David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have witnesses.

I thought the deputy and myself have made it quite clear that there have been incidents. It shouldn’t matter to what degree those incidents happened. Some of them have been serious in nature, and when you are dealing with a rental office and people are facing the prospect of perhaps losing the place they live, they are under a tremendous amount of pressure, and we can’t be too safe when it comes to protecting the employees we have, because when people are faced with that type of pressure, sometimes people don’t deal with that pressure very well and they lash out at these front-line workers...

Mr. Chairman, the other vehicle will be sent to Hay River to replace a sheriff’s vehicle in Hay River. So, yes, it will need to be of a similar class with the seating capacity, equipment, storage capacity, towing capacity, and that vehicle, when the new one comes on line, the existing vehicle will be put and utilized in the community of Hay River. Again, the ability to transport the court party is paramount in this. We’ll have one in Hay River and one here in Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following three documents, entitled “Government of the Northwest Territories China Strategy and Action Plan,” “26th Annual Report 2014-2015 Victims Assistance Committee of the Northwest Territories,” and “Annual Report on the Activities of the Rental Office: April 1, 2014 to March 21, 2015.” Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve worked with communities with business development officers, economic development officers, to identify opportunities for folks to get into business. We have our SEED program, a loan program, as well as we have the BDIC for folks who are interested in getting some of these opportunities that a new biomass facility is going to bring to the Northwest Territories.

In the Member’s riding and in the South Slave, these jobs are desperately needed. We understand that. That’s why government fully supports the development of that wood pellet facility in the South Slave. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like other government departments, we’ve committed to support the development of the wood pellet industry here in the Northwest Territories, and we do have programs related to business start-up. Our South Slave office has been busy in talking to folks who want to get into trucking the harvest of timber and other pursuits related to biomass. Thank you.

Forest fires aren’t always bad. As we know, they produce morel mushrooms and we’ve seen some economic benefit from that. As well, Mr. Speaker, with the trees that have burnt, there are opportunities to harvest those for biomass as well. We’ve had some discussions with folks who are interested in doing just that. I would encourage folks, if they are in the Member’s communities, if they want to approach the Department of ITI, we would be interested in talking to them about harvesting that resource. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’re very excited about the prospect of the pellet facility in the South Slave. We will take direction on the development of that facility in the ensuing business opportunities for business start-up in the South Slave related to that new biomass facility. So, we’re waiting for ground to break on that and the opportunities that it will bring. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is immense oil and gas potential in our territory and this government is committed to establishing the tools and resources with which it can be developed in a balanced and responsible way. We are also committed to ensuring that Members of the Legislative Assembly, the public, Aboriginal leaders and other stakeholders have a role to play in the development of those tools and resources.

Like our mineral resources have in the past, we believe that oil and gas resources can provide needed economic opportunities for our communities, residents and businesses...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a very strong and capable team at Northwest Territories Tourism. We have dedicated staff at the regional level through ITI who provide support to tourism operators and the licensing aspect. We have seen numbers continue to increase, and the Member is correct; when we came into office almost four years ago, we increased the marketing budget for tourism, and I believe that those efforts back then are now starting to pay dividends with the increased number of visitors from Asia, from the United States and domestically from here in Canada.

I know the Member spoke...