Wally Schumann

When we tabled this strategy, we went out to consultations to develop the strategy across the Northwest Territories of people that are interested in agriculture. That fed into how we developed this strategy going forward. That was their strategy along with ours that we put forward in this House. We are finishing up our Growing Forward 2. They’re the last year of our five-year growing forward plan. We’re going to be moving forward with a new plan with a federal Minister, but right now we’re out doing a survey to see feedback on what we can do in the strategy. How can we make things work better...

At the appropriate time, we will be bringing forward the business plan for the past sailing season, the lessons learned. Once the sailing season is totally concluded and wrapped up, we will be able to bring that information forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have addressed environmental issues in the short time that we have had this. Moving forward, we have identified and secured a number of habits that are just waste on our property, particularly in Hay River, and we are in the process of moving that from the shipyard. We are developing a plan to get rid of the scrap metal in the coming years. As many people know, the amount of derelict ships and boats that are in the Hay River shipyard that will have to be cut up, and removed, and abated. We are also in the process of doing our environment assessments on all our...

The Member brought this up when we were in the briefing on REDI. At that point, if I said, that these are all worthy considerations that can be considered by Members of Cabinet, and I recommended at that time that he can bring them forward in a letter to us, and we can be able to look at those initiatives moving forward, but REDI initiative is not the place to have these discussions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. These are discussions that we’re going to have like I said with the manufacturing strategy. One thing I can say around procurement: when we go out and have our conversations with members of the public service that do delivery of procurement, there is this discussion around the manufacturers in the Northwest Territories. We highlight who are the manufacturers, which products are available to them, and which communities they are based in, and we are continually educating people within the department on the manufacturers in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Based on the Member's statement today and from when he was in committee last week, I think there is a disconnect from how his vision of REDI is and what our vision of REDI is. REDI is a fact-based information based on risks and potential of resource and energy development in the Northwest Territories, and that is how we are taking part in engaging the public in the NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won’t be able to give you an exact draft timeline because it depends on the challenges and conversations that we have with the manufacturers and the needs that we are going to need to help address them to be able to deliver a product to the Government of the Northwest Territories and residents of the NWT in a fashion that is economically beneficial to them and also to the residents of the Northwest Territories. It’s pretty hard to have a timeline until we have the discussions with the manufacturers on the challenges going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I’m not aware of the prompt payment program if we have one under P3. P3 falls under the Minister of Finance, but we’ll be glad to look at any ideas that Members want to share to help alleviate the situation for businesses that have done the work and completed on time and done a successful job. If there’s a hold-up on payment, we would certainly have a look at anything to help facilitate that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I’m well aware of the department’s mandate to do prompt payment. I believe most of the payments, not always because there are always circumstances around every challenging one that comes forward but we’re supposed to pay within 20 days of receipt of an invoice and that’s what we will continue to do as a department. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I regularly talk to my counterparts in the Yukon and Nunavut on a broad range of issues. With this one in particular, I am sure we are going to have more conversations, particularly with Nunavut, as they are a little bit more remote and face more challenges than the Yukon and very similar to us. We will continue to press the federal government, I imagine, all on the same page moving forward, in particular, possibly as soon as the next FTP meeting around transportation.