Wally Schumann

Mr. Speaker, this is Small Business Week in Canada. Over 90 per cent of the NWT’s business is being defined as small businesses. This important sector provides employment opportunities for our people, the economic diversity to balance the ups and down of the resource economy and makes our communities great places to live. The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment helps create the economic environment NWT entrepreneurs and small business owners need to invest, take risks and prosper. We do so with targeted policies, programs and funding initiatives, and in partnership with...

As the Member knows, we have limited funds. We would spend the $1.5 million versus the $10 million it would cost to replace that ferry, and plus in the short time you just don’t go buy a ferry off the shelf. They just don’t have them sitting there at the store to buy. We would have to order this thing. It would probably take a couple of number of years to put into service. So the short-term fix would be to reactivate the Merv Hardie.

As I've said, we use the management tools to have a look at all our assets and stuff moving forward. As far as a planning study goes, the only thing we've been doing so far on there to -- we know where we are for maintenance and where the vessel is at and how much life is left in the vessel. What we continue to do on an ongoing basis to make sure we have adequate capacity for the volumes of traffic that are on that river system, and we continue to say that the data that's coming in that we meet these criteria to service the region, and I don't believe that at this time that I can commit to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has asked me a couple of times previously to do a constituency tour and in all fairness to him I was booked up solid. As long as I have enough lead time I have no problem doing a tour in his region. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I believe there's two questions; I'll answer both of them. First of all, the returning of phone calls to NUL. The first phone call I believe to the Premier was based on the Hay River franchise, and that's in arbitration right now, and I wouldn't be doing anyone any good to engage in a conversation when that process is going on. My other recollection is that ATCO phoned the Premier about getting out of their franchise agreement for ATCO gas in Inuvik. So that's the two phone calls; first part of his question.

The second part, NUL is free to any time submit material to the Government of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ladies first. On my left is director of Finance, Julie Mujcin and on my right is deputy minister Tom Jensen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Capacity building focuses on developing the skills and knowledge and abilities required to increase community workforce and capacity and also project readiness.

As I've stated previously, I'm open to having a phone conversation around transportation issues with the community. Until we get that ironed out I'm not prepared to go in there until we get the basis of what the conversation is going to be, and I will gladly have a conversation with the community and council.

As I've stated, I'm willing to have a phone call conversation with the leadership of Wrigley and have a discussion around this and see where it goes from there.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The federal government had notified us in July that they were proposing this application, but what they are doing is they were going through their planning activities and figuring out how they're going to move forward with their infrastructure plan and phase 2 moving forward, and we anticipate that they will probably be doing something within the next budget cycle. We are optimistic that this project is still alive and well from all the conversations we've had from the Minister of Infrastructure meeting with Minister Sohi and myself meeting with Minister Garneau, this...