David Ramsay

Yes, I do.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s our expectation that will be in operation late this fall.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s concerns related to the Trout Lake Airport construction. There have been some issues there. We’ve been working through the issues with the community. The community has requested the department and agreed that the negotiated contract be set aside and that DOT take over the management of the project. That’s what we intend to do. Construction, again, should start sometime soon, with an eye to maximizing opportunities at the community level. That’s something that we will be keeping a close eye on as well. I think we were there before and there were...

I think once we get the projects out there, we can make that correlation on the increased amortization that you see and the number of capital projects that the department has been involved in over the last little while here. We can make that clear. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Business Incentive Policy is a policy of the Government of the Northwest Territories. If Members of this House want to revisit the Business Incentive Policy, is there a loophole here that allowed a southern company to get a contract in Inuvik? If that is the case, then if Members of this House want to have another look at the Business Incentive Policy, it is under the purview of this Assembly to do that.

I understand the Member’s concerns. I want to let him know and other Members know that we are willing to work with Members to try to shore up the policy so that situations like...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for that question. I’m glad to have an opportunity to talk about the Business Incentive Policy. That is a policy of the GNWT. We certainly have that under our mandate of ITI, but when it comes to evaluating RFPs, it is left up to each department to oversee the implementation of the Business Incentive Policy. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the NWT Fishermen’s Federation is still involved with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. They voted back in December of 2010 to remain a part of that organization. That organization is in fact going through a bit of turmoil. Just recently both Saskatchewan and northern Ontario have pulled out of FFMC and 90 percent of the total fish being run through FFMC now comes from Manitoba. There have also been some issues with the governance of the FFMC. So that’s where currently the NWT Fishermen’s Federation is marketing their fish.

As to the future here in the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We currently have a funding program to assist commercial fishermen in the Northwest Territories at $225,000 a year. Thank you.

As I outlined to the Member earlier, the development of the three initiatives is going to be carried out in this fiscal year 2012-13. It includes an NWT artist database and website. Certainly, when that is wrapped up, we can look at linking it to NWT Tourism site.

In response to the Member’s earlier questions, what we’re doing today, we have NWT community workshops where we’ve delivered programming information sessions in 27 communities around the Northwest Territories. We’ve also provided training to our regional staff. We have arts promotion, a brochure of a series that was developed to...