Bob McLeod

We will be developing a draft approach to how we would come up with a report, and we will share it with the Regular Members.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the Members that the Honourable Caroline Cochrane will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the federal-provincial-territorial Ministers responsible for housing meeting in Victoria, British Columbia. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The draft Agriculture Strategy has many recommendations on how to develop and support educational programs and educational resource development for agriculture. We will encourage and support the development and delivery of courses for community and regional trainers. The goal with the strategy is to improve overall capacity by having more people involved in northern agriculture, and we will develop foundational safe agriculture and food production, education resources including community and private sharing agriculture and harvesting of non-animal products. And the draft Agriculture Strategy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Agriculture is a very important sector to our government and part of the Mandate of the 18th Legislative Assembly. We have provided the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment with a draft Agriculture Strategy for review and look forward to hearing back from the committee. A key recommendation of the proposed strategy is that various organizations need to work together, including departmental collaboration to ensure that we all use our resources efficiently and effectively.

Another recommendation is the creation of a central repository or a common...

We are always looking for opportunities to maximize the funding reach of our scarce resources and certainly we've been approached by other bodies including I guess different non-government organizations I guess is the best way to call them that and we also have very good connections with universities, so we certainly want to get the best bang for our buck and we look at all of the different sources of funding.

I'd like to reassure the Member that we're not waiting until the Northwest Territories Agriculture Strategy becomes the strategy. Right now as we go forward we certainly encourage Northwest Territories residents to become involved in agriculture. Our ITI regional offices are the contacts for anyone interested in learning more about agriculture, including the development of greenhouses, and the department will be pleased to work with all communities to make progress on this front.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When the Member in his Member's Statement referred to food from Mars I thought he had talked to my grandson who-- I was talking to him yesterday or the other day and he said he had a project that he was working on and I asked him what it was. He said he and his friend were planning a trip to Mars and he lamented that he had the hard part of the job because he had to find a way to get to Mars; his friend had the easy job, he just had to figure out how to grow food on Mars, so.

---Laughter

As Stompin' Tom would say the best test is right at the table.

---Laughter

To date we haven't had any requests for very large areas of land for agriculture purposes but we do anticipate that happening in the future. And so the strategy does speak to potential land use within municipal boundaries and authorities. Part of the implementation will be guided by the land use and sustainability framework which serves as the underpinning of all decisions in respect to land, including the development of land for the agriculture sector in the Northwest Territories.

The issue of access to land for agriculture will be reviewed through collaborative processes with municipalities...

Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories has a centuries-long history in trapping and the fur trade. We have a high regard for the cultural values entrenched in this tradition, which set Northerners apart from other Canadians, and for the activities of the traditional economy, which have helped shape our North and remain in many of our communities today. As a proud founder and partner of the Fur Institute of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories continues its tradition of leadership in this industry.

This week, the Fur Institute of Canada will hold its Annual General Meeting in...