Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we all know, this government recently released its Commercial Fisheries Revitalization Strategy. The execution of this plan is in its early stages. Part of the problem that we are facing is that the government does not have authority over the fishery, so we must wait on DFO to make the regulatory changes and the infrastructure investments that are needed to move things forward. I have a question for the Minister of Infrastructure: since this is a problem that we have to deal directly with Ottawa, how often are you meeting with your federal counterpart, the Minister of DFO, and specifically discussing issues related to these infrastructure investments and regulatory changes that are needed to get this fishery going? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since I obtained the portfolio, I have met with the Minister of DFO twice; once in November of 2016 and once in March of 2017 of this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I gave the Minister an opportunity to do that because I know he has been meeting with the Minister, and I know he has been pushing this in Ottawa, and I know he is working hard for Hay River to get this fishing strategy going. When it comes to talks with Freshwater, as you know in my statement, I outlined some of the problems with Freshwater. Where are we at the talks with Freshwater to get this fish plant either rebuilt, refurbished, or build one of our own?
As all Members are aware, in the Member's statement today that Freshwater Marketing Corp., its future is very uncertain, as the last person standing technically is the Northwest Territories. We are waiting for a ruling out of Manitoba, as it sounds like they are pulling out of the Freshwater Marketing Corporation, so that is 80 per cent of their market gone. How do we move this forward? We have been working with Freshwater to this point, and it has been very challenging, and with the situation that has arisen around the Manitoba thing, it has put a lot of things into question. The last time that I met with the Minister of DFO, we had an opportunity to talk about this stuff. We are talking about a range of opportunities that have been presented to us now with the possibility of Manitoba pulling out, and we are in discussions directly with the DFO office on this matter.
As we can tell from the Minister's answer, it is tough to deal with Freshwater. I mean, it is an organization in disarray. We need this fish plant. At what point is this government prepared to pull away from Freshwater and just build our own fish plant?
I am not sure if this is the time to be walking away from the table, just yet, because this is going to take a lot of resources to get this figured out and how to build something and get the processes and money in place to be able to build something like this. The challenge, like I say, is particularly around the resources, and I think we need to be engaged, which we are now, directly with the Minister's office on how we are going to move forward. Hopefully, we are going to be able to come to some solution between us and the federal government in the near future.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Processing fish is one part of the equation. The other part is marketing this fish ourselves or having the fishermen market it themselves, and part of the revitalization strategy is to build those markets, whether they be in the territory, they be in Alberta, or overseas. What are we doing, what is the government doing, to create those markets now? The plan calls for getting out of Freshwater. That is what the plan calls for. We need those markets, so where are we? Do we have someone hired? Do we have markets developed in the South? Can I get an update on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As everyone knows, the quota system being signed onto Freshwater Fish, 100 per cent of our fish goes to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. We believed, as we went into revitalizing the fishing strategy, that there are market opportunities for us outside of Freshwater. Being that we are still signatory to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, we are still obliged to sell our fish to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. We are looking at expanding our opportunities outside of that, but, before we can do that, as I said, we have got to figure out our relationship with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, and now we are dealing directly with the Minister of DFO on this situation. Hopefully, we can figure this out sooner rather than later and get on with the revitalization of the Great Slave fishery.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
