Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the building. I think we need to take the time to thank the Premiers, Speakers, Ministers and MLAs that came before us that had to make the difficult decisions to build this building. Today we have the opportunity.

We also need to thank the former staff, like my colleague had mentioned, Mr. Hamilton, and some of the other staff that have been before that had to make the tough decisions on how we build this building. We need to thank the Building Society for their strong efforts and vision to finance and complete the...

Pardon?

Madam Chair, I would like to thank the Minister for bringing forward the amendments and obviously the department for all their hard work on this endeavour. I also would like to thank the standing committee, who had an opportunity to come to Hay River. I know they took extra special effort to make sure they got to Hay River and I appreciate that. I think the students in Hay River appreciated giving them their two cents as well as the general public.

Most of my colleagues expressed some of the issues and concerns that came out of what I saw in Hay River, was that the changes and the amendments...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister indicated the production numbers, and those numbers are quite a bit lower than we actually have the capacity to have as a sustainable quota. We have two million pounds, I think, per year where we can actually sustain that product, that volume every year for years to come. The indications are that we’re well below that quota, and what is the department doing to get more fishers into the industry, get the productivity of the current fishers up and increased, we know that that group of people is not getting any younger. How is the department encouraging...

As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I believe that this is an important asset for the Northwest Territories, and a commodity. I’m just wondering what the department has done to invest in the NWT commercial fishery to assist those people in the industry.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to discuss one of the topics near and dear to my heart. In Hay River we are very proud of the commercial fishery on the Great Slave Lake. As many people know, in the summertime most of the production is being done in that season. I’m glad that we’ve completed that season just recently.

Along the Great Slave Lake we have a two million pound quota that we have the capacity to produce. The sad part is that in past years we’ve only collected about 300,000 of those pounds. So I’d like to discuss with the Minister and question the Minister today about some of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have Mr. Ian Rennie, legislative drafter, to my right; and to my left, Ms. Collette Langlois, Acting Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the Board of Management of the Legislative Assembly, I am pleased to present Bill 22, Territorial Emblems and Honours Act. This bill will establish an Order of the Northwest Territories to honour current and former residents of the Northwest Territories for outstanding service and achievements.

The bill also formally recognizes the official emblems of the Northwest Territories. Those include the armorial bearings, the shield of arms, the flag, the tartan, the mountain aven, the gyrfalcon, the Arctic grayling, the tamarack, the mineral emblem, which is gold...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be voting in favour of this motion heavy-heartedly, because I understand that we want to investigate this, I understand that Quebec has a program in place that is innovative, but I have sat in this House and given the Minister of Finance difficulty that since division our budget has doubled and that we are looking at additional costs on top of that. Fiscally responsible we need to be here as well.

I am supporting this motion to investigate the possibilities of this. My colleagues have made good points to support it. I do have lots of concerns on the costs that are...

The Minister indicated he has been working and talking to people in Ottawa. I’m just wondering what he’s been doing as far as with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and their monopoly that they have on the operations, and have there been any discussions about opening up the borders and opening up marketing opportunities for the fishers that are producing.