Wally Schumann

As we all know, we have done a number of things in the last three years, and we will continue to work on them. We have our mineral development strategies in which we will invest another $2 million this fiscal year for the regions that are participating. We have the Unlocking Our Potential brand that we will continue to work to increase public and industry awareness, knowledge, and understanding of the Northwest Territories.

We will continue to fully engage with the federal government, particularly around infrastructure investments. We have been very successful in infrastructure investments in...

As I have said, they have not looked at any GNWT lease procurement opportunities with this building for office space proposals. We are not aware of any department that is looking for incremental space at this point. I don't believe there is any funding available to do that at this point. A lot of this is all speculation in the paper about what is going to happen with this building. I don't mind having a conversation with the Member if there is an opportunity to have a look at this thing for other projects that the Government of the Northwest Territories is having a look at, but that would be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I knew we would get questions on this one. This was raised in the newspaper with the Bellanca Building coming down. Now, we have to make one thing quite clear: it is a privately owned business. They own this asset. We are actively leasing space off the Bellanca Development Corporation in other buildings that they own in Yellowknife. They have never made anything aware to us as a government about this building. They haven't used it to bid on other projects in the Northwest Territories, or in Yellowknife, I guess.

For us as a government to look at this as an asset to use...

At this time, Marine Transportation Services does not foresee any significant delay in the delivery of fuel to Hay River or delay in the sailing schedule. The department is working closely with the fuel supplier, with CN and the truckers, and has an alternate supply of sources and transportation plans in place. However, the situation is fluid and can change very quickly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad that we are getting these questions so we can update the residents of the Northwest Territories. Things are going well in Hay River. This is a busy time of year down at MTS getting everything ready and in the water. It is a highly regulated business. Transport Canada is down there. The insurance companies will be there going through our vessels and through all the inspections.

To update the House with what is going on there, the Kakisa has been inspected. That is the tug that we use around the harbour to move stuff around. That is in the water for the last...

As I have updated the House here recently on what was going on around the fuel haul, we are managing our risk accordingly. We are working with the fuel supplier, particularly for this particular season because of the fires in Alberta. We are working with our partners, as I have said before, with Transport Canada and the Coast Guard, and particularly to have icebreaker access up in the Beaufort when we are ready to go. We are currently loading our first sets of barges. As I said the other day, even with the rail line out, we are trucking fuel to Hay River, and we will continue to monitor the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought he was going to ask me about May of this year, but nothing has been cancelled, of course. I have explained the cancellation last year of the barge delivery to the Kitikmeot a number of times in this House. I have done a briefing on it. The public information is out there. It is clearly laid out, and it was due to environmental weather conditions that were out of our control. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[Microphone turned off] to speak today about Sheila Cook, who got inducted into the Education Hall of Fame yesterday. Sheila Cook was born in the nursing station on the K'atlodeeche First Nation outside Hay River. She attended the Hay River Federal Day School, followed by Sir John Franklin High School for grades 10 and 11, and then completed her high school diploma at Victoria Composite in Edmonton.

She realized that she wanted to become a teacher when she was working as a tutorial assistant for speech and language therapy with children and working as a classroom assistant. She began her...

A strong, prosperous mining sector totally helps benefit the many aspects of our economy, and the manufacturing sector is one of them. We will continue to work with that. The manufacturing strategy that we introduced in the House this week is to increase market size for the manufacturers, and the mining sector is an important sector of that. We will continue to work with them on that.

The other thing that I think we need to look at, and hopefully will happen, is to have the mining sector participate in the reverse trade shows that we will have the Manufacturers' Association participate in and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All Members in this House know how critical the importance of the mineral sector is to our economy, and I have been out there promoting this sector, trying to bring back the investment that was gone since the 2008 crash. We are out there promoting the Northwest Territories of our economic viability and our engagement with Indigenous governments. We have been to PDAC. We have been to Roundup, and all of these great things, promoting the Northwest Territories. In those discussions, the juniors have told us quite clearly that access to cash for exploration projects...