Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, we have not put this project on pause. While the federal government is trying to figure out how they're going to allocate their infrastructure money, we continue to look at other opportunities moving forward, be it the department or CanNor's funding or other opportunities moving this initiative forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I have said, we have already engaged with stakeholders on this very topic, and we are very confident that the LNG plant and the propane people will have sufficient storage to get the community of Inuvik through this transition.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to sum up a little bit of everything that we are doing on this file. As we know, this is important to everybody in the Northwest Territories. It is a true fact of life that is coming down the pipe for the whole country.

First of all, we are working with the federal government on a number of initiatives. We have some people working directly to get remote communities off diesel fuel, which is important to all northern communities right across Canada. The Department of Finance is working with the carbon tax file. There are two things right off the bat.

When we were...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I heard what the Member is saying, and my intention is not to pile onto the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to do that. We are holding our line with our budget line right now. As all the Members know, our expenditures are outpacing our revenues, and the reason we are holding our line on our expenditures is due to that fact, and we need to get the government's fiscal house in order.

This is a great fund. What I am saying is, if a community comes forward with a business plan that can create jobs in their communities, this is one way that they can use both...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, on the Mackenzie Highway, as all Members are aware, we announced the Canyon Creek project. Hopefully, that is getting kicked off here in the next month or so, with that initiative moving forward, employing a number of people and training them in the Sahtu region.

As far as the Mackenzie Valley Highway ask with the federal government, as I have stated in the House, the federal government put that program on pause. We have submitted a business case for that project moving forward, and we are waiting to see what the federal government does, coming in their...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Upon review of the ferry service in the Member's riding, I have been on record that the costs outweigh the benefits when we have had a serious look at this. That is the reason why we are bringing this forward in this budget. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once we have done our engagement on this, we would have to have a look at what we are doing. Then we would have to look, moving forward, what we were going to do. If we needed any extra money, we would have to probably have that discussion on our side of the House. If there was even money available to do it; it might be too early to tell. We have got to wait until we have finished the initiative. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to clarify, I will share it with the Members as soon as tomorrow even. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member is well aware, we have sent our staff in there along with the operator. Last year's incident, they met with the community along with our staff to discuss what happened last year and how we can best move forward. We are doing our due diligence. We have met with the operator last year.

We met with the department, as well, to discuss what happened and what we can learn from that moving forward. As far as the resupply of Deline, itself, we tend to do the other communities first to help the contractor build up the ice thickness to what it needs to be to access the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I've stated, we have the Energy Strategy that's going around; they're feeding information back to the department, not just on climate change and carbon tax but also Arctic Energy Alliance. We've committed that we want to do a review of Arctic Energy Alliance. As I said, some programs have fulfilled themselves and been quite successful. Things like the condo one that the Member has brought up, it's been actually moved to another line item there where people can still access that. If his particular neighbour is interested in doing something there, there is actually money...