Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we talked about this yesterday in the House, and I think this is timely to have this question anyway to inform everyone what's going on. The Alberta government has reassured us that they are in full response of this fire. They have their own incident management team managing the fires in Alberta. They are well aware of the situation that's going on there, and I think the whole country is quite concerned about what is going on down there. I have talked to an ENR minister in his department to get an update on all activities on what's going on, and the Department of ENR...

As I have updated the House, we are monitoring these fires in Alberta as closely as we can and working with the Alberta government. The Alberta fire crews are taxed right to the max. I think that they are trying to protect as much critical infrastructure as they can right across the province. There are a number of fires going on there. They are doing the best that they can, and we thank them for what they are doing and are certainly glad that crews will be able to go out there and support them as well.

We are not aware of any impacts on communication infrastructure serving the North at this...

I could certainly have a discussion with the department to find out the history of this. As I have said in this House now, we are compliant with our water licence. That is what we have to follow, and if the Gwich'in come back with something different, then we can certainly look at the situation and make accommodations where it is fiscally responsible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The department makes every effort to do what we can. If we have to reuse this gravel to save money, that is what we are doing, making sure that we are not wasting our money, but like I said, we have to follow the provisions in the land and water board's licence. We are trying to minimize the effect on this.

We had questions last year from people who live close to the ferry landing about the disturbances that are taking place there. We realize that people are making a living in that area, they are fishing in that area, and we have to minimize the use of gravel and reuse the gravel as much as we...

Last year when we had those discussions, that was to meet the emergency need, what it would have been to truck it around. It was a hypothetical question, I guess, if we trucked our fuel and staged it out of Inuvik. This situation with delivery of fuel to the Hay River port, I'm going to have to check with our procurement people and see where the delivery of fuel is actually supposed to be. It may be that this extra cost might be burdened by the Government of the Northwest Territories. It might actually be on the supplier of the fuel. I'll have to get that information and get that back to the...

Again, to update the House, as of yesterday, the Alberta government, it's their fire. It's their jurisdiction, and they're in charge of things. They are escorting essential goods through this section of highway for the residents of the Northwest Territories as long as it's safe to do so, and as of yesterday, we're doing that. We are also communicating all these messages, as I said yesterday, publicly through Twitter, our online road map system, messaging boards and such, so the travelling public knows what's going on. There will be questions, I suspect, about Highway No. 7 through the Fort...

I am here today to introduce Bill 35, Supply Chain Management Professional Designation Act.

In the Northwest Territories, Supply Chain Management Professionals are licensed by the Supply Chain Management Association Northern Territories. This association sets the standards for excellence and ethics and is the source of professional development and accreditation for supply chain management in the Northwest Territories.

Supply Chain Management Professionals ensure that goods, people, and information are transported as safely and efficiently as possible.

Prior to 2013, the Supply Chain Management...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned in the House here the other day about some of the conditions that we are working on to make sure that we don't get into the same situation as we did last year with the shipping season. We've moved our schedule forward, as I mentioned in this House, and I encourage all Members who have communities that participate or use MTS to inform their residents along with what we're trying to do, along our communications line, to inform them that we've moved our sailing schedule up.

Of course, that is conditional, as I said again on a number of conditions. It's going to...

I am not even going to go to my notes first here. I am going to address some of the comments that the Member has made. I am the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I represent all residents in the Northwest Territories, not just the City of Yellowknife and not just the tourists coming to the City of Yellowknife.

What I don't like about the comments that the Member made is that it is kind of "us versus them," the Beau-Del region versus Yellowknife, because of the money that we have spent in Whitehorse. We are trying to address and diversify our economy across all regions of the...

I am glad that the Member asked the question that way. As I have said, this geotechnical report and structural engineering review was conducted, again, this year. We had the original one, and we went out and did the work to stabilize the building. We have done a couple of things since then to make sure that the building doesn't get too out of whack.

We already know that we have never met the inspection to be able to have people in there. We went out to the design concept. We got them back, but before we push that any further, we have to see what these reports come back and say about what can be...