Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you are well aware, Hay River has a long history as being the NWT fishing industry capital. It’s exciting to hear that this government is investing $1.3 million through its Economic Opportunities Strategy to this industry.
Last week, along with members of the NWT Fisherman’s Federation, I was glad to hear a plan go forward on how we’re going to revitalize this industry and how we are going to implement a new fishing plant in the community of Hay River. This is a great renewable resource that we have in the Northwest Territories. We need to take full advantage of it. We need to make sure that all this fish is sold in the Northwest Territories. We need to get fish back onto the kitchen tables of the people in the Northwest Territories. We need to make sure it’s in every restaurant. We need to make sure that it’s in all our institutions, correctional institutions, hospitals, diamond mines, seniors facilities. We need to make sure that this resource is being taken full opportunity of.
Our quota that we have is a renewable quota. We are basically protecting ourselves. I understand that this is a multi-staged process. We need to find more federal funding to do this. We need to increase the prices for those fishermen. Some of the prices they’re currently getting are the same prices they got back in the ‘40s and ‘50s. We need a plan to go forward to get this industry revitalized.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
