Wally Schumann

As we have tabled in the House, Tourism 2020, there are a number of initiatives there that we can work with all the communities in the Northwest Territories and Aboriginal peoples that want to go into the tourism industry, and I would be glad to sit down with the Member to work with his communities on how they can leverage some of that programming.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like I said, I have disbanded the board, and have been having a look at how this thing works and how it is going to best suit the residents in the Northwest Territories. I would love to sit down and have a conversation with the Member on some advice, moving forward.

The rationale for the extension is, in fact, the overall state of the financing and exploration sector remains the same. As we all know, the market conditions are tight, and we are trying to attract new mining people to the Northwest Territories to spend their money. We still need to overcome the perception of the Northwest Territories being a difficult place to do business, and this is one of the avenues that we see that can attract investments.

Mr. Speaker, our territory is a region with massive petroleum potential, and we have committed in our mandate to delivering a long-term strategy to capitalize on these reserves and to bring oil and gas investment back to the NWT. The need for this work was first identified during public engagements informing the development of the NWT Economic Opportunities Strategy.

Across our North, industries, businesses, and residents pointed to the need for strategic planning and preparation to position our territory to capitalize on the opportunities that the responsible development of our oil and gas...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know how many creative ways I've got to say this. I said I believe our system is fine, it's working. The latest thing I can remember on the procurement side of things is we heard from businesses and industries in the Northwest Territories when we raised the sole-source amount from $5,000 to $25,000; but, like I said, I haven't had any complaints since I've been the Minister of Public Works.

As I've said, I believe we have a robust, great procurement system in the Northwest Territories. As long as I've been the Minister, I have not had any complaints around the procurement or the process in the Northwest Territories and I will not commit to that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like I said, ITI cannot do this thing alone. We are working with Health and Department of Lands. In this particular question, the Department of Lands is a key department on moving this whole strategy forward. We are working with Lands on this issue. I believe they informed committee on a lot of the issues on moving forward with the regulations and stuff with that, and we will continue to work with that and be the partners with Lands, how we are going to figure this out to access more land for agriculture in the Northwest Territories.

As I said, this is a high-level strategy designed to encourage the sector to grow and move forward. There are costs to some of these action items that we see in the strategy. The department is presently working on them and calculating what those are going to cost moving forward. At present, we work with the federal government and the Growing Forward partnership with $1.2 million annually. We are trying to increase that. When we were down with our engagement with the federal government, I had a chance to meet with the Minister of Agriculture, and discuss this initiative moving forward, and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the department is going to be participating in that celebration, closing the final ice road. We will be doing a screening on a documentary called "The End of an Ice Age," which will be depicting the history of the ice road and its transition to an all-season road.

As I have mentioned before in the House in one of my Minister’s statements, there are three different celebrations going forward this year. The first one will be highlighting the completion of the Tuktoyaktuk ice road, which will be held on April 21st, and then there will be the grand opening of the highway on November 15th, the official opening of the highway, and then the final event would be in the summer of July 2018, which will be another opening, focusing on marketing travellers of the region on the highway.