Does committee agree that we go back to page 12-31?

Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a quick question on commercial fisheries. I think it’s well established that there is an underutilized resource here and some potential for some development. There are some obvious challenges, but so far I don’t have the feeling that there’s been a comprehensive strategy developed, sort of a comprehensive approach. We’ve got some long-standing walls or barriers that we are dealing with such as the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board and so on. Here we sit with the Great Slave Lake alone at 15 percent of the quota available. I don’t get a sense that we are developing even the expertise and the most fundamental expertise I think of as providing food for the NWT. I know there are lots of potentials throughout the North, certainly some in many places in the North. So I am wondering if there is a plan to develop a comprehensive strategy and really try to tackle this in the manner that we are going after tourism, a new approach to tourism and so on. Thank you.

Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. McLeod .

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess the best way to answer the Member’s questions is that the fishery is the responsibility of the federal government and the fishery on Great Slave Lake is the responsibility of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. It’s very difficult for us to just step into their jurisdiction, although we have received correspondence in the past from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation that laid out

a number of options for us including one that they would have the Government of the Northwest Territories just cover off the losses and/or they would shut it down completely.

Our preferred approach has been to work with the NWT Fishermen’s Federation and the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation to try to work together to come up with a reasonable solution in order to revive the fishery. So we’ve been funding the NWT Fishermen’s Federation and we’ve undertaken a number of initiatives. I don’t know how many different planning documents we’ve funded. We tried to work with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation to have a winter fisher. This didn’t come to pass and so we are still working with the NWT Fishermen’s Federation to see this fishery revived. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate those comments. One specific question I have is does the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board have to be involved for fish captured and sold in the Northwest Territories?

No they have to be involved with Great Slave Lake Fishery because they have a monopoly, is my understanding.

I think there might be room for clarification there. I don’t know this, but my understanding has been that they regulate the export of fish from the Northwest Territories and where it goes. Basically it disappears into a pile of fish and just as with the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur campaign, it loses its value when it disappears in that big pile of fish from Canada, and therein lies both our barrier and our opportunity, I suspect. At any rate, the Minister’s comment that the winter fisheries encountered a number of obscure reasons that caused it to be held up does not give me confidence that we are developing a solid and strategic plan here to address those points. No pick-up point for the summer fishery seems like a resolvable issue to me. I think we need to be more aggressive to try and deal with this situation with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board, so I would welcome any thoughts and some near future focus on this opportunity. I think it is an important one for Northerners. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess we can be as aggressive as we want to be, I am not sure if the Member is suggesting we should take over the whole fishery with its costs and so on, but it is a question of how much money the Assembly would be prepared to make available for us to develop fishery. We can do that if that is the direction we get, but we would prefer to work closely with the Fishermen’s Federation and the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation this time.

As far as my previous answer, I was talking about export of fish. I think maybe I misunderstood the Member if he was talking about just fish for local markets. We don’t have to go through the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I seek consent to go to page 12-29.

The Member is seeking consent to go back to page 12-29.

Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in the order of comprehensive strategies, I am wondering, does the GNWT have a comprehensive agricultural policy in place. Thank you.

Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We presently don’t have a comprehensive agricultural policy and we have committed to developing one as part of the going forward funding arrangement with the federal government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to hear that, and I know that there is a renewal of a federal-territorial program that is being contemplated, so I am hoping we are actually going to develop a territorial agricultural policy. Again this is an area that a number of MLAs, representatives, have raised the need for more focus on. So I hope we have our own territorial policy, not just a federal one.

I know also that the Minister has mentioned the land problem. He has raised this a number of times and I am wondering what we are doing to resolve that land problem. Are we working to clarify exactly what that is? He says he doesn’t know what is holding it up and it can be done by a municipality, but somehow it is not being done in a sort of let’s get it done approach. What can we do and what is this department doing to get the federal government to free up some land to the territorial government if such a thing is possible? It probably is not possible in areas where land claims have not been resolved yet, but if that is a big issue, what are we doing to resolve it and make things happen within the context of a comprehensive strategy on agriculture in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess over the years we have identified what would be required to be done in order to access land for agriculture and certainly there are different kinds of

land. We have identified that what was being requested at the local level could be done through the municipality and that they could make application for land to be taxed at a much lower rate. I don’t know; the delay probably could be it means less revenue for the municipality.

With regard to Crown lands that are outside the jurisdiction of the community or municipality, this is something that would have to be negotiated through the land claims agreements. That would, I guess, have to be done through our land claims negotiators. Generally the land claims negotiations are for the benefit of the aboriginal governments and I don’t know if it would be appropriate for us to go in there and start asking for land as part of the negotiations. But if it is appropriate, then I suppose we could do that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate those remarks. These are things that I would like to see pursued by this department within the context of the Territorial Agricultural Policy. I would think there would be other benefits, obviously to communities, to make an agricultural business viable within their boundaries and so on. Not just economic, of course, but perhaps there are opportunities with aboriginal governments to get going on this front. I am sure there are many aspects to that and I don’t want to over simplify it, but we do want to be moving on this area. Again, this has been raised by quite a number of people quite a number of times and so it would be nice to have a good, innovative and can-do approach here, to try to work on some of these barriers and actually get some things happening. Of course, we have an immediate partner out there that we are working a bit with. There might be other partners that are ready to work on something with us on this, just by way of a comment. Thank you.

Thank you. We are on page 12-29. People agree that we conclude that?

We will move all the way back to page 12-32, business support, grants and contributions, $10.474 million, Agreed?