Robert C. McLeod

I take the Member's concern about the terms of reference, and going before government operations before we actually went out, but we are elected to do the work. We go out and do the work, and we are held accountable by the Members' office for the work that we do. Sometimes we need to get out there and actually get to work right away, instead of holding it up with bringing everything forward to government operations. Having said that, the Member's question was contracts under $5,000, or over $5,000? I do know that the contracts over $5,000 document is tabled once a year, I believe, with all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct: I did commit to providing a formal review. The review is a bit behind schedule right now, and we are looking at providing something to Members in the May-June session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

ENR they work very closely with the harvesters within our regional and area offices during the trapping season. The harvesters, they bring in their raw animal pelts that they've harvested in order to be shipped and sold at auctions. All this information is collected by ENR and entered into the fur harvesters' database.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a program that we're quite proud of, and it seems to have been working for trappers across the NWT. I can tell the Member that close to 700 trappers a year for the last three years have participated in the Genuine Mackenzie Fur Program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 23, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2017-2018, be read for the second time. Mr. Speaker, this bill makes supplementary appropriation for operations expenditures for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2017-18 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. Since April 1 to December of this year, there has been a substantial number of sole-source contracts. I believe there are about 290 of them. On the contracts under $5,000, I would have to look into that, because a lot of that are corporate credit cards and such. I think it will be a substantive piece of work to try and pull all of that information together. I will do some investigating. If I have to have a conversation with the Member on the number of transactions, which I think would actually be almost as large as the tabled document...

Those are available, and those can be shared. I don't see that there would be a problem sharing; the work is already ongoing, though, so the terms of reference would just apply to the work that is ongoing. If there is a possibility that I could share them with the Members, then I will look into that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our regional and area renewable resource officers are available to work with our local hunters' and trappers' associations to share information, deliver updates, and provide on-the-ground support related to harvesting including information on all the programs that are offered, including the disaster compensation. We are currently reviewing our Traditional Economy Program and looking at ways to be more responsive to meet the needs of local harvesters.

We have a protocol agreement between ENR and ITI to deliver the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur Program, including the utilization of a fur harvesters database. The fur harvesters database records and tracks the monetary value, the quality, and the number of individual species that have been sold at auctions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 20, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2016-2017 be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.