Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to make a couple of points about the Department of Economic Development and Tourism, first of all with regard to tourism. One of the biggest economic developments in my area is in tourism. A lot of tourists go into the Nahendeh region to go into the mountains, especially the Nahanni National Park.
Over the years, the department has developed very good parks along the highway, like Blackstone, and Saamba Deh Falls campgrounds. They are very good campgrounds. Touring the constituency this summer by road, I met a lot of tourists who commented very positively on the campgrounds the department has developed and continues to develop. The tourists who come by road come up different ways. They come up through the Hay River entry, but there is also another entry to the Northwest Territories through BC, into the western part of the Northwest Territories and into my constituency.
I've raised these issues when the honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Pollard was Minister of ED&T in the beginning of this government. He was quite aware, as I'm sure the present Minister is, that we have to be able to do more in this area, perhaps even develop some sort of infrastructure in BC where the road turns north into the Northwest Territories. I know there was some work, with a sign being put there, which is good. In northern BC the Alaska highway has also been developed over the last few years. It is a very nice highway now, if any of you have driven that way. They have widened it and developed it quite well.
A lot of the tourists that go up the Alaska highway see the sign and they turn north, and that is how we get them into the area. If we could develop infrastructure for the Northwest Territories such as where the Yukon has a building, a Dawson City tourist centre, why couldn't we have a small tourist centre in northern BC where the highway turns north into the Northwest Territories? There are a lot of travellers who use that highway because of the sign that was put there a few years ago. You could draw more tourists into the area by building infrastructure.
If this department could meet with the BC government to see if they could improve their section of the road that runs to the north, somehow, and upgrade it to a better standard, that would be good. There are tourists who travel onto our highway from that area. I just want to make the comment that we need to develop a tourist facility in that area.
With regard to the Development Corporation, it is good to see, from the Minister's opening address, that the corporation is going to be helping the community of Nahanni Butte to develop a store there and a little bit of a motel and coffee shop. This is the type of thing that should have been built there many years ago. Nahanni Butte is situated at the end of the Nahanni National Park and every year the park draws a lot of tourists who go down the south Nahanni River in canoes and rafts. Only in the past couple of years are they beginning to stop in Nahanni Butte. With this infrastructure being built, more would stop there and perhaps the community could benefit from that by providing store services, a hotel or a coffee shop service for them. I am glad this is happening.
The only problem I have with this is that when the department, especially the Development Corporation, hires people who are not from the community, they go into the communities for one or two years and they should be told to work along with the community, rather than creating problems. They should be instructed to work with the community and help the community. If they see that the community isn't working well, they should try to work with it, rather than against it. We have a bit of a problem there now, which I think could be solved. It is sometimes an unpleasant situation we find ourselves in when problems come up between people who are working there with people who make their homes there. I would appreciate the department looking at that.
The other thing I would like to raise is in my constituency, there has never been an economic development conference ever. It is about time we had one in our area. Each of the communities have gotten into a bit of business. The larger communities have more business. There is a real need to get everyone together in that region to look at the economic development opportunities that are there and work together to see how they could best take advantage of the opportunities that are there and work with the Department of Economic Development and Tourism personnel to see how to best work together to develop a healthy, sustainable economy. That is what everyone wants. They want to develop the economy in a very sustainable way, so it isn't a boom and bust situation.
This is the way to look at the north. We are talking about sustaining economic development and this is a very good example of it. Everyone who I talk to in my region is beginning to see things this way. If the department could work with the people in the Liard valley, as per the current economic development agreement, that is the direction that ED&T should go. These are some of the points I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.