David Ramsay

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 wouldn’t characterize it as the government not gaining anything. As I mentioned, we sold two buildings on Archibald Street for almost $2 million. We are collecting lease payments on those properties at the airport, so we are gaining in that regard. Again, our hope is that those factories are up and running soon and that we do have the Polar Bear brand back out in the marketplace at some point in time. Thank you.

The Member covered off a lot of ground, but I’ll try to go back over it. We do have to continue our support to jewellery makers and we’re happy to have jewellery workshops. I know we talked a long time about having those and we got those off the ground last year. We’re happy to do that. We’d have to continue to support that sector.

Also, on the fur side, we are now responsible for marketing fur. The other side of that has gone over to ENR, and we will continue to work with ENR on that.

We continue to be, and have been, a major sponsor of the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik. I know the...

There aren’t any camps currently operating and that’s why it’s so important that we see at least one up and running. We have, under a different line item here, $787,000. This isn’t the only amount, the $149,000. We do have $787,000 as well. But again, if we require more funds, if we’re successful and we can have a wilderness camp established in two or even three regions, that’s something we’ll have to revisit. Thank you.

We didn’t give anything away; it’s still our trademark. There are stipulations on the use of that trademark and I’d be more than happy to give the Member that type of detail if he so wishes. Thank you.

We continue to work with Northwest Territories Tourism, which includes representatives from the Sahtu. We’re always looking at opportunities to market visitors to get into the Sahtu, and there are some excellent operators in the Sahtu. I think I may have said Deline a few times already today, but Deline really is a shining star when it comes to tourism, Destination Deline and the product that they’re developing there. So we’re excited at that prospect and the Sahtu does have, and I know the Member and I have been around his riding a number of times, by jet boat down the Great Bear River, we’ve...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are a couple of things that we need to continue to work on, and that is trying to find accommodations. As I mentioned to the Member, the RCMP are working with the community. The Member advised me during debate in the House earlier today that the RCMP was requesting the community supply that accommodation in kind. That was the first that I had heard about that. So we are going to go back to the RCMP and discuss that with them.

You know, the cost of accommodations in a community like Tsiigehtchic shouldn’t be an impediment to having Members overnight in the...

If that is the case, I’ll go back to the department and we’ll have a discussion with the RCMP on that topic. That shouldn’t be a hurdle to having members overnight in the community of Tsiigehtchic. If it is, we’ll try to correct that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Decentralization was a priority of this Assembly. At ITI, I mean, we’re carrying out those marching orders. We’ve relocated our BIP office to Hay River, and through the process of devolution, I mean, we relocated our petroleum resources office to Inuvik. We’ve got two other positions slated to go to Hay River. We will be dealing with our staff fairly. That is our goal in all of this is to treat the staff fairly, the incumbents that are in those positions, and we will do just that.

On the Industry Advisory Board, it is just that, an industry advisory board. There is...