Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regard to the report I mentioned, I believe a copy was given to the Minister of ITI, and ITI did provide some funding for this research. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, I believe that this research is really identifying the core issues on communities and also some suggestions on how they can look at being self-reliant in a lot of these small communities, especially like the community of Aklavik.
I would just like to ask the Minister of ITI if his department has had an opportunity to consider some of the recommendations in the report and possibly moving on some of the suggestions that were put forward in regard to how we can invest in some projects in the community and see if we can generate jobs and make the community self-reliant.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Aklavik project was quite a novel and creative approach to economic development. I think that it’s an approach that could be used in other communities and was done largely at the initiative of the local people from Aklavik who want to see economic development occur in this community. As we speak, our department of ITI is reviewing the report with the direction to come back and give me some indication of what areas we can implement and what areas we can advance further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the Minister for that, because in the report it clearly identifies through the finding of the research some of the priority items include a sawmill in the community of Aklavik, the fur garment factory that was there in the past -- there’s still effort to do that -- the whole area around tourism. I think it’s those types of initiatives that we, as government, can provide seed money to assist those communities to get some of these projects off the ground to generate those types of incomes.
So I’d just like to ask the Minister if he’s had an opportunity to get his regional staff involved in looking at this report and seeing exactly how they can maybe work with the local communities to get some of these projects off the ground and get them going right from the regional level, regardless if it’s regional staff in Inuvik, the local economic development officer and whatnot. So this work is already there. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s had that opportunity to explain this to the regional staff.
I understand the regional staff have a copy. We have just completed a staffing competition to hire a new economic development officer for Aklavik, so we’ll have somebody on the ground working to begin to implement some of the recommendations with some support from here in headquarters. Thank you.
Again, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the overall report and study, it does talk about challenges that they face in the communities, and one of them was something I believe the Minister just touched on, is capacity of trying to deliver human resources in our communities. It is critical that we find a way to ensure that we have economic development officers as key people in the communities. So I’d just like to ask the Minister, one of the suggestions is ensuring we have long-term commitments for positions and so people know that when they take on these jobs, they will have some certainty if they go into a community than simply year-to-year contracts. So I’d like to ask the Minister, in regard to the capacity issue, has he had an opportunity to look at some of the suggestions in the report on how we develop capacity in our communities.
My ITI staff are reviewing the document and will be providing me with some recommendations on what is in the report. In the meantime, we’re also working to provide for more longer term capacity. We will be working to have somebody from the community work with the EDO position so that we can have longer term workers in the community. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister in regard to whatever his findings are from his department, if he can keep myself and the community of Aklavik involved so we can take it to the next step of implementing some of these ideas. It’s a great report. It’s 166 pages long and it would be a waste if this report isn’t being used and isn’t implemented. So I’d like to request the Minister to keep me involved when implementing the report.
We’ll keep the Member involved and also the people that have been the lead on this project from day one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
