Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member stated it was for marketing. This money is not for that. With the re-establishment of the Agricultural Products Marketing Council, which oversees the system in NWT and ensures that it’s arm's length and objective of the council, this money is for the operations of that council. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last year, ITI alone supported the arts with $1.6 million in total. I will read them out if the Member wants to write them down: arts and crafts, fine arts and performing arts, support under the SEED program, $725,697; festival SEED, $294,471; raw materials, $125; film promotion, $311; regional programming, $125,000; and marketing and promotion, $106,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, this last calendar year, we gave some money to help IRC with an initiative to study the feasibility of regional natural gas reserves in that region, along with the federal government. Canmore chipped in, we chipped in, and the IRCs participated in doing this. I believe that study is coming forward, is going to hopefully have a report to you by May, is my understanding on that.

When we come forward with our petroleum, oil, and gas strategy going forward, there's going to be a portion in there where we want to concentrate on how do we export using our resources...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is my microphone working? Can you hear?

First of all, we have to take this into context because, if we go down this road, this is going to cost the territorial government a significant amount of money. We have a limited amount of capital within the ITI budget to do this across a territory-wide initiative. One of the things I think that we'd have to even consider before we end up doing this -- and we are doing some stuff in the North Slave, around the winter Aurora there, keeping our parking lots open and washroom facilities and such, and that's costing us some extra money...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. $122,000 off the sunset of the Sahtu oil and gas business development administrator position; $123,000 transferred to finance and administration to fund a portion of the occupational health and safety position; and $225,000 for diversification, which got reallocated.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Between the two Members, the comments that are stated, moving forward we might have a specific line item for the knowledge economy, but those things could be supported through the SEED initiative. I agree, the knowledge economy is in its early stages. I've been to the innovation table with Minister Bains, and they're working on their initiatives moving forward. We're trying to find what we can do to line up with the federal mandate to take best advantage of that. We have a number of things that are working right now. I think we have to figure out as a territorial...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a specific line item for them, but there could be possibilities of other sources of funding where we could look at doing that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't say who they were, but we can give committee a detailed item list of that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is going to be a fishery sector support officer. That position will be located in Hay River. It will be advertised as of April 1st. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To update the Member, I believe Aurora College and the Mine Training Society hope to deliver this program in the spring. That's going to be moving forward. I think there have been a number of sponsors who are willing to take part in this going forward. Hopefully, we are going to have a number of students enrolled in this thing going forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.