Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not intimately familiar with people in ITI and what they do, but I believe there is one long-term public servant in Yellowknife with ITI that has been focused on agriculture. Certainly, we also have another long-term staff position in Hay River, which we do appreciate.

When you’re talking about decentralization around the table with respect to agriculture, has there been any consideration to supporting agriculture in Hay River by looking at decentralizing that one full-time position that we know about in Yellowknife?

I do thank the Minister for his interest in this topic. Everything can’t be about the non-renewable resource sector. We have to put some of our attention to renewable resources and small-scale operations.

I’d like to ask the Minister, within his department, what kind of human resources and resources are dedicated to this issue of agriculture.

Thanks, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins, your time is up. I’ll put you back on the list, if you wish. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re getting to the midway point of our term in the 17th Legislative Assembly, and as I have been known to do on occasion in the past, sometimes we like to talk about ministerial performance. I don’t have any speaking notes here, so I’m just going to wing this.

When we come here elected as 19 Members, we come here all as equals, all equally elected. Then we go into our territorial leadership and choose seven from amongst us to sit and hold positions of responsibility and leadership in certain areas of government performance. In my opinion, the “us” and “them” begins...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for those answers. I want to tell him that I’d be very happy to work with him on that. I think that we are hopeful we will have doctors. I’m hopeful we’ll have midwives. I’m hopeful we’ll have a lot of services that won’t require people to travel. But in the meantime, even a rented residence dedicated to offsetting the costs of expectant mothers waiting here in Yellowknife to have babies would be great, so I would just like to offer to help him work on that cost- benefit analysis.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Ms. Mathison. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Next I have Mr. Bromley.