Bob McLeod

We’ve already identified the municipality of Hay River, for example, the process by which they could access land for agricultural purposes and that they could tax it at a lower rate for the benefit of the farmers and that process is there.

With regard to the other land claims, the Dehcho Land Claim negotiation, the Metis Land Claim negotiation, the Akaitcho negotiations, all of those are under interim protection. So the aboriginal governments could be approached, they haven’t indicated that they would be open to those kind of negotiations. The other areas where they have settled land claims, I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to think of the biggest word I could use to describe what a good idea it is to promote agriculture. So my colleague suggested I use supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. But the Department of ITI has been trying to promote and develop the agriculture sector for some time and we’ve done some work over the years and we do sector strategies in all areas and certainly agriculture is one of them. Thank you.

Certainly we would like to approach it on a businesslike basis, so we have a number of loan programs, a number of contribution programs that we can work with interested individuals. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thought the Member was asking me about the Growing Forward Agreement, but I guess he’s looking at other programs that are offered by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Certainly we have other programs through our SEED program, and I think that’s where he’s come up with this $10,000 cap. One of the programs under SEED, there’s a cap of $10,000.

We have other contribution programs, applications programs. We even have loan programs. So we have flexibility in working with the different people that are interested in agriculture.

This is an issue that has been raised by other sectors such as the fishermen, the trappers, and this is something that I’ll raise with my colleague, the Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have our normal tool kit of business programs that are available to anybody who wants to pursue farming. We’ve gone and met with Arctic Farmer, for example, I’ve been to Hay River on numerous occasions, I’ve attended meetings of the Territorial Farmers’ Association, so we are definitely aware of the potential for agriculture and we are looking to find ways to provide additional support to those people who are interested in getting into the agricultural activities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Presently we have a Small Market Garden Initiative whereby we make equipment available in communities that are interested in participating so that they could grow potatoes, vegetables and what have you, and 18 of the 33 communities have taken advantage of that program and are growing vegetables and so on. We have the Growing Forward Agreement that was recently renewed with the federal government that provides assistance on a number of areas to promote agriculture, and those are the two primary areas that we’re involved in. Also, we’re trying to find ways to promote more local production in a...

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to provide an update on the mining industry in the Northwest Territories.

Economic activity relies strongly on the use of natural resources. We live in a global era with a rapidly expanding world population dependent on the sustainable development of resources. Fortunately, in the Northwest Territories, we are blessed with an endowment of non-renewable resources and have been successful in using these to sustain economic growth.

Mineral exploration has brought significant economic opportunities to our Territory.

In 2007, almost $200 million was spent on mineral...

There are quite a number of possibilities not only for the Sahtu region, but with regard to the Sahtu. I guess the immediate one that comes to mind is the conversion to natural gas that would reduce the cost of living. Secondly, you’d be looking at hydro, also mini-hydro, hydrokinetics that could work under the ice and certainly cogeneration and, of course, biomass, which would be a significant form of energy as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don’t have the exact numbers, but I think the first study was $50,000, and I expect the second one to update the original study was probably in the neighbourhood of $25,000.