to pursue; also the Economic Development Strategy...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That funding will be going to projects in those three areas. It hasn’t been resourced yet. We’re not sure how that will be broken down yet, but it will go to the three that are cited there.

Yes.