David Ramsay

My ears are a little bit plugged. I’m not feeling the best, but I thank the Member for repeating the question.

We will continue to work with the region through the Fort Simpson office and also in Hay River on opportunities to promote the Deh Cho Connection. I know MLA Mr. Menicoche has talked about this in efforts to support Highway No. 7 and the tourism route that is the Deh Cho Connection. It is a wonderful opportunity for people to not go back the same way and do a loop through the Northwest Territories. It’s important that it is marketed and it is promoted, and through NWT Tourism that...

We have our Aboriginal Tourism Marketing Strategy that would certainly look to support efforts in the Member’s riding. We also have Tourism 2020, a new plan that we’ve come up with that is going to earmark money for tourism around the Northwest Territories. We’ve recently received money from CanNor. We also will be looking for additional federal funding as we move forward. Through the EOS, we’re also able to provide more money for tourism, and I think our overall spend on tourism now is near $10 million per year.

Community justice committees have been successful in the communities. Tomorrow, in fact, we have proponents who have expressed interested in the on-the-land program. They will be meeting here in Yellowknife tomorrow. So we’re hopeful that out of this meeting tomorrow we will arrive at a proponent that we can work with that we can see the program get up and running somewhere here in the Northwest Territories. So we are doing that, and we also are looking at mental health first aid for our staff in our facilities. We also have three psychologists on staff in our five facilities across the...

Thank you. Again, that’s a bit of a level of detail that I don’t have here, but if they are ending up in our facilities, it’s incumbent upon us to have the programs and the services required to treat them when they’re in our facilities and after the OAG’s report, we do have some work to do in that area and I have given my commitment to the House and the Members that that work will continue and that we will have programs and services that are going to address the needs of the inmates that we have in our facilities. Thank you.

Undoubtedly, we do need baseline data, and that is data that will be sought. We are going to continue to move forward with the regulations here in the Northwest Territories. I have made a commitment to the Members that we are moving that forward. That is where that stands.

As far as research goes, we do know what’s happened here in the past. Of course, we’ve got our Devolution Agreement last April. We are now responsible for those regulations and managing the resource development in the territory. We, again, want to have the most robust, sound regulations when it comes to hydraulic fracturing...

Yes, we continue to be involved with the Sahtu partnership. I’ve supplied some information to the Member recently about the investment that the government has made in his riding. It is substantial. It covers a number of different departments. While the downturn in oil price has happened, I think now is the time to continue to move forward with the development of our strategy. It’s time to get training put in place for people in the Sahtu and around the Northwest Territories so that when the price does come back and the companies come back and the drilling continues, we will have jobs for...

Again, I will go back to the department. As far as an investigation goes, I believe there was a report just done by the Auditor General. It has 14 recommendations. We agree with all 14 recommendations. We are taking steps to make improvements in our corrections service, and we will continue on that path with our accountability framework.

I continue to work with the senior management at the department, the deputy minister. I take the concerns highlighted by the Auditor General’s report very seriously, and as Members know, I’ve been here for going into my 12th year. I’ve had questions in the past regarding the corrections service here in the Northwest Territories. It is my objective here to make things better, to action these recommendations, and I certainly am intent on doing just that.

As far as the Member’s questions and concerns, I will have that discussion with the deputy minister and we’ll take things from there. Thank you.

Thank you. Years ago I did work at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre and I do know that they have some artifacts, RCMP artifacts. They had a nice RCMP display in the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre at the time. There also is an RCMP museum in Regina. So, I think it’s just going to be a case of us trying to put everything together, and if it’s talking to the folks at ECE and approaching the RCMP museum in Regina maybe to repatriate some of those artifacts back to the Northwest Territories, those conversations and actions will take place. Thank you.

The preservation of oral history, the gathering of artifacts, stories, photographs and mementos will flow from the work that is going to be done. Communities and elders will be engaged and they’ll be able to provide valuable insight into how we’re going to do this. As far as timeline goes, in early April the first team will be heading to Fort McPherson to start the interviewing process and record memories for generations to come to hear about those early days as part of a unique interactive display that we’re going to be putting together.

This committee is targeting Canada’s 150th Anniversary...