Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. All three are believed to have Tlicho involvement, but when we do the evaluation of the three proponents when the bids come in, that will be part of the evaluation process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, strong economies must encourage economic diversity. While our economy relies on the resource sector as its foundation, our government has committed to fostering an economic environment in which small business can grow and thrive. Today I would like to highlight some of the commitments that have been met by the ongoing work of the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Mr. Speaker, we committed to increasing the number of immigrants working in the NWT and to increase investments by immigrants. Together with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, we have done...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Four and a half million dollars from BCP and roughly $3 million from various other programs; like I said, the culvert replacement and the chipseal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Highway patrol meets and regularly trains with other enforcement agencies. The department participated in a blitz together on a regular basis with these other agencies. In particular, recently we just did a bison awareness check stop both with ENR and the RCMP to check both commercial and public traffic on the highway, and we will continue to look at opportunities to collaborate with all enforcement agencies in the future.

As I said, we will continue to do our inspections on the winter road this coming season around the heavy truck traffic in particular to make sure people are well aware of the...

Again, we met with the joint venture group and their insurance providers to complete a discussion around the incidents that happened last year. There were a couple of trucks that went off the road. There were a number of fires that took place. The department does not have an accident investigator, as many of us know in this House, but we do have our guys that go out there and do the dangerous goods checks, secure of cargo on the loads, check the log books, those sorts of things.

I can update the House that we followed up with the joint venture operators who investigated the accidents last...

I'm not aware of a requirement to replace any pier on the Deh Cho Bridge. This bridge has been functioning well since it opened in 2012, and as far as I'm concerned there's no need for that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The cost of this preventative work is actually covered by various bridge capital projects. It's ongoing preventative bridge maintenance across our system, and it's there to extend the life of our bridge assets.

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to recognize Charles Thornton, Ph.D., P.E., from Easton, Maryland; Larry Grimms from Haymarket, Virginia; Darrell Beaulieu, president and CEO of Denendeh Investments; Margaret Gorman, chief operating officer, Denendeh Investments; and Dave Ramsay, director of Denendeh Investments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents entitled "Tabled Document 456-18(2), NWT Oil and Gas Annual Report 2016" and "Tabled Document 457-18(2), Northwest Territories Geological Survey Strategic Plan 2017-2022." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are always committed to improving our communications, as I said in this House on a number of occasions, to update residents and tourists in particular on this section of road in the wintertime, which is, as I've mentioned in the House, how the numbers are increasing in the use of this road, winter operators and general public who also use this highway. We will continue to work on our communications plan.

We have our digital signage that's out at the entrance of Highway No. 4; that will be placed there again once the season gets going. We have Twitter. We use radio. We use our website to give...