Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment in follow-up to my Member's statement. I would like to ask the Minister: when was the last time government supported prospector training that was held outside the North or South Slave Regions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Industry, Tourism, Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right. The last few courses have been in the north and south of the region of the Northwest Territories for geological resources that exist in this particular region because of the high mining activity. What I can tell the Member, though, is the last one that we did have, we had members from the Sahtu participate who came down, and they accessed the SEED program to be able to participate in that, and that is an option that, depending on where the next one is, we can actually reach out to the Member to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
What can the Minister do to support Aboriginal governments that want to bring prospector training to their communities?
We can certainly work with any local government or Aboriginal organizations or communities that want to bring prospector training to their community. One of the challenges we face, though, is geologists and prospectors, instructors may be familiar with rocks in a particular area and the learning experience needs to be one that is going to benefit the students. One of the things I think that we need to really look at particularly maybe in that region as things move forward to try to find an industry for the Beau-Del is maybe we have some type of regional collaboration with communities and have a look at that and have a more robust group of people participating.
Will we see prospector training offered in the Mackenzie Delta within this calendar year?
As I have said, if we can have a look at this possibly as a regional approach, I do not believe we have anything scheduled in the coming years yet. We are still in the planning stages, and some of this investment that we will need to do is going to be hinged on the budget process as well, Mr. Speaker, but we can certainly have those conversations.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
