Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first question to the Minister of ITI is related to my Member’s statement earlier today. Mr. Abbott reports that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has told him he cannot get a licence to export fish out of the NWT until he can prove that the NWT market is saturated and there is excess for export. Obviously, this is an overly onerous request for a single provider that would require considerable time and expense. It’s difficult to understand how the market saturation could be realistically demonstrated. Here’s an instance where the Industry, Tourism and Investment department could go to bat for Mr. Abbott and all fishers to eliminate an unrealistic, almost silly barrier to prosperity. Will the Minister commit to having this investigated and including the results in their promised report to committee on the FFMC and fisheries file? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are investigating that and we are supporting the fishermen who have voted to withdraw from the FFMC. So we are doing all of the legal work. We will be undertaking consultation so that we can begin to move forthwith to proceed with withdrawing from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate that commitment to assist Mr. Abbott in demonstrating that the local market has been saturated so he can export fish.
My second question is about the implications of opting out of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. What are the liabilities and what’s the process in getting this done? What are the implications we should know about? Thank you.
Essentially, the process is we have to consult with other aboriginal governments and also make opportunity for interested public to have input into the process. We would have to advise the federal government or the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation of our intention to withdraw. We would have to enter into a negotiations process, because there are liabilities, financial and otherwise, that we have to deal with. We have to come back to this Legislative Assembly to withdraw or eliminate the applicable legislation. My understanding is the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation has deficiencies somewhere in the neighbourhood of $11 million. They have working capital deficiencies and so on, so we would have to negotiate our withdrawal from that process. Thank you.
I appreciate that. The Minister is obviously on top of this and working on it. Sort of related is: would the Minister consider starting our own fish marketing corporation or some formalized program to assist in the export of fish as well as the local sale of fish from Great Slave Lake and other sources? Thank you.
I guess our immediate intention, assuming our budgets are approved, is we were going to work on developing a domestic fishery so that we could have Northwest Territories fish processed and sold in the Northwest Territories. Until such time as we are officially withdrawn from FFMC, we are faced with restrictions, as Mr. Abbott is presently facing for export. As far as setting up something similar as FFMC or so on of FFMC provided for the by GNWT, I think that’s a discussion we would have to have with the fishermen. They just voted to remove themselves from FFMC, so one would wonder if they would want to enter into a similar arrangement so soon. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, I suspect they would be interested into entering quite a different relationship than the one that they are opting out of.
My final question is: what support is available to the unique and commendable and environmentally responsible business development that’s exemplified by Mr. Abbott so that small fisheries operations can get the support they need to realize their full potential? Thank you.
Presently we have all of our tool kit of business programs that are available to a business like Mr. Abbott’s. For the other fishermen that have voted to have the Northwest Territories withdraw from FFMC, this government is committed to working with all of the fishermen to develop the fisheries and to develop and find further potential opportunities for fishermen of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
