Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about a song that Johnny Cash sang, called I Walk the Line. I want to ask the Minister of ITI, in light of the oil and gas exploration in the Sahtu, and I also talked about the people in the Sahtu walking the line. We are at the brink of having both development and protection of the area in the Sahtu. I understand the Minister is going to meet with the Aboriginal leaders who are involved in the Bakken shale play in April. I want to ask the Minister how he is going to bring this report back to us and report on it on how Aboriginal people are handling development on their land.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The trip that we envision in April to southeast Saskatchewan and to North Dakota would be to meet with Aboriginal leaders. I would certainly hope to have some Aboriginal leaders from the Sahtu accompany me on that trip so that we can meet with them there to see how Aboriginal people in the Bakken have benefited from development on their land. That is something that we certainly look forward to and I certainly hope the Member can make some time in April to come with us.
I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to the Minister on that. I certainly would like to go with the Minister to the Bakken field.
I want to ask the Minister, with the government’s increased budget for programs and services, and that’s one of ITI’s mandates, I want to ask the Minister how his department coordinates activities with other departments since the oil companies said the oil plays in the Sahtu are encouraging and they want to further develop those areas.
The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment has some very good staff in the Sahtu. We’ve also modified the pipeline office in Hay River, it’s the Mackenzie Valley Petroleum Planning Office now. They do work now for and on behalf of what is happening in the Sahtu.
We’ve had the Sahtu Readiness Session that we were able to attend last fall. I have made a commitment to the Member that we will look at doing an exercise like that again this coming fall to get ready for what is happening so community leaders, business leaders and industry can get together in one room and try to understand exactly what is going to happen there next winter.
In discussions with the Member earlier during this session, the use of the winter road, how it’s been utilized this winter, how we’ve partnered with industry, how we can improve on this for next year, I think that’s also very important that a post-mortem on how the winter road operation happened this winter and improvements that can be made next winter. I think those are very useful dialogues to have and we look forward to helping put that together both with ITI and DOT.
In the Sahtu exploration readiness session, a lot of good things were talked about. One of the things that concerned me is there was no lead identified during the readiness session to work on the addictions and mental health issues. I want to know how ITI is addressing that within the Government of the Northwest Territories. We have a plan in place with Sahtu, we just don’t have the money.
My role as Minister of ITI when we attend a session like the Sahtu Readiness Session, is to take the information back to the Cabinet table and make my colleagues aware of what is happening in the Sahtu. After what happened last winter, Cabinet got together, there was a response to that and you can see that response in this year’s budget.
As things continue to move forward in the Sahtu, government will need to respond, whether it’s through Education, Health and Social Services or ITI. Government will have to react and respond to what is happening there. We certainly look forward to things continuing to move forward there. This is something that we’re very excited about.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In this project in this work in the Sahtu, ITI has taken the lead on oil and gas development and is coordinating with all the other departments. ITI is the boss here. I want to ask ITI, is he working with the other departments, with the Sahtu leadership, with the Aboriginal leadership to create the economic Oil and Gas Strategy for the Sahtu? Because this is a great potential that the oil companies are telling us that they have encouraging results that would make it one of the most powerful economic drivers in Canada.
We do continue to work together and, I think, that’s how we are going to see the play that is taking place in the central Mackenzie in the Sahtu. We’re going to see it move forward because, again, that dialogue has taken place and will continue to take place between government, industry, business leaders and Aboriginal leaders in the region. That is the only way that we can move forward.
The Member said he is walking a line and we do have to walk that line. There has to be a balance on protecting the environment and development. We believe that by working together, we are going to achieve some very good results there.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
