Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of ITI in regards to the proposed CANOL Heritage Trail Doi T’oh Park. Mr. Speaker, I tabled some pictures of an expedition that happened this past summer in terms of land rovers from B.C. going way into the proposed park heritage trail. I want to ask the Minister of ITI in terms of his ability to work with the Minister of Transportation or ENR in terms of how do we prevent these types of land rovers from coming into some very sensitive ecological areas in the Mackenzie Mountains in terms of having these land rovers not coming into the Mackenzie Mountains anymore.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand my colleague and the Minister of ENR have agreed to work very closely with people of the community to make sure that we try to reduce this activity as much as possible. When I was in Whitehorse and had the opportunity to meet with my counterpart from the Yukon government, I asked him what, if anything, were they doing to monitor the people coming into the Northwest Territories through the Yukon with ATVs and so on. He has indicated that, as far as they were concerned, it was a public highway and the public is free to enter into the Northwest Territories. I think this is something that we tried to address through the Wildlife Act and so on, but we will be prepared to work with the Sahtu governments to try to reduce this activity. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the issue of the land rovers coming in from B.C., these six land rovers that came very close to some very sensitive areas in the Sahtu along the Heritage Trail. These vehicles tear up the muskeg road. I want to ask the Minister in terms of him working with the Minister of Transportation in terms of some restrictions on this piece of road here. As you know, Mactung Mine, close to the border, has filed for some application to start up their project here. It will become very busy. The Yukon government has put thousands of dollars into upgrading the North CANOL Road. I want to ask the Minister of ITI if he would be working closely with the Minister of Transportation to restrict the use of vehicles like the land rovers in the Northwest Territories on the CANOL Trail.
As the Member knows, the whole trail is under the auspices of the federal government. It is federal land. It is under their control, but, nevertheless, we as a government will be spending funds to put up proper signage to make sure that all members of the public that enter into this area are aware of who owns the land. Also, I understand, the first 18 kilometres is Sahtu lands that have been selected by the Sahtu governments. We are also holding meetings with the Sahtu beneficiaries. We will be holding workshops to make sure everybody understands the importance of protecting the land. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, would the Minister consider adding some monitoring stations at the border here in terms of monitoring the use of vehicles on the proposed CANOL Heritage Trail?
We do work with ENR and we do have a checkstop there during the summer months. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, would the Minister consider having a working partnership with the Sahtu people so that if these land rovers ever do decide to come back to the Northwest Territories, they would be stopped there and not to go any further on this CANOL Heritage Trail?
The Member is getting into the areas of enforcement. Certainly we have to make sure that we are well within our authority to do that. As I said, the land in question is currently under the ownership of the federal government and the Sahtu aboriginal governments. This is something that we would probably have to make sure that we are well within our authority to do if we were to intercede with anybody who was enjoying their normal public use of the lands. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
