Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Public safety is always the number one thing for the NWT highways. It is a priority of this government and the department in particular. As of today I can update the Members of this House that the department and the winter road joint venture have actually had a meeting about the concerns of the events that have taken place over the last couple of weeks on the winter road. The number of fires, in particular, is very unusual. Of everything that I have been briefed on up to date, I think in the last five years there might have been one fire, and it was out on the winter...

Staff recruitment plans moving forward, I believe that with the reorganization of the departments there are a number of changes, there are a number of processes that have to be done moving forward before this is done until the budget is passed. Once the budget is passed and we implement these things moving forward, it will probably be no different than before when amalgamations take place. There will be a number of people either retiring or moving on to different departments. There are a number of people who are affected who will possibly be changing jobs within the departments and stuff. I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe I answered this question. We took the opportunity when we were out doing consultation. The responsibility of section 35 is the federal government’s, as to do with the Great Slave Lake, to consult with Aboriginal governments and peoples. We went through the Great Slave Lake Advisory Committee, which has all the users around the lake, which includes, as I said, all the Aboriginal governments that use the lake. We used the opening for that advisory board to do our consultation.

Depending on if there was an economic opportunity strategy or the fishing strategy, there would have been various departments, and they would have been senior officials.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will commit to doing that and having a look at that and informing the House on that moving forward.

The joint venture is directly responsible for the contractors that are employed under them that are running up and down the highway. As far as our Department of Transportation, when a vehicle is registered in the Northwest Territories and it goes through its annual inspections and stuff, that is a whole different issue. This issue of the incidents that have taken place over the last few weeks on the road system between Yellowknife and the diamond mines is the joint venture's. We are working closely with them. We have a great relationship with them. As I have said, they are talking to the...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Northwest Territories Agricultural Strategy - The Business of Food: A Food Production Plan 2017-2022." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As we move forward, I believe this is something, like I said in the House yesterday, it is something we are keeping a close eye on across the country. If this bill passes in the House, we will definitely get back to committee on what is going on and keep everyone informed on where this process is going.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can get back to the Member with the exact details on it, but I can tell him right off the top between medical travel and business and relocation tickets that were out of Yellowknife, it comes to 3.7 per cent of total travel out of Yellowknife. It is roughly over 10,000 flights. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

--- through our public engagement sessions that we have talked about quite a bit this week in the House. To date, we have held public engagement sessions in Norman Wells, Fort Smith, Yellowknife, and Fort Simpson. Next week, we are going to be in my home community of Hay River and we are going to be doing a workshop with the community of Behchoko moving forward. We will be collecting this information and we will be using this to develop our energy strategy moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.