Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Minister of ITI for his statement earlier today and showing our support for mining and what it does for our economy. So my questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and the Minster alluded earlier today that the Mineral Incentive Program has been a very big success. In fact, it's been oversubscribed, so my question for the Minister is is there any consideration to increase this investment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister for Industry, Tourism, and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member is well aware, I've recently just got this portfolio and I've been reading up as much as I can on some of this stuff. I believe when we get into looking into the strategy of how we're going to move some of this stuff forward, we're going to have to sit down and review some of this and welcome probably input from the Regular Members when we do this as well, and that could be one of the things we looked at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Minister's reply and I look forward to working with him on the possibilities of increasing the Mining Incentive Program. Second question would be that the Minister alluded today that we're going to be working to create a new act that will modernize our government's approach to mining by streamlining our regulatory environment. I wonder if the Minister could please share with us any particular specifics about what he means in terms of streamlining our regulatory environment.
Like I said in my Member's statement today, moving forward with the act this will bring our act in line with northern priorities and the realities of how operating in the Northwest Territories is, and we will work with NWT intergovernmental council and the Aboriginal governments industry and NGOs and the general public in how we're going to move this forward, and so there's going to be a lot of information gathered in how we're going to bring this forward to work for Northerners.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister spoke today earlier about that there has been community participation in mining through regional mineral development strategies and that the Deh Cho in fact has been a leader in this regard and that the Inuvialuit, Sahtu, and the Tlicho regions are also interested in developing such strategies. I'm just wondering, Mr. Speaker, is the regional mineral development strategies going to be any different than our own territorial one, and will they be inclusive of land use plans?
Yes, it was quite exciting actually to see the Deh Cho being a leader in this. As my prior life when I was the Metis president, it's something I strongly believe that we should be doing in the Metis South Slave Region. So getting back to the Member's question, I think developing regional strategies is very important and we need to work on this initiative. Is it going to be part of the land use planning? I believe regionally they want to work on how they're going to move their land use plans for their own self-governments and their own governments and their own regions, but they're going to have to be tied, work closely, how we develop the territorial land use plans and the regulations and stuff moving forward.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. Earlier today, also announced that there's been some success in delivering the mining matters curriculum, and this is in schools now and in particular in the Sahtu and the Deh Cho region has interest in wanting to put this in their school programs as well. I just wonder can the Minister let us know if in fact other regions would be interested in having this mining matters curriculum brought into their schools, eventually having a territory-wide curriculum?
Yes, we are rolling this out into the Deh Cho I guess because all three schools that are going to be taking it on this week are all in the Deh Cho region: Fort Providence, Fort Simpson and Liard, and I believe we will be working closely with ECE on how we can implement this across the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
