David Ramsay

Having an able-bodied workforce and people ready to take advantage of the jobs that are going to be coming in the oil and gas sector is very important. I know we had a focus group session in Inuvik recently. I’d have to go back to the department. I’m not sure if Aurora College or folks from ECE were at that meeting. I’ll get that information for the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize the good work of all the Pages in the House. This is a long session; I know a lot of the Pages have put in long hours here, so thank you. I want to specifically recognize Ashley Stride. Ashley is a constituent of Kam Lake and a student at Sir John Franklin School. Thanks.

Now is certainly the time. There is a pause in the activity in the central Mackenzie Valley. The time is now to train people, get them ready for when the jobs and the work come back and we will continue to work with ECE and Transportation to ensure that people do have opportunities to get trained for the oil jobs when they return. Thank you.

One of the knocks against the NWT in developing our resources and attracting investment is our lack of infrastructure. We understand that, that’s why we are, again, advancing work on the Wrigley to Norman Wells highway. Again, a key piece of transportation infrastructure in this territory.

I mentioned earlier the Fibre Optic Link. We also have to…with the Premier’s announcement in Ottawa during NWT Days that we’re going to move forward with the corridor concept in the Mackenzie Valley for communications, transportation and energy. I think these things need to be thoroughly analyzed. Again, we...

The quick answer to that is yes. The Mackenzie River is one of the great rivers of the world. It’s in our backyard. It’s really the backbone of the territory, historically, culturally, and we do certainly promote the Mackenzie River.

NWT Tourism obviously is an industry-driven organization that does our marketing. They have representatives from all regions of the Northwest Territories. We do our best, and I’ve mentioned before in the House, on promotional videos having images from across the Northwest Territories. I understand what the Member is saying and we will try to incorporate festivals and, in this case, the Inuvik Sunrise Festival. I know the commercial that they had with orange juice company, I won’t mention the name but they were very successful in showcasing that festival through a commercial. So other efforts...

Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories has the potential to be an energy giant. We are home to world-class oil and gas reserves in the Deh Cho, central Mackenzie, Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea. This territory sits atop an estimated 80 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and seven billion barrels of oil. Estimates indicate the Arctic contains one-fifth of the world’s untapped oil and gas reserves.

In order to develop the Northwest Territories’ tremendous petroleum resources in an environmentally responsible and economically efficient manner, we need to develop a comprehensive plan. Today I...

We’ve developed an Oil and Gas 101 program in our visiting Sahtu communities. During the month of February we’re going to engage with communities on this program. In fact, staff were in Norman Wells and Tulita two weeks ago and it’s my understanding that those sessions went extremely well. They’re also planning on going into the communities of Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake later this month and we’re working collaboratively with the Sahtu partnership on this effort, this initiative in the Sahtu.

We are also in the process of developing hydraulic fracturing regulations to ensure that activity...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories is advancing work on the highway from Wrigley to Norman Wells, the next piece in the transportation corridor in the Mackenzie Valley. We have also broken ground on the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link and we will continue to try to find ways to inject some life into the economy in the Sahtu. Thank you.

Contests are a good way for us to promote what we have here in the Northwest Territories in terms of tourism product. I know when we launched the Aurora Capital of the World in Vancouver there was a trip giveaway. Just recently at NWT Days in Ottawa we had a grand prize for a trip for two to the Northwest Territories. People like to enter contests. They like to have a chance to come to a place they normally wouldn’t get a chance to come to, and certainly the Northwest Territories is a place people want to try to get to.

Incorporating contests is important and we are continuing to work with...