Jane Groenewegen

I’m sensing that some people on this side of House would like to help you out with that, and if they could see something in writing, perhaps we could make some valuable contributions to that initiative, to that strategy.

Now, on to the topic of keeping people. Seven hundred people left the Northwest Territories last year, but because of a high birthrate, that was offset to a larger extent.

Is there any way of tracking why people are leaving the Northwest Territories? I don’t know. I know you can’t do exit interviews, but is it possible there’s any way to find out why people are leaving? I mean...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Jackie Milne in the visitors gallery today. She is the promoter and achiever of many things in all things agricultural. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in the House the issues of the cost of living and the cost of power were raised. Twenty-five years ago I was honoured to be appointed to the first board of directors of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. With the repatriation of what was a federal Crown corporation, the Northern Canada Power Commission, to its rightful place in the northern territories, one of the first orders of business was selecting a community for the headquarters office. Pine Point was closing down and the economic fallout from that for Hay River was going to be immense. After a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 188-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2015-2016, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you. I would like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We have one tabled document before us. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.

Under the topic of making people, we have some young families in the South Slave that are having, like, four and five children, and I have a guess that there would be more people having larger families if we had something comparable to the child tax credit, but something made in the North.

Has the Cabinet ever contemplated a way of supporting young families who want to have larger families in helping them in some way financially through something similar to what the federal government does with the child tax credit, something made in the North?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is February 4th, World Cancer Day. World Cancer Day originated in Paris in 2000 at the World Summit Against Cancer. Today organizations and health professionals around the world are taking this opportunity to raise awareness of cancer and encourage its prevention, detection and treatment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that we do have a rule in this House that speaks to attacking or making derogatory remarks about a person or an entity that is not in a position to defend themselves on the floor of this House, and I’ve heard Mr. Hawkins refer to a private company that’s been in the Northwest Territories for over 70 years as a private company. I’ve heard him refer to them as a southern company. I’ve heard him refer to them as having an insatiable appetite for profit, and profit hungry and things like this.

Now, I’m just saying that this company that he’s referring to is not...

That’s reassuring but, of course, it can’t come quickly enough, in my opinion.

As I said in my Member’s statement today, the lack of an agricultural policy is actually a barrier to a lot of… It is an impediment and a barrier to a lot of activity that could take place in the agricultural area, whether it’s about taxation or purple gas or licensing of farm equipment. There are so many different things that our government does not have any framework or policy or legislation on.

The big one is land. In order to undertake and become involved in agriculture, we need land.

I would like to ask the...

This compost could be shipped to other communities that are unable to grow food due to soil restraints, and Choice North Farms sees this as a vital support piece for local food production in all communities.

This is a viable project and much has gone into it. I will have questions later today for the Minister of MACA and maybe the Minister of ITI, I’m not sure, but I can think of a whole lot of topics, a whole lot of titles for this Member’s statement on manure composting. Thank you.