Wally Schumann

Mr. Chair, thank you for that. I appreciate the Member bringing it up. That is one of the things that was identified, and we are having a look at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Nutrition North is a federal program to increase access to perishable nutritious food across the Northwest Territories and help reduce the cost. Its objective actually lines up quite a bit with the agriculture strategies of the Northwest Territories. Ideally, we want to get the agriculture in the Northwest Territories to a point where we wouldn't need to have Nutrition North to help subsidize the cost of food in the NWT, but we are not there yet. We will have to continue to work with our federal partners and Nutrition North and our commercial producers in the Northwest Territories on how we...

I believe that is already habitat of the Bathurst caribou range and probably other ranges of caribou from the Arctic coast.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe I committed to keeping committee well-informed as we move forward, as we secure opportunities of different types of revenue of moving forward, the sailing schedule, the staffing issues and stuff, and in the coming months and weeks I am hoping to update committee on where we are at with these new assets.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The short answer is no. I told the Members that I would look into expanding this program, putting more money into it to the life of this Assembly, not in this budget.

Traditionally, NTCL publish their sailing schedule close to the operating season, in May, if I remember correctly, of each year. The government is committed to providing a firm sailing schedule prior to that date. I know the people in the Department of Public Works and Services who are taking on this work are working very hard and diligently to put this together so we can come up with a schedule that will satisfy the communities and staff so they can start their planning session. We are hoping to have something out to them by April.

I think there is a play on words here. The Mining Incentive Program is already in place. It is well received. It was actually oversubscribed in the past year. As I said, I commit to looking, in the life of this Assembly, to find a way to put more money into this program in coming years.

Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has made a commitment in its mandate to capture opportunities for investment in transportation infrastructure by working to secure funding to improve access into the Slave Geological Province. Today I would like to provide an update on the department’s progress on this project.

Improving road access into the Slave Geological Province has been a long-term objective of the Governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories. This long-term vision includes connecting to an all-weather road and deep-water Arctic port in western Nunavut...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Department of Transportation, we continue to monitor all our embankments on the highway system and make sure we have safe travelling public, proper drainage on the highway system, and we will continue to do that. I can update the Member after session if he wants to have a bigger discussion around this issue.

I guess I can go into a little story about this situation. There was a place built there in 2000, where the Member is referring to, just off the access of the Dempster Highway. This was built in an area where a lot of drainage was a problem. The Department of Housing got involved; the Department of Transportation got involved. We moved the particular residents out of this area at the two departments' expense and relocated them. Another individual has now since moved into that location, knowing that all the particular problems were there. Along the course of that timeline, a couple of culverts...