David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This comes to us from the Economic Opportunities Strategy. It’s a new initiative that we have. What it is, is it’s going to be a person that’s going to be working at Northwest Territories Tourism and their sole purpose is going to be to attract conventions and business-type meetings to the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I mentioned earlier, the CHAP funding was doubled late in the life of the 16th Assembly, I believe it was in 2010. We understand that there is a pressure on community hunters and harvesters to get out on the land. I have a breakdown of regional contributions under this. I don’t have it by community, but in the Inuvik region it was $266,000 and that would be divided, the Member is correct, by the communities that are there. I can get that further breakdown for the Member if he likes. Thank you.

The issue of lifeguards at Fred Henne beach has never been an issue about money. I think service is going to be required there and the department will find the money. We’ll go through a supplementary appropriation if we have to. It is about having the service there, but there are a lot of other moving parts to the issue such as where do you find the trained lifeguards, where do you train them, how do you get them ready for this summer. There will be a number of challenges other than having that service at Fred Henne Park. It’s something, like I said earlier, that if they are going to make that...

Thank you. I suppose it could have been somewhat worse for the Member. This is a headquarters function; the office could have been located in Yellowknife. We decided to move it outside of Yellowknife and Inuvik was the location that we decided to put the office. So it is outside of Yellowknife, it is in Inuvik, and again, it’s a transfer of responsibilities. This office will be responsible for the new statutory authorities that this government has under devolution and we’re looking forward to that office being successful, and again, in its backyard, in the Beaufort-Delta, there are tremendous...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is another item that has fallen out of the work on EOS and we are very excited about the opportunity to put together an agricultural strategy for the Northwest Territories. It will be as far-reaching as possible. We have got $150,000 earmarked in ‘14-15 to accomplish the work of the strategy. I know the Member is very interested in small-scale abattoirs, getting product into local markets. We believe this strategy, if it’s done correctly, can cover off all of that ground as well as food security, domestic supply.

We’ve done a great deal, and I know the Member knows...

We’re mirroring the regulations that are in place and it remains to be seen what will happen once that happens and into the future. I guess that’s a decision for another day past April 1st.

Yes, that was in the actuals from ’12-13, Mr. Chairman. Thanks.

Part of the explanation might be that we tried to put some support immediately into the industry here in the Northwest Territories, and that’s why you look at this program being a rebate program and some support to the film industry. That could have been the thinking that was involved in that.

Certainly, we’re moving forward, as well, with our film strategy. Hopefully, that is going to outline some other areas, as the Member indicated, that we could avail ourselves up to grow the industry here in the Northwest Territories. We’ve had a great deal of success and we believe the future is certainly...

We need to have that dialogue with the community. We had a meeting, and I thank the Member for attending that meeting that we had at the ski club a few weeks back. We want to have some more dialogue with the community. We have had input from a number of community members on our website. The answer is still yes, if having lifeguards at Fred Henne beach is going to make that beach safer, we’ll try our best to have lifeguards there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. If we did that type of evaluation, we wouldn’t have any government positions outside of a few centres in the southern part of the territory. So we can’t just go off of this straight-up cost. I mean, it’s a cost to government, it’s a cost to accomplish what we need to accomplish.

Again, this was a transfer of responsibilities. We believe wholeheartedly that the activity in the Beaufort-Delta is going to be there. That’s the location of the three anchor fields for the Mackenzie Gas Project, it’s a home base for the offshore and the potential in the offshore. There’s $2 billion in work...