Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to welcome some visitors in the gallery from Inuvik. We have Mr. Jozeph Carnigarsky, who is the president of the DGO; Mr. Jimmy Kalinek, well-known drum dancer and snowmobile racer. Always nice to have another McLeod in the Assembly. I would like to recognize Jordan McLeod. I would also like to recognize all the students who are here. I think one in particular is Jasmine Gordon. She is from Inuvik. Welcome to the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the federal government announced some monetary funding over two years for the Canadian Culture, CCSF, as part of its 2016 budget. Further, the amount of money was allocated over 10 years in the 2017 budget.

Once we get the planning study and that done and the class C estimate, we will be in a better position to know exactly what we are looking for from the federal government. There are opportunities for us to put applications in to try leverage more federal funding to help with this project. We will certainly pursue that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is correct.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the figure that you see there is actually the figure that's the only money that was appropriated for these particular projects. Once the planning of that is done, they will be coming forward in 2019-2020 for larger appropriations start the actual building. Thank you.

Yes, my apologies. I should have put in after supplementary No. 3, so it's $14 million after supplementary No. 3. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the negotiations are ongoing. The negotiations will conclude with the signing of the land transfer agreement with Parks Canada as well as other agreements with IGOs as required. The GNWT, now this is a different word, is "confident," instead of "hopeful" is confident, that these agreements will be concluded within the life of the 18th Legislative Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the establishment of TDN does remain a priority of the GNWT and a mandate for the Department of ENR. Regarding TDN establishment, we are in active negotiations with Lutselk'e, other Indigenous governments, as part of Parks Canada. All the negotiations are proceeding in a timely fashion. We are hopeful that all agreements will be signed off in 2019, prior to the end of the life of the 18th Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My understanding is, going back in history, that it has been tried in a few communities. They tried to restrict the sale of alcohol, but it didn't work out. I think that was just more of a business opportunity for bootleggers because I think they did quite well off of this. They went back to non-restricted sales.

Again, we would have to have a conversation with the liquor stores. We would have to hear from the communities. I know people in the territories have very strong opinions on alcohol and the effects of alcohol in the community, and we've all seen it firsthand, and we've seen a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the Member that alcohol is a widespread program all across the Northwest Territories, all walks of life, and I believe it is something that we need to continually battle. It has affected probably everybody in this building, and I'm sure most families in the Northwest Territories have been affected and are still being affected by alcohol.

Having said that, the money that we get from alcohol sale goes into general revenue, and that money that is in general revenue is then used to deliver a lot of the programs across the Northwest...

My understanding is that they have run out of product. As I said earlier, they are looking at trying to bring more product in from the three suppliers that we have.

I have been reading the news, as well. I read the news every morning to see what is going to be raised in the Chamber today, and I know that this is an issue that is facing the country. They are having supply issues all across the country. Once the initial rush is off, we think things will probably stabilize a bit. I am not sure that we anticipated the level that was going to be needed, as far as cannabis goes, across the country.