Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to advise the House that the newly created Northern Farm Training Institute, short form NFTI, in Hay River celebrated a successful year on September 22nd with its first ever graduating class, and I had the pleasure of attending that graduation at the Hay River Golf Course and partaking in a delectable array of locally grown and prepared food.

This innovative program was developed in response to numerous requests received from across the Northwest Territories to the Territorial Farmers’ Association that conducts sustainable gardening workshops and seminars.

Th...

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Premier McLeod.

I would like to ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses to the table.

Premier McLeod, for the record, please introduce your witness.

I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. I would like to ask Premier Bob McLeod if he would like to bring witnesses to the table and join us at the witness table for general comments.

Committee agreed?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know if I can change Ministers mid-questions here. I guess not. Okay. Well then, I will just have to suffice it to say thank you for the update, Mr. Beaulieu.

I am not one who likes to see brick and mortar, institutions, buildings that have some functional use torn down, so I will be continuing to pursue this. If there is any reasonable life left in the existing hospital, I will be pursuing a further set of questions with the Minister of Public Works and Services on that at some point. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Of course, we know that the new hospital won’t be commissioned for a little while yet, so we do have some lead time, but I would like to ask the Minister when he contemplates we might have a more clear plan with respect to the replacement of those beds as a result of these discussions amongst the deputy ministers, some kind of a timeline we can share with our constituents. Thank you.

In offering thanks, I cannot fail to mention Kim Rapati, Mayor Andrew Cassidy, and also, if any of you met her, the most enthusiastic person for northern agriculture that you could ever come across. If you don’t believe in northern agriculture, when you meet Jackie Milne you would be a believer by the time you finished the conversation. She’s a wonderful, wonderful boost to this program.

I applaud the Northern Farm Training Institute, which has lots of exciting ideas to expand in the future as it continues to grow and support the development of sustainable food systems across the Northwest...

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Any further general comments? Mr. Hawkins.