Wally Schumann

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 74(2) and have Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Revolving Funds Act, No. 2, moved into Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Unanimous consent granted

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents entitled "NWT Mineral Development Strategy Annual Report for 2015-2016" and "2017-2018 Corporate Plan NWT Business Development and Investment Corporation."

As I have said, we want to identify a model that meets the needs of the visitors over the long term, for the residents of Yellowknife and the tourism sector that comes to the Northwest Territories. We are open to all ideas and considerations moving forward, and we will look at anything that is proposed to us.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As this House is well aware, the Northern Frontier Visitors' Centre had to be shut down due to structural issues with their building. We have met with them, along with the City of Yellowknife, to have discussions. A short-term fix to this situation, agreed upon by all parties, is to move into the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, which is going to be taking place today and tomorrow. The visitors' centre will be open on June 1st of this month. That is a short-term solution. Moving forward in the long term, we will be sitting down with the City of Yellowknife and...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Revolving Funds Act, No. 2, be read for the second time. This bill amends the Revolving Funds Act to establish a revolving fund for the purpose of meeting the capital, operating, and maintenance requirements for providing marine transportation services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member has pointed out, yes, the Northern Frontier Visitors' Centre is responsible for the lease. When they signed that lease a number of years ago, that was with a totally different government, the federal government. Now that we have taken over through devolution, it is in the realm of what we look after. The Department of Lands is responsible for this lease now moving forward. The Department of ITI and Department of Lands, and hopefully the Northern Frontier Visitors' Centre, will sit down together and figure out a best way forward of how we are going to help...

Infrastructure is investing roughly $8 million from 2015 to 2019 on the Ingraham Trail. A lot of work has already been done in the years leading up to now, which was chip sealing, embankment work, installing culverts, and such. There is a multi-year contract on road widening and structural engineering and drainage improvements, as well as surfacing, an ongoing challenge on that road. As far as guardrails and such go, there is some guardrail installation that is actually going to take place in the 2017-2019 calendar years. Which sections those exactly are, I couldn't give the Member that exact...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are always lessons learned in every season. This one in particular, I guess I would say that the lesson learned from this is we're going to have very close ties with the community on a day-to-day basis as spring comes to the region, being that it's the only ice road left up there; we're not going to Inuvik anymore. We'll have better communications around how we're planning on closing of the ice road.

I don't know which plans would have been put into place once the roads was closed. That would be up to the local people. It's unfortunate the road closed in a quickened manner. That happened because of safety reasons, but now with the new purchase of the barge company, maybe we can use them.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Economic Opportunities Strategy: Progress Report 2015-2016." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.