Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had an opportunity to travel back to my constituency this week and do a whirlwind tour. One of the highlights of the trip was to go into Aklavik and have an official signing ceremony with the community. Aklavik is in the process of developing a community economic sustainable development plan along with a university on Vancouver Island and using graduate students to work with the community to develop this plan.
The whole initiative is going to be an historical project that will involve all members of the community through a process of developing, producing, and implementing a plan. The general goal and objective of the plan is to take account of everything in the community, which involves the community’s resources to identified key areas of economic development, a social interest, and the development of a comprehensive community plan that will assist the community in planning for the current and future community economic development needs and deal with the social challenges of that community.
The highlight of this study is the inclusion of the university and a community to work jointly on such an effort. It is a pilot project, but for communities in the Northwest Territories hopefully this pilot project can be handed on to other communities with the findings of this work.
I’d like to thank the chief, Mildred Edwards, the mayor, Billy Storr, and also other members of the community who took part in the signing of this agreement and look forward to working with the whole community and the university from Vancouver Island, and to move forward on such an occasion. I’d like to mention the Minister of ITI, the Premier, and people who were involved in moving this project forward.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
