Bob McLeod

We always work very closely with committee on these kinds of things, so we will put together some ideas and principles to work with committee as to how we could best develop this and utilize minimal resources to develop a very important local fishery or production of local foods. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess a large part of that is in determining what approach our government should take to increase representation of persons with disabilities in the government workforce. We looked at other provinces and territories and we thought that we could learn from what they were doing. So we had a session with the Yukon division -- that was seen to have been the most successful -- and they briefed us on what they saw as being critical to being successful in this area, and a very large part of it is sensitivity training for our management and also to interact directly with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an area that we’ve worked very hard on over the years and there has been quite a number of initiatives that we’ve attempted. We had a red meat initiative, for example, We’ve had test fishing at the community level, and going back to residential school days, I don’t know if the Member wants to go back to where everybody ate fish three times a day, but we can work at the community level, because we all recognize how that was done, is it was purchased by local harvesters, and I think that we are prepared to do that. We put money in the proposed budget to allow us...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s one that’s approved by Cabinet. So it’s a Cabinet document and I’ll check to see whether that’s available or not. I expect that if it is, then we can share it with the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We go to Ottawa quite regularly. We attempt to meet with federal Ministers on a regular basis, and at every opportunity we talk to the federal government about the fact that, in my view, the federal government has abdicated the North.

Twenty years ago every federal department was represented here in Yellowknife or in the Northwest Territories, and they’ve all pulled back south. This is an area that we need to reverse. I think that we now have CanNor, the economic development agency. I think that working more closely with the federal government on devolution and resource revenue sharing, I think...

I think the initial plans envisage that we would just have a quad trail to the site. In my view, I think it would be beneficial to have a road, recognizing that that would add to the cost of the project, and it could make a difference whether the project is viable or feasible. So I think once we get the information to allow us to determine whether it’s feasible to build an all-weather road, then we could make that decision. We expect the government will have all that information by this October. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are expecting the results of all of the detailed work by April 2010. The expectation is that by October we would have our cost estimates and work plan developed. Assuming that the project is technically, environmentally and financially viable, then we would proceed through the regulatory process. Mini-hydro has a very small footprint so it won’t be flooding any large areas. The powerhouse is very small and the transmission line is very short; it’s only 17 kilometres. So our expectation is it wouldn’t take us very long to get regulatory approval. Assuming that, probably the earliest we could...

There are a number of ways we can analyze how successful we’ve been at Northern House. One is to impute the value of all of the media coverage that we’ve been getting. We’ve been on major international networks, we are getting a lot of coverage from the tourism media and different newspapers and publications, so that’s one way of imputing value. If we had to pay for all that coverage, it would probably be in the millions of dollars, perhaps in the tens of millions of dollars.

Other ways will depend on how many people come to the Northwest Territories, and we capture that information through our...

When I say we’re looking and studying Fred Henne Park, we’re looking at the available land that we have. We’re also looking at how many campsites we can build in there. Once we get all of that information we’ll have to put together a business case so we can come to the Legislative Assembly as part of our business planning process to obtain additional resources so that we can expand our capacity for RV camping. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, many Northwest Territories residents are watching with great interest as our Canadian athletes, including Hay River’s own Brendan Green, strive to “Own the Podium” at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

It is important to note that the Olympics are more than just a sporting event. These Olympics are not just Vancouver’s games, but Canada’s games and, more importantly, have been the first Olympics to fully partner with aboriginal people. The 2010 Olympics are also a celebration of arts and culture, which we witnessed when our performing artists put on a tremendous show during the Victory Day...