Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions follow up on my Member’s statement today and it is about the commercial fishing industry on Great Slave Lake.
Mr. Speaker, I have stood to speak of this many times in this House, but it’s time for some innovative and creative action on the revitalization of this fishery. I would like to ask the Minister responsible if the department could take action to bring some new blood into this fishery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The fishery on Great Slave Lake is primarily an export fishery where the prices and the majority of costs are determined according to global markets and circumstance. Certainly with the advance of the Canadian dollar and the global economic downturn in 2009, we’ve seen a decline in fish sales to the U.S., which is predominantly, I believe, 60 percent of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation’s audience or market, is in the United States. It makes up 60 percent. The FFMC has seen a 30 percent reduction in sales since 2009, so those are issues that are outside of our control, but I understand what the Member is saying about other opportunities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are so many opportunities to market our fish outside the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and as the Minister knows, just about every other jurisdiction in Canada has now left the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. They mishandled their opportunity to market fish on behalf of the freshwater fishers in this country and in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. In my opinion they did not do a good job. We could market all the fish from Great Slave Lake to one desk, to one buyer to be distributed, but our government has never taken on the initiative to do that. We need to help the fishermen. The fishermen are doing the best they can but when asked if they want to leave Freshwater, when they’re not being presented with another alternative that would give them any kind of comfort or confidence that their fish would have a market to go to. Why can this government not find a market on our own outside of Freshwater so that our fishermen have a market for the product that they could develop here?
The reality is the fishermen remain in Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and involved in that organization. As a government, the Government of the Northwest Territories has been supporting the commercial fishing industry in the Northwest Territories for well over 30 years. We provide money on an annual basis to operate and maintain an office in Hay River. We have a $225,000 support on an annual basis to help fishermen in the territory. In response to the decline in marketing initiatives and sales, we’ve also come up with $550,000 to help support local fish and meat processing in the Northwest Territories so that more fish can get into local markets around the NWT.
I have the greatest respect for the commercial fishers that are out there on this lake trying to carve out a living commercial fishing, but the fact is there’s only a handful of them and there’s two million pounds of fish could be taken from that lake on a sustainable basis. I know about the Take a Kid Trapping but what about take a kid fishing? What is this government doing to create interest in that commercial fishery as an industry and to get more people involved in that industry as fishers, if not from the North then from other places?
Certainly there would be other markets out there, but today those fish are being marketed by FFMC. The Member is correct; 90 percent of the fish being marketed by that organization today come from Manitoba. Northern Ontario and Saskatchewan just recently pulled out in April. There are going to need to be some decisions made here as we go forward to help support and market fish that are caught commercially here in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We had a comprehensive plan to revitalize the commercial fishing industry. It is an industry that is here on our doorstep. It is renewable. It is sustainable. We need to get more people involved. We need to find a better market. Will the Minister commit to undertaking an initiative to see that happen within his department?
The goal of this government is to diversify the economy here in the Northwest Territories. Certainly we’re going to take every opportunity to do that. I’d be more than happy to work with Regular Members to look at commercial fishing here in the NWT to see what we can do. If we can do things differently and make a difference and grow that industry here in the Northwest Territories, that’s something I’m interested in. I know there’s a number of Members across the floor that are interested in doing that. We can put our best effort into that.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
