Wally Schumann

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following six documents entitled "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 819-18(2): Yellowknife Airport Hours of Operation," "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 825-18(2): Status of Marine Transportation Services," "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 877-18(2): Condition of Highway 1 and Highway 7," "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 18-18(3): Mackenzie Delta Transportation Concerns," "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 27-18(3): Hay River Pedestrian Crossing Upgrade," and "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 39-18(3): Highway 4 (Ingraham Trail) Road Safety." Thank...

As we know, DFO did a stakeholder engagement last year, and we know DFO is considering a fisherman-led cooperative to replace the Freshwater Marketing Corporation. Those decisions have not been made yet. DFO has assured us that they will continue to engage NWT fishers on the outcome and the future state of the Freshwater Marketing Corporation. This thing is still in flux. Every time I have talked to the federal Minister, we haven't got where they are at on this whole thing, but the DFO has assured us the interests of northern fishers will be taken into consideration before it moves on, and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, the Fisheries Act just came out yesterday, but I can update this House that ITI staff has attended a technical briefing on the amendments to the Fisheries Act. Based on the most current information that I have, Mr. Speaker, that has been shared with us in briefings, we do not expect any of these amendments to affect the building of the processing plant in Hay River for the fishing revitalization strategy, and we expect these changes to have minimal impacts on the commercial fishing industry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One of the challenges, when we bought these assets moving forward, was to get everything up and running. A part of that would be the HR side of it. On the HR side of it, there was a number of agreements that were in place that had to be renegotiated and MOUs put in place for a collective bargaining unit, so we had to deal with three different types of operations: the Canadian Merchant Service Guild, the Seafarers' International Union of Canada, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Through that, we hired a company called ORSI who facilitated hiring our HR for staffing up the marine side of...

We have committed $8 million through Bundle 1 of Building Canada Plan on this section of highway, and we continue to spend that. The Member has asked previously in a different sitting about guard rails, and I believe that this particular section of highway is actually getting some guard rails installed in the capital plan. I would have to double-check to verify that because we have so many different projects on the go, but I am almost certain that there are guard rails going in on this section.

As I have said, the department regularly reviews accidents that have happened on the highway, no...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have talked about this section of road quite a bit in this House. This is one of the busier sections of road in the Northwest Territories, particularly during the resupply of the mines. A number of residents live out that way. We will continue to what we normally do, doing our regular patrols, going forward. I suspect that I would have to get the exact details, but I imagine it is a daily patrol that is done by our department to check on the conditions of this section of highway, as well as maintenance which will be on an as- and when-needed basis. As I have said...

That is a very large question. It depends on which part I want to answer you, but first of all, we had 1.4 that we had in the budget and it is moving forward. The department in our conversations with the freshwater or the local fishing guys in Hay River, we decided that the Government of the Northwest Territories will proceed with this building.

Some of those reasons was the lack of access to capital and long stability for the industry. We believe that it is in the best interest of the fishing federation or for the fishermen in Hay River that we move forward with the plan. The Department of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have had ongoing discussions on this issue with the department. As of today, we still have not received a report, but my understanding is we will have it in the coming days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the follow document entitled "Yellowknife Airport Five-Year Business Plan 2017-2018 to 2021-2022." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are working with a number of people on moving this forward. The first part of it is what do we need to have the existing fishermen trained up to participate in fishing on the lake and have all the qualifications needed to do that.

We are also looking at a second part of how do we bring new, younger fishermen into the process, what type of training they need to be able to access the lake and do it in a safe manner. We are looking at a different approach, as well, with a number of other proponents about how we can bring training to the fishing industry in the Northwest Territories.