Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement earlier today, I brought up several issues that relate to our fledging agriculture sector. My first question is about lands. I’m aware that access to agricultural land is an issue for the Department of Lands but the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment has the agricultural file. I wanted to both pass on the message that the farmers who are actually putting in the sweat equity to get this industry off the ground are frustrated with a lack of support they’re receiving when it comes to accessing land. I want to ask the Minister: what is he doing to help them access affordable agricultural land in a timely matter? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I want to remind this House this is the first ever agricultural strategy of the Northwest Territories. We tabled that in March. We were working towards this budding industry to bring local production of food to residents of the Northwest Territories. Yes, the issue of lands is one that we’re working on. It’s an interdepartmental working group working on this. It’s myself, ITI, Health and Social Services, ENR, the Department of Lands. We’re assessing this stuff. We’re looking at other jurisdictions and what’s going on. We’re continually talking with the federal governments so we’re not having the roles and responsibilities mixed up. We will continue to work on that, but yes, the issue of lands is a liability. This is one of the biggest things we have to implement in the strategy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
About half of the agricultural funding in the Growing Forward 2 program is spent internally on ITI by things such as promoting agricultural awareness, community gardens, and other non-commercial ventures so why does the Minister of Industry prioritize the socialist programs instead of flowing the money directly to the commercial producers?
Why?
When we tabled this strategy, we went out to consultations to develop the strategy across the Northwest Territories of people that are interested in agriculture. That fed into how we developed this strategy going forward. That was their strategy along with ours that we put forward in this House. We are finishing up our Growing Forward 2. They’re the last year of our five-year growing forward plan. We’re going to be moving forward with a new plan with a federal Minister, but right now we’re out doing a survey to see feedback on what we can do in the strategy. How can we make things work better and listen to what residents in the Northwest Territories have to say about implementing this strategy. To clearly answer the Member’s question, the strategy was developed in consultation with all of the farmers in the Northwest Territories.
Speaking of the strategy, many of the recommendations in the agricultural strategy relate to training, specifically during the community consultations it came to light that communities outside of the regional centres support train the trainer approach and a focus on experiential learning so that they can gain and develop agricultural skills within the community.
NFTI has been successful in providing both of these. He had residents or regularly denied funding to attend NFTI in favour of brief community-based workshops which offer no real experiential learning and which are no match for spending weeks on a working farm. Why over the past two years has ITI been systematically denying residents the funding they require to train with the Northern Farm Training Institute?
I have never heard that concern. If that Member has that type of information, I’d gladly sit down with him and discuss it.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I’ll take that up with the Minister later. I’ll fill him in. How about this? Why does ITI believe they’re better positioned than the Northern Farm Training Institute because ITI has been the one who has taken over the role of deciding what residents need to know if they think they know better than a farm training institute. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I don’t believe that’s the case. The strategy that we put forward, as I said, is in consultation with the people that want to do farming in the Northwest Territories. We’re back out doing a survey with them right now to see what we can do to implement to make this thing better going forward. We will continue to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
