Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take Members on a little virtual tour upon entering the Northwest Territories at the Alberta border. You get to the border at the 60th Parallel. We still have our nice polar bear sign, although I understand the new sign has no polar bear on it at all, just a compass. The old polar bear sign is still there. Then you come across our new tourist information booth, which we spent a lot of money on. And thank you for that, ITI and tourism, for that beautiful new facility there.
However, we have to have people manning that tourist information booth who are mature, knowledgeable, and very welcoming at the border, otherwise all the expense of buildings and infrastructure in the world is not going to make people feel welcome when they cross over the NWT border. Some teenager on a laptop computer on the Internet who looks like they’re annoyed to look up from what they’re doing when a tourist comes there is not acceptable, and that’s what we had for most of this summer. I had so many complaints from tourists who arrived in Hay River.
We want people who say, “Hello. How are you? Where are you coming from? Why are you coming here? What do you want to see? What do you want to do? And here’s all the information.” That’s the kind of thing we need. We have had them in the past. They are available. They are out there. That was not the case this summer. We have a beautiful new facility that needs some work. I understand the Minister was down there and had a look at that and it has a ways to go.
So forward on, now we come to the waterfall signs. And actually one roadside stop too. Mr. McLeod knows about this one roadside stop in this whole area. The waterfall signs, you’re on the waterfall route, which is very interesting. We have the attraction of the falls when you’re coming into the Northwest Territories. Beautiful, really worldclass kind of places to get to, and all summer long there are campgrounds associated with them. You can go in there, get firewood, rent a campground space, and it’s wonderful.
However, another problem. I don’t know... Most of you probably know Red McBryan. I think he’s 92 years old. I ran into him at a seniors’ gathering the other night. He is very upset. He drives back and forth to his farm at the border all the time and as of Labour Day weekend the gates are all closed. Now, I know the GNWT owns the campground and they own the infrastructure and they don’t want it vandalized, but may I suggest that the tourist season does not end on Labour Day weekend. It was a beautiful fall this year, beautiful weather, and many people continue down that road and when you first come upon them, you see a majorly large closed sign plastered on there.
