Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to direct my questions today to the Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment. The question of an agricultural policy for the Northwest Territories is one of those things on my list that I can now say I have been talking about for the last 19 years. It’s sad to say we haven’t seen much progress on it. We’ve had some very good news recently from the federal government in their support for agriculture in the Northwest Territories; we’ve been moving along with our Growing Forward programs and our different funding programs, but the time has come, we need an agriculture policy.
Would the Minister of ITI please update me on where we are at on a comprehensive NWT agriculture policy? Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Out of the EOS, the idea of an agricultural strategy was born, and we are moving forward with the agricultural strategy. I agree with the Member; the Northwest Territories is one of only two jurisdictions in the country without a comprehensive agricultural strategy in place. We are going to change that. Work has started.
To advance and nurture growth in this sector as well as economic opportunity and benefits for the Northwest Territories agricultural industry, a definitive strategy and accompanying policy instruments are certainly needed to help guide decision-making, growth and capacity building and to attract and leverage future investment and funding in this sector.
We are moving forward with a strategy and certainly look forward to sharing the work along the way with Members of this House. Thank you.
That’s reassuring but, of course, it can’t come quickly enough, in my opinion.
As I said in my Member’s statement today, the lack of an agricultural policy is actually a barrier to a lot of… It is an impediment and a barrier to a lot of activity that could take place in the agricultural area, whether it’s about taxation or purple gas or licensing of farm equipment. There are so many different things that our government does not have any framework or policy or legislation on.
The big one is land. In order to undertake and become involved in agriculture, we need land.
I would like to ask the Minister, how closely does his department work with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to ensure that the availability of land will come alongside an agricultural policy in tandem? How closely do they work together? Thank you.
A policy, a strategy on agriculture, I mean, it’s not going to be worth the paper it’s written on if we don’t have access to land, so I agree with the Member.
We are going to continue to work with Lands and MACA to ensure that where available, we will make land available for agriculture here in the Northwest Territories. The Members don’t have to look any further than in this room to see support for agriculture. Here in the Northwest Territories we’ve had a great deal of success in a lot of our communities across the territory. When it comes to growing this sector, we feel there is a really bright future for agriculture here in the NWT. We need a strategy, we need those instruments in place to make it successful, and we are going to do just that. Thank you.
I hate to ask this question, but is this going to happen in my lifetime? And please don’t say depending on how long you live.
In terms of the time frame, are we going to see some action on this within the life of this Assembly, and who are we going to consult with? Who do we need to bring together to get this policy formulated and adopted in this House? Thank you.
We have had discussions with the Territorial Farmers’ Association; they have been involved. The advancement of the institute in Hay River, folks there have been involved.
This will happen in the life of this government, we will have this strategy in place. We have just over a year left in the life of this government. I want to assure Members that we feel very strongly about putting this in place and, again, having those tools in place at our disposal to grow the industry here in the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to work with MACA and with Lands to look at the land issue as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned in my Member’s statement that Choice North Farms has a pilot project ready to go. ITI has been involved in supporting that.
To the specifics of assisting this organization now in moving forward, what can the Minister tell me that he can do to help identify a location and land for this, if not under agricultural then under industrial, something outside of the town limits. What can the Minister do to help us find that land and get this pilot project off the ground? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, what I will do is I will have a discussion with the Minister of MACA and we will try to find a solution to do this. It’s important that agricultural pursuits don’t have the hurdles to go over. In this case, it looks like there is a hurdle there and that’s the issue of land and the availability of land.
I want to assure the Member that at the earliest possible opportunity we will have a discussion with MACA and we will try to sort this out. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
