David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Mrs. Melody McLeod, the Premier’s wife, in the gallery. It’s a proud day for the McLeod family and I’m glad to see her here today. I know she was swelling with pride there earlier today. So, great to see her here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a comment on that. I asked questions for eight years, so I do appreciate the Members asking questions. I guess I always try to look at the positive when looking at decisions that we have to make. A lot of Members have compared the highway project to the Deh Cho Bridge. Being a Member of this House for as long as I have been a Member, the debate on whether or not the government got into the Deh Cho Bridge never got to the floor of the House.

We are having this discussion today. We have all the information squarely on the table. We are able to debate the merits of a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The fact is that we have the additional $50 million which puts their contribution to $200 million. It isn’t quite 75 percent as we had expected. It’s 67 percent. At the end of the day, the Members of this House will decide whether or not the project is to proceed. That is where that is at.

Madam Chair, that would be in how we procure the services to build the highway. There are companies located in the Beaufort-Delta that could carry out the work. Our government’s perspective on this has and will continue to be that opportunities have to be maximized, not only in the territory but in the region itself. In procuring the project, we will make every effort to ensure that as much of that $299 million stays here in the Northwest Territories, and specifically in the Beaufort-Delta. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Return to Written Question 9-17(4), I wish to table the following document, entitled Deh Cho Bridge Deficiencies. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It would be anticipated that that would come out of this funding. Discussions are underway with the proponents in Hay River and the department. I could provide the Member, and I know other Members have had questions about where this is at. We can provide an update to Members at the earliest opportunity. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, sustainable agricultural initiatives play a key role in lowering the cost of living across the territory and diversifying our economy.

Last September in Whitehorse, as part of a meeting of Ministers responsible for agriculture and agri-foods in Canada, I endorsed the multilateral Growing Forward 2 Agreement for agriculture. This agreement sets the stage for bilateral negotiations between the GNWT and the federal government on a new five-year joint funding agreement for agriculture in the NWT.

I am happy to advise Members of this Assembly that these negotiations, on both a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are still in active negotiations with the IRC on the rate of granular royalties for the project, and I wouldn’t want us to get into negotiating a deal on the floor of the House today. I think we have to let the process work itself out. We will arrive at a figure and when we do, we will share it with Members.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have been before committee. We were before committee providing information back in December. February 20th we were back in front of committee. Any assertion that we haven’t been sharing information is a false one. The information has been shared with Members of this House. Members of this House are representatives of the people of the Northwest Territories. We have shared the information. We’ve committed today to get a plain language document that we can share publicly. We’re going to do that.

We’ve shared that with Members today, in the lead up to today, when we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. It will have an immediate impact on the unemployment levels in the whole region, not just in Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik, but the surrounding communities. I imagine there will be a workforce drawn from those communities as well. I imagine we’ll have an immediate impact on the unemployment levels in the communities in the Beaufort-Delta.