Wally Schumann

As I have said, there is money in the capital budget to move forward with this project of the secure image management system, and hopefully, within the next two years, once we have all this stuff worked out; by 2020 at the very latest, we will be able to do that.

Mr. Speaker, the short answer is no, because the stock that we do have for using them within our system right now is identified as driver's licence stock, and it cannot be used for that. It would also require significant software changes to be able to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Department of Education has worked with us, as this was an issue around some of their programming. The Department of Health as well, Elections Canada, there are a number of departments that could possibly use the temporary ID for residents in the Northwest Territories to assist with their programs and stuff moving forward. We've been in collaboration with a number of different departments in moving this forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have never heard that concern. If that Member has that type of information, I’d gladly sit down with him and discuss it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I want to remind this House this is the first ever agricultural strategy of the Northwest Territories. We tabled that in March. We were working towards this budding industry to bring local production of food to residents of the Northwest Territories. Yes, the issue of lands is one that we’re working on. It’s an interdepartmental working group working on this. It’s myself, ITI, Health and Social Services, ENR, the Department of Lands. We’re assessing this stuff. We’re looking at other jurisdictions and what’s going on. We’re continually talking with the...

As I’ve said, we’ve committed to the opening of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway on November 14th. Depending on weather, freeze up is at the end of October. We’ve committed to buying some lighter spray equipment this year, which is en route to the communities to accelerate the ice road construction. That will allow us to get on the ice roads sooner. Historically, that ice road should be open within three weeks to light traffic, and probably mid-November for heavy traffic. That’s based on the historical numbers that I have.

Thank yu, Mr. Speaker. As most Members know in this House, our intention is to run the ferry until freeze up this year, and after that we will be attempting to accelerate the winter road service to the regions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don’t believe that’s the case. The strategy that we put forward, as I said, is in consultation with the people that want to do farming in the Northwest Territories. We’re back out doing a survey with them right now to see what we can do to implement to make this thing better going forward. We will continue to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When we tabled this strategy, we went out to consultations to develop the strategy across the Northwest Territories of people that are interested in agriculture. That fed into how we developed this strategy going forward. That was their strategy along with ours that we put forward in this House. We are finishing up our Growing Forward 2. They’re the last year of our five-year growing forward plan. We’re going to be moving forward with a new plan with a federal Minister, but right now we’re out doing a survey to see feedback on what we can do in the strategy. How can we make things work better...

This continuation of the winter ferry was a decision of the House of this Assembly. We have made $1.8 million as I’ve said. The road was open for 36 days based on it for $1.8 million with the Dempster possibly closed as much as 40 per cent of the time. It’s not good value for the money. The decision was made to put this winter ferry service into accommodate the Ikhil well. The situation right now is not a concern of ours. There seems to be from the producers’ side of things, there is not an effect of it going forward. We will continue to monitor. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.