Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement, I have some questions for the Minister of ITI. Can the Minister provide the production numbers for this year’s summer production on the Great Slave Lake commercial fishery?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past 20 years, the amount of fish taken from Great Slave Lake would amount to about 2.2 million pounds. In the last number of years… I think the Member asked for last year, the total exported from the NWT in thousands of pounds was 1,038, so that would be 103,000 pounds.
As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I believe that this is an important asset for the Northwest Territories, and a commodity. I’m just wondering what the department has done to invest in the NWT commercial fishery to assist those people in the industry.
On an annual basis, we have a program that supports fishers here in the NWT. It amounts to about $225,000 a year, broken down into a number of program initiatives. But this summer I appeared before a parliamentary committee on fisheries, and basically spelled out to them the importance of the fishery on Great Slave Lake here in the Northwest Territories. I gave them some historical perspective on the fishery, where we wanted to see it go and how important it was for us to reinvigorate the fishery on Great Slave Lake.
Through the work of the Economic Opportunities Strategy that we’ve just tabled in the House this week, it squarely pointed to the fact that we need to do more with the commercial fishery here in the Northwest Territories. I have committed to putting a lot of effort into reinvigorating the fishery on Great Slave Lake. We need to find some funding. There are a couple of key areas: We need a new processing facility in Hay River. We also need to put some money into an aging fleet that’s out on the lake. Thirdly, we need to find some more people that are interested in getting into the business of fishing on Great Slave Lake.
It’s a great resource. It’s underutilized. We also need to find a way to get that product here in a domestic capacity, into stores and onto people’s kitchen tables here in the Northwest Territories.
The Minister indicated he has been working and talking to people in Ottawa. I’m just wondering what he’s been doing as far as with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and their monopoly that they have on the operations, and have there been any discussions about opening up the borders and opening up marketing opportunities for the fishers that are producing.
We have had discussions with FFMC as recently as earlier this year, and we see the relationship with that organization as being the key to getting a new fish processing facility into Hay River. We believe that working with them, there has been a changing of heart with the fishermen in Hay River. They’ve wanted in, they’ve wanted out, they’re back in. We do believe that there is some utility in us maintaining that relationship with that organization.
But, again, I think that’s good on the export side, but we’ve got a domestic market here in the Northwest Territories that, again, I think we really need to find a way to get fish from Great Slave Lake into stores around the Northwest Territories. With a new processing facility to be built in Hay River – and we’re going to try to find the funding to allow us to do that – I think we can certainly have the best of both worlds and be exporting fish from the Northwest Territories and supplying the domestic market here at home.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister indicated the production numbers, and those numbers are quite a bit lower than we actually have the capacity to have as a sustainable quota. We have two million pounds, I think, per year where we can actually sustain that product, that volume every year for years to come. The indications are that we’re well below that quota, and what is the department doing to get more fishers into the industry, get the productivity of the current fishers up and increased, we know that that group of people is not getting any younger. How is the department encouraging investment in that industry?
It’s been a difficult task because of fuel prices and the price of fuel for fisherman to get out on the lake. Also, with the increase of the Canadian dollar against the American dollar, it’s had a big impact on what prices are paid for that fish. But, again, I’ll point out the fact that we do have a support to fishermen program here in the Northwest Territories. It’s $225,000. There’s a Fish Harvesters Support Program, a Commercial Fish Harvesters Support Program, Fish Harvesters Expansion Program, a Fish Harvesters New Entrance Support Program, and also some core funding that we’ve also provided to fishermen. We are very much interested in supporting the commercial fishery on Great Slave Lake. We will continue to do, and as we move forward with the Economic Opportunities Strategy, our intent is to really put some effort and try to find some money to reinvigorate the fishery on Great Slave Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
