Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like I've said, we've already submitted the proposal to the federal government. It is on hold right now based on what they're going to do with their infrastructure needs. Hopefully the federal government addresses this project and many other projects that we've submitted under infrastructure for this territorial government in the federal budget coming out in the next couple of weeks. We have done pretty much everything we can do to advance this project until we hear back from them.

Like I said, we're working with ENR on preparing plans for management of caribou, we have...

First of all, the Canyon Creek access road that we just announced was initiated by the Sahtu region. This was brought forward a long time ago by the people of Sahtu and the Aboriginal governments. They spend a significant amount of time and energy on this project to advance it. It speaks to the benefits like the Member just stated of jobs and employment opportunities and training. Federal opportunities came along at the right time for this project and allowed this project to move forward, and it has.

If the Member's community of Wrigley and the Deh Cho wanted to have an interest in promoting a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe, on Tourism 2020, we are making quite a bit of progress on a lot of different initiatives. We have just announced the new community tourism coordinator program to advance regional product development and packaging. We are focusing on risk management training, like I just mentioned, in the NWT for tourism operators. We continue to deliver community tours and infrastructure contributions to encourage development of community tourism infrastructure across the Northwest Territories. There are many initiatives under the Tourism 2020 plan, which was there to replace...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think someone asked me this question yesterday, possibly. We invest roughly $5.5 million through grants and contributions and transfers to many tourism initiatives, including NWT tourism, Convention Bureau, Northern Frontier Visitors Centre, and Tourism Product Diversification Program and Tourism 2020. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the last decade has seen our Great Slave Lake fishery hit hard by circumstances well beyond its influence and control. Commercial fishing in our territory has, as a result, declined significantly.

What has not declined is the number of fish in the lake, the quality of this food source, or the proven markets we can use to rebuild our fishery. They offer the opportunity to restore an industry that remains important and vital to our economy and to our territory.

Thanks to changes in our fishery support program, we have seen recent increases to our catch volumes, but there is no silver...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Operating ferries and ice bridges in the Member's area, with a little bit of lower volume of traffic compared to the Providence crossing, which has a high significant volume of traffic, the department has not developed a cost estimate to construct a bridge at the Tsiigehtchic crossing or the Peel. Those would be significant investments. The Deh Cho Bridge cost $200 million. From my recollection, to operate the Louis Cardinal ferry costs over a million dollars a year. You do the math. It is not viable to put a bridge in there at this point.

The Merv Hardie ferry is a little different beast than the Louis Cardinal. It has a different size and shape to it, and the hull is not actually suitable to replace the Louis Cardinal ferry. The Louis Cardinal is actually a shallow-draft vessel that is a little different in river conditions than it was here on the Fort Providence section. No amount of money would ever fix that thing to make it viable to use it for the Louis Cardinal.

With that being said, to replace the Louis Cardinal ferry in today's dollars, if we were to do it right today, it would cost this government roughly between $10...

We would have to look at the economies of scales and do a business plan compared to other sources of heat for the facility, be it biomass or diesel fuel or solar, plus all the regular stuff that we are looking at in our energy strategy. That is something we can have a look at, but it would be based on cost of supplying energy and what makes good sense and business case.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The short answer is yes. With our energy strategy that we are going around the Northwest Territories, we are willing to look at all input so we can make an informed decision on how we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Like I said, first of all, it would have to be something driven by the community and the region. They would have to all work together to say this is a project that they would all be supportive of and want to bring forward to the Government of the Northwest Territories. That would be the first step. So as long as we have consensus on stuff, we could sit down and look at the proposal. As far as doing a tour of the region, I think we've been asked twice already and due to timing I couldn't make it to the region, but at some point we're going to have to get out there and just talk to the region...