Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, there's immense growth in the Northwest Territories, but with all that, we don't believe there's an unlicensed tourism situation that's rampant with unlicensed operators. The first thing that came to light to me, this is on its second day of its story on CBC, and we take these comments by the news outlet seriously, but I can reassure the Member that this situation is not as diehard as it is projected to be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker

As I previously said, developing a Taltson expansion is a priority of this government. Yes, finance is important for this project to go forward, but we are also undertaking the feasibility and development work to understand this project, and the project's economics; that is stuff that we're working on. Equally important to that, to develop this type of project we have to have the right Indigenous governments on side and stakeholders to be with to us help us support this project. The federal government, I believe, is fully supportive of Taltson moving forward, as they've had other legacy...

The Department of Infrastructure also recently helped flow some federal dollars to the Tulita Land Corporation to build a 45 kilowatt solar farm. Under this arrangement, the community-owned land corporation will operate the system and sell clean power back to the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, and into the local grid. That's a great initiative taken on by the Tulita Land Corporation.

As I've spoken in this House before, in the Member's riding we're installing a wind monitoring station in Norman Wells this year to help us understand the feasibility and install renewable wind power to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund is intended to support provinces and territories that take action on climate change and reduce energy use and increase clean economic growth. Now, the federal government in our announcement that we did here a couple of weeks ago was they gave us $23 million, and we're complementing it with $7.4 million from the GNWT coffers. This investment will help enhance the existing Arctic Energy Alliance programs and services and the creation of new programs within that umbrella, including making energy upgrades more accessible to low-income...

This is a new broadband fund that will provide $750 million across Canada for the first five years to support projects to build or upgrade infrastructure to provide fixed or mobile wireless broadband Internet service to unserviced Canadians. This new program is still in development, and the CRTC has noted that resources for applicants will be made available in the coming months, including application guide, application forms, and maps, and it is expected to have this funding start to roll out in 2019.

There has been a great deal of research and consultation completed in the development of our MRA. Our job as government is to synthesize this work and release it publicly and the discussion papers in "what we heard" reports that we have developed. This is a formal thing for government to do. Governments do not just post research on the web and ask for the public to do their work. We have offered the Member and standing committee a review of our work on the MRA. I will reiterate that I offer, if you have questions, let us have those discussions in a forum designed for that purpose. I don't mind...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, this was an FPT in Vancouver. That is where I was last week with Minister Bains and all of my colleagues from across the country, and yes, we discussed the exact topic that the Member brought up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The research was not commissioned solely for the work of the MRA. It was commissioned in support of the review of the socioeconomic agreements being undertaken by the Program Review Office. That work is ongoing.

In relevance to our work with the Mineral Resource Act, it was clear, and the research was also incorporated to inform an ongoing drafting of a new Mineral Resource Act. As the report itself states, it was a limited-in-scope project designed to spark a discussion about socioeconomic benefits, and we are using it just to do that.

For the record, I didn't say we are the only jurisdiction; we are one of very few.

One of the reasons that I believe that we need to keep track of the operators is, first of all, we have had some safety concerns, and that has been raised by other Members in Yellowknife, and particularly around the Ingraham Trail. Safety plans have to be incorporated. This is a whole new industry for the people of the Northwest Territories. This is an evolving business situation where it is growing so large and so fast that the city can barely keep up with it. We can't even get a hotel room in this city half of...

First of all, for the record, I want to put it on the record that the Northwest Territories is one of few jurisdictions in Canada that asks for operators to have a licence. I want that on the record.

Since this story has come to light, of course, I have been briefed up, because it has been in the news for two days and may be even coming out for a third day. This is something that the news outlet has latched onto. As I have said, I don't think this is a rampant thing happening in the Northwest Territories. Sure, there are problems that come along with success, and success in the tourism industry...