Wally Schumann

In discussions with the joint venture on Stanton, the project is on schedule as projected. We expect to service commencement of the facility on November 30, 2018, and we work very closely with them on tracking this issue very closely going month to month with this project moving forward. We believe the project is about approximately 30 per cent complete right now.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The successful proponent of this project is committed to make every effort to involve local and northern labour and goods and services in this project, and I am glad to update the House here today that within the project agreement $70 million has been identified for local and northern businesses.

The numbers that I have got to date, to the end of May of this year, we have seen over $24 million spent on local and northern companies, and at this time, 11 northern companies are fully engaged in major projects on the Stanton project to date, with more tenders yet to be...

I am not sure if this is the time to be walking away from the table, just yet, because this is going to take a lot of resources to get this figured out and how to build something and get the processes and money in place to be able to build something like this. The challenge, like I say, is particularly around the resources, and I think we need to be engaged, which we are now, directly with the Minister's office on how we are going to move forward. Hopefully, we are going to be able to come to some solution between us and the federal government in the near future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since I obtained the portfolio, I have met with the Minister of DFO twice; once in November of 2016 and once in March of 2017 of this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Annual Report 2016-2017 NWT Office of the Regulator of Oil and Gas Operations." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are working with a joint venture to get these exact figures for the Members of the House of how many northern workers, but as work progresses from day to day, labour amounts change. They fluctuate up and down on who is on site, but from everything that has been presented to me, there are roughly between 60 and 130 people that are working on site, given the scope of work that is going on, but there are also a number of people who work off-site, potentially up to 70 people around administration, designers, engineers, quality assurance, those sorts of things, Mr. Speaker. As far as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As everyone knows, the quota system being signed onto Freshwater Fish, 100 per cent of our fish goes to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. We believed, as we went into revitalizing the fishing strategy, that there are market opportunities for us outside of Freshwater. Being that we are still signatory to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, we are still obliged to sell our fish to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. We are looking at expanding our opportunities outside of that, but, before we can do that, as I said, we have got to figure out our...

As all Members are aware, in the Member's statement today that Freshwater Marketing Corp., its future is very uncertain, as the last person standing technically is the Northwest Territories. We are waiting for a ruling out of Manitoba, as it sounds like they are pulling out of the Freshwater Marketing Corporation, so that is 80 per cent of their market gone. How do we move this forward? We have been working with Freshwater to this point, and it has been very challenging, and with the situation that has arisen around the Manitoba thing, it has put a lot of things into question. The last time...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 74(2) and have Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Revolving Funds Act, No. 2, moved into Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Unanimous consent granted

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents entitled "NWT Mineral Development Strategy Annual Report for 2015-2016" and "2017-2018 Corporate Plan NWT Business Development and Investment Corporation."