Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the possibility of designating the Mackenzie River as a heritage river. I would like to ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources if he would consider this type of initiative and consider looking at this process to nominate the Mackenzie River under the Canadian Heritage River System.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was work done on this particular initiative back in 2003. I’ll commit to pull that file and see where it ended up, what kind of response there was. Some communities had indicated an interest to have the Mackenzie designated as a Canadian Heritage River. We already have three rivers in the Northwest Territories with such designation. I will follow up with that and then we can have further discussions.
I certainly appreciate the commitment from the Minister. Can the Minister further commit to having some further options, concrete plans in terms of coming to the Assembly in terms of the possibility of advancing a nomination should there be support for nomination of the Mackenzie River as a designated heritage river?
We’ll, as I indicated, pull the information together. I will also talk to the Premier about this may be a topic -- since the Mackenzie goes from one end of the Territory to the other -- where there may be some benefit to having some discussion, current discussion, to see what the interest is in moving on this particular initiative.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
