Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For many years the outfitting industry has been significant to our northern economy. It has represented a good balance between tourism and promotion, conservation, economic investment, business and certainly local employment. For decades lodges brought tourists to the North. That was new money to our territorial economy that helped diversify our economy and certainly employ people.

In a market like ours, there was great confidence, and businessmen, women and families alike met that confidence with investment and kept investing in their lodges and in the North.

Now things...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was listening to the questions raised by our Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Jane Groenewegen. I like her approach on suggesting bulk purchasing and trying to leverage the expertise and skills that private industry have. My question would be to the Minister of Health and Social Services just to make sure -- of course, recognizing individual MLAs have every right to advocate for their businesses in their riding -- if the Department of Health and Social Services is going to continue this line of consideration which I would encourage them to do, it would make it an open...

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have initiatives with pittance of a dollar called investment that they referred to, but the reality is the customers aren’t picking that up. What work has the government done to ensure that this has actually taken any effect in this industry or any industry on this so-called market shift?

The problem still remains: the customers are not coming and these outfitters are left with all of these lodges that are difficult to staff. No one wants to work there because they know they can’t make any money. Has the Minister investigated the realities of this so-called bailout...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about our new endangered species, the outfitter, and the fact that they’ve been left not just holding the bag but worthless lodges, because of the direction that the caribou management has taken. Mr. Speaker, many of these lodges have the investment of many people, of generations of money, and are seen as their only opportunity for the future, but that opportunity has been pulled away.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister of ITI what is this government’s plan to do with these outfitters with these worthless lodges while they cannot...

Mr. Speaker, if I could add one more issue to this particular problem in going forward, I would ask the Minister reach out to the Pharmacy Association of the Northwest Territories to engage maybe all their association and they could maybe leverage some of the expertise the association would have with their members and perhaps a collective approach could be given to help draw out the direction of this type of health care potential savings. I would hate to think that they would be excluded on any type of expertise that they would probably willingly offer to ensure that the government’s bottom...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Minister’s own words, he said that, for the outfitters, this is not a program for them. So, Mr. Speaker, if he is hearing from the outfitters that this program doesn’t work for them, I am hearing from outfitters myself still even just recently as in a few minutes before session started, in an e-mail that the ink isn’t even dry. The program doesn’t work and is not for them.

Mr. Speaker, the reality is the only person this program works for is the person who does the allocation of these funds who sits in some ivory tower office not understanding what it is really...

Mr. Speaker, the Minister defines it as a shift in the market. I would call it more like a tourniquet. The reality is there are no eco-tourists showing up at the door. The phone isn’t ringing off the hook. It would cost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to decommission these lodges. The outfitters are left holding the bag waiting for this turnaround in the caribou market, if I may define it as that, which is almost impossible. What is the government doing to help either sustain these lodges through this downshift, which is easily predictable in the area of three to five years they...

The Minister highlights a perfect example that I’m well aware of the fact that good tenants sometimes have to drive less nice vehicles, where tenants who aren’t paying -- and the fact is we have people who aren’t paying -- can afford, because their credit rating is good, so they can run out and afford to buy a fancy truck.

Mr. Speaker, when I hear the word “if” and when I hear “looking at the option,” that tells me we’re going to do nothing. Mr. Speaker, we can get a ministerial directive today in this House by saying we’re going to do this, we’re not going to sit on our hands and sit on our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was listening to MLA Beaulieu’s questions to the Minister of Housing, and the Minister of Housing had said that the Housing Corporation is $23 million in arrears. It is my understanding that the NWT Housing Corporation doesn’t push their arrears to a collections agency. If they do, it seems to be selective. One more step that I am also aware that they don’t do consistently, if at all, is it puts these arrears on people’s credit rating. That is known as a significant problem out there. Would the Minister of Housing tell me exactly how they pursue legally, in a lawful...

I’d like to know what the Minister of Health and Social Services has negotiated on the public’s behalf and I think the public deserves to know what the Minister has negotiated on their behalf. Furthermore, I think the public likes to see the proof of that, what they’ve done and created as a plan that will ensure that the health care for northern residents across the Territory will be protected and treated as a priority.