Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to join my colleague from Hay River North and talk about the Great Slave Lake fishery. I too attended the branding exercise that was organized and promoted by Industry, Tourism and Investment and I thank them for that, but we have a ways to go yet.
As most people know, commercial fishing was an integral foundation to the economy in Hay River and we always say that the success of the economy in Hay River is based on how diversified it is.
Industries come and go and sometimes there are good reasons for that. In this particular case there is no reason why we should not still have a very viable commercial fishing industry around Great Slave Lake, headquartered, of course, in Hay River where the majority of fishers live at this time in the West Channel and in the town of Hay River.
I love Great Slave Lake fish. It’s like gold. I think we can say, without anybody challenging us, that it is the best fish in the world. It comes from clear, clean, cold waters and sometimes when I have to go pick up an order of fish for our little diner, I see it in those big buckets all nicely packaged and filleted and it looks like gold to me. When I hear there’s a whole truck gone off to Yellowknife, of course I’m happy for the fishermen, but when you find it, it’s not like getting 10 pounds of ground beef. It is very special; it’s a beautiful product and it tastes great. It is, as my colleague said, extremely good for us.
So it is a renewable, sustainable, wonderful product. It offsets the cost of living, if we could consume more fish, but we do have a ways to go.
I know the Department of ITI has had many programs and studies in the past to look at how we can enhance the commercial fishery. I know they’ve done everything from buy aluminum hull vessels for the fishermen to take out onto the lakes so they can harvest differently, to… They’ve done a lot of things. I could list a lot of things that have been done over the years, but the bottom line , at the end of the day, is fishing is extremely hard work. We have to find ways to make sure that it is economically viable enough to keep people engaged in the industry.
I’m very pleased that the economic opportunities report did highlight commercial fishing as an industry in the North which does need to be supported and enhanced, and to that end, we do look forward to further initiatives that we know are on the horizon for the commercial fishery on Great Slave Lake. We look forward to seeing those rolled out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
