David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I enjoyed listening to the Member’s passionate plea. It is and continues to be something of great interest to the coroner. As we move forward, I think it’s something, again, that we can look at. It won’t be very much longer until the 18th Legislative Assembly is in place. It’s only nine months, 10 months. We will also need to, and I want to highlight this, I think Health and Social Services will have to figure prominently into the rollout of such a review committee. They are responsible for the domestic violence prevention and that side of things, so we need to be...

We’ve made a substantial investment in communities like Deline. Lutselk'e will be receiving $500,000 toward tourism initiatives there. We are making an effort to try to get the funding that we have across the territory. In the region, I know our regional tourism office, in collaboration with municipal and community partners, is involved in lots of initiatives to help grow tourism visitation and spending in the Beaufort-Delta region. In particular, some of the initiatives, if I could highlight some of them for the Members, are: revamping and enhancing Destination Inuvik promotional materials to...

The Member is correct; we have to continue to have trappers help us promote their fur, the fur that they’re harvesting. We have a great relationship with Fur Harvesters Auction and we have taken trappers in the past. Just on our recent trade mission to China and Japan, we had Andrew Stanley with us. Andrew is a trapper out of Hay River and he was a really good ambassador for the trapping industry for the Northwest Territories. People loved talking to him about what it was like living on a trapline, trapping wild animals. He certainly is a great ambassador for the industry. We were happy to...

Mr. Speaker, in every community visit, when discussing corrections and justice issues, we hear that on-the-land programming helps people heal and reconnect to their culture and values. In the Department of Justice, we know this to be true. This type of programming has long been a cornerstone of programming in the NWT.

In the Assembly last year, I talked about work the department has undertaken to ensure inmates are receiving appropriate cultural and on-the-land programming while in NWT corrections facilities. Finding capable partners with the right kind of cultural knowledge and experience to...

Our hope is to have the facility in operation by December of 2016. 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...