Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of ITI. The Minister has noted that the Government of Canada has invested into the life of the trappers, certainly with the daunting and challenging task of working with the trappers in light of the emerging demand for the Northwest Territories fur and also the demand for our energy in the Sahtu region.
I want to ask the Minister, is his department working with the Sahtu Renewable Resources Board to come out with a plan that says if you want to be a trapper, here are the support mechanisms you can have to become a trapper for life, or if you’d like to change or have some type of balance working in the industry? Is there going to be a report after these two years of funding projects?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories today has the best trapping programs in the country. The reason why our programs are so successful is because we work out of our regional offices to help deliver the programs that we have, and in the area of trapping specifically we have a strong relationship with the local operations at the regional level through our department. As things change – I know the Member is talking about the potential economic development happening in the Sahtu – it’s even more important that we continue that close relationship with the hunters and trappers in that region. Thank you.
Can the Minister of ITI inform the House, with the funding that we got from the federal government it will be geared towards promoting opportunities for employment and skill development training in both the traditional and the industrial sectors of the Sahtu regional economy, from that is there going to be some type of report or some type of plan that says you can be a trapper in these seasons and then you could switch to the industrial sector of the economy and go back to life on the land? Is there some type of plan that would see our people in the Sahtu having these types of opportunities in front of them?
Thank you. It’s in all of our best interests to ensure that opportunities for employment are there on an annual basis and all throughout the year. I know some of the opportunity currently underway in the Sahtu is during the winter months. We need to ensure that there are opportunities for people year round, and if there is a way that we can put a bridge between the two to allow people to pursue their traditional economy and also be employed in the oil and gas sector in the Sahtu, that’s something that we should be looking at. As far as a report goes on the money, there would be some expectation that we would have some kind of an evaluation and know where the money has been spent and its effectiveness. Thank you.
I know that some of the people in the Sahtu, especially the trappers because that’s their life and that’s what they want to do, also I know there are some people who love to trap but also see the wage economy in the oil and gas sector. I want to ask the Minister, is he working closely with the Sahtu Renewable Resources Board to say this is a program we could have in the Sahtu that could pilot, say, a trapper who would like to trap to get these furs, but also the trapping season might be a little difficult so they would move into the industry? Is there a program that flow the trappers into an oil and gas industry type of employment to support them, because that would be crucial in terms of which way they want to go in the future.
I think each individual’s circumstances may, in fact, be different than the next person, but we could be potentially talking to Education, Culture and Employment about opportunities to bridge the two. Again, I think it’s very important that people have opportunities on a year-round basis. If there is that opportunity to work with ECE to talk about training opportunities and how we can get the trappers that are trapping that want to be employed in the oil and gas sector as things continue to move along in the Sahtu, again, that’s something that we’re very much interested in doing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last year there were 106 trappers that sold close to 4,000 pelts and injected $725,000 into the local economy of the Northwest Territories. We know that the Asian countries and the European countries are well versed in the Northwest Territories fur.
Is there any type of report as to the number of trappers now in the Sahtu that his department is tracking to see if we are going to pass the numbers that we had from last year’s report?
I don’t have the exact number of trappers in the Sahtu that we are tracking, but that’s certainly a number I could get for the Member. What I do know, and I know the Member mentioned it himself, is the amount of dollars that are flowing directly back to trappers across the Northwest Territories, and this is money that gets right back into the local economy and, in most cases, into the smaller communities. Last year that was $2.8 million directly back to trappers across the Territories, so it’s a significant amount of money that gets back into the economy.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
