David Ramsay

That would be at the highest level: assistant deputy minister, deputy minister. They would be the ones I would count on in ensuring we are following policy, that goods that are manufactured here in the Northwest Territories are on the list and that we are continuing to work with manufacturers here in the NWT. Thank you.

I want to thank the Member for his intervention in that, and I believe those are being manufactured in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Our belief is that, yes, it can be done safely. It can be done, and we’ve seen it done here in the Northwest Territories. I know the Member highlighted other jurisdictions in Canada that have seen great success, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, in using horizontal fracking. We are moving forward with regulations around hydraulic fracturing and we will have the best regulatory response in Canada when it comes to hydraulic fracturing, because we believe it can be done safely and soundly here in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There have been assessments done of the oil potential in the Sahtu and, in fact, in the Northwest Territories. We continue to move forward with the development of an Oil and Gas Strategy for the Northwest Territories. We are also going to conduct some work on the corridor concept down the Mackenzie Valley, communication, energy, transportation corridor. Of course, we’ve had the Mackenzie Gas Project that currently is on the shelf but our hope is that at some point in time Mackenzie gas will see market and we will get it out of the Beaufort-Delta. We have to look at this...

My ears are a little bit plugged. I’m not feeling the best, but I thank the Member for repeating the question.

We will continue to work with the region through the Fort Simpson office and also in Hay River on opportunities to promote the Deh Cho Connection. I know MLA Mr. Menicoche has talked about this in efforts to support Highway No. 7 and the tourism route that is the Deh Cho Connection. It is a wonderful opportunity for people to not go back the same way and do a loop through the Northwest Territories. It’s important that it is marketed and it is promoted, and through NWT Tourism that...

We have our Aboriginal Tourism Marketing Strategy that would certainly look to support efforts in the Member’s riding. We also have Tourism 2020, a new plan that we’ve come up with that is going to earmark money for tourism around the Northwest Territories. We’ve recently received money from CanNor. We also will be looking for additional federal funding as we move forward. Through the EOS, we’re also able to provide more money for tourism, and I think our overall spend on tourism now is near $10 million per year.

Community justice committees have been successful in the communities. Tomorrow, in fact, we have proponents who have expressed interested in the on-the-land program. They will be meeting here in Yellowknife tomorrow. So we’re hopeful that out of this meeting tomorrow we will arrive at a proponent that we can work with that we can see the program get up and running somewhere here in the Northwest Territories. So we are doing that, and we also are looking at mental health first aid for our staff in our facilities. We also have three psychologists on staff in our five facilities across the...

Thank you. Again, that’s a bit of a level of detail that I don’t have here, but if they are ending up in our facilities, it’s incumbent upon us to have the programs and the services required to treat them when they’re in our facilities and after the OAG’s report, we do have some work to do in that area and I have given my commitment to the House and the Members that that work will continue and that we will have programs and services that are going to address the needs of the inmates that we have in our facilities. Thank you.

Undoubtedly, we do need baseline data, and that is data that will be sought. We are going to continue to move forward with the regulations here in the Northwest Territories. I have made a commitment to the Members that we are moving that forward. That is where that stands.

As far as research goes, we do know what’s happened here in the past. Of course, we’ve got our Devolution Agreement last April. We are now responsible for those regulations and managing the resource development in the territory. We, again, want to have the most robust, sound regulations when it comes to hydraulic fracturing...

Yes, we continue to be involved with the Sahtu partnership. I’ve supplied some information to the Member recently about the investment that the government has made in his riding. It is substantial. It covers a number of different departments. While the downturn in oil price has happened, I think now is the time to continue to move forward with the development of our strategy. It’s time to get training put in place for people in the Sahtu and around the Northwest Territories so that when the price does come back and the companies come back and the drilling continues, we will have jobs for...