Wally Schumann

This is ongoing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When the Member goes there, to the grants contribution page, and sees what we contributed to, that amount also came out of page 221 in the business plan. It is the very first line, Aboriginal Mineral Development Program, and then some of it came from Other Contributions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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. Speaker. This issue came up last year, particularly around the Georgetown area, and we are continually monitoring this area with overflow issues on the Dempster in a number of places, as the Member has spoken about.

In particular, right now, at kilometre 213, we have an issue. The department built a couple of berms there to hold back water, but, due to climate change this year and the warming temperatures in that region, a lot of water is coming up from underground, and we had an issue on the highway. A contractor has been out there. He has ice-plated that section to make it...

Low water rates, we did a subsidy from 2014-2016 for the hydroelectricity region for the North Slave and the government provided a one-time subsidy of $49 million for a two-year period.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2016-2017 the GNWT provided $380,000 to Northland Utilities to reduce the rates in four diesel communities down to match the rates in NTPC communities. In 2016-2017 the Government of the Northwest Territories provided $6.4 million throughout the Territorial Power Subsidy Program to reduce residential rates in both NTPC and Northland thermal communities down to the Yellowknife rate. Through the Housing Corporation, the GNWT provides approximately $7 million a year to keep rates low for tenants. For income assistance clients, we provided approximately $800,000 in 2016...

I am not going to get into a debate about 140 in Georgetown again. We had that conversation last year. The resident that is there, his father was moved previous to that situation. Someone else moved back into a location that has a troubled area, particularly with climate change flowing in that area, but we will continue to monitor 140. If it becomes an issue with safety, being a priority on our highway system, we will have a look at it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.