David Ramsay

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...

Mr. Speaker, last year’s extreme forest fires burned an area of over three million hectares. While it was likely the worst fire season we’ve ever had, wildland fires are a natural occurrence, leading to forest and wildlife renewal.

One early sign of renewal is the appearance of morel mushrooms, and we anticipate a bumper crop this summer.

Morel mushrooms are a prized delicacy sought by national and international food service markets. They cannot be cultivated in a commercial environment, and NWT morels, in particular, are known to be of better quality, taste, texture and size than those found...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Northwest Territories Law Foundation 32nd Annual Report for the Period Ending June 30, 2014.”

In order to conduct business in the Northwest Territories, legally they are required to have a business licence to carry out business or business pursuits in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for his questions. We have two booklets we are going to be producing in relation to the harvest of morel mushrooms. The first will be an information brochure, which will be targeted to community leaders, educators, Aboriginal organizations, associations, government departments and the general public. The brochure will offer readers information on the harvest of morel mushrooms. The brochure will be published and distributed through our regional offices at ITI and also through ENR regional offices and be made available on both department websites.

The...

The benefits of having a detachment would be obvious. Calls would come in and members would be located in the community that has a detachment, so response times would be that much quicker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The response time would be the amount of time it takes to get the call through the centre and get an officer dispatched to the community of Tsiigehtchic, which of course, as the Member knows, is a fair distance from the community of Fort McPherson. But, as soon as possible. As soon as they can respond to the concern in Tsiigehtchic, they’d be there. Thank you.

I’m certain that regional offices in the Deh Cho had prepared reports. I could try to get a copy of the report that was prepared by the regional office. One of the clear messages that we have to send to these guys if they come back up next summer is we are going to have to try to get an able-bodied workforce here in the Northwest Territories from our communities that can go out and harvest morel mushrooms. They can leave their pickers at home because we should have pickers here in the Northwest Territories that can go out and get the work and make the money themselves, and those pickers can...

We certainly understand the benefit of supporting the morel mushroom harvest in the Northwest Territories. Everyone knows what a horrendous fire season the Northwest Territories endured last summer. This year we are going to have a real good crop of morel mushrooms. We are planning community visits in the South Slave coming up starting next week. We’ll be at the Hay River Reserve February 23rd, in Hay River in the evening of February 23rd, Fort Resolution on the evening of the 24th, Fort Smith on February 25th, Enterprise on February 26th and Kakisa on February 27th. We are also hoping to get...

As Members know, I have a track record of wanting to get into communities and discuss with community leaders how best to police communities. We’ve got community policing plans that we’ve got in place across the territory. We’re also moving forward with community safety plans. At the earliest opportunity I’d be happy to accompany the Member and also the RCMP to visit the community of Tsiigehtchic, to sit down with the community leaders and the MLA to discuss how we can move forward. I know the issue that we had last week is also an issue that we want to see overcome with the housing and having...