Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few opening comments and I just wanted to echo some of the things my colleague Mr. Abernethy was saying about investment. I want to start off by saying I know the Minister is a real champion of the Northwest Territories and I know that he works very hard at promoting the Northwest Territories and getting out and hustling to get investment and dollars into our Territory and I’d like to thank him for the work that he does. I think as a Territory, and I
know the Minister does what he does, but I think we should be doing much, much more self-promotion in getting out and letting people know what’s here, what opportunities are here and attracting investment.
There’s been a lot of work going toward the regulatory process. I know there’s still some work underway there. We need to start seeing those dollars coming back to the Northwest Territories in terms of exploration and development.
I know as well as championing the Territories, the Minister is a big fan of the Mackenzie Gas Project and I share his enthusiasm with that project and what it means to the future of the Northwest Territories. We need jobs, we need opportunities and these things aren’t just going to create themselves. We have to be out in front of it and trying to get dollars here and investment dollars here. The Northwest Territories is full of potential and I think the future is very bright and we need to be acting on the opportunities and possibilities that exist here for mining. I know Mr. Abernethy talked of some and I’m very excited about Prairie Creek, very excited about Gahcho Kue. There’s a real lot of excitement that’s out there and I think we need to harness that and keep moving in the right direction, and the Minister in his time as Minister of ITI has certainly done that.
We could always use more money for tourism and I’m a big fan of tourism, I always have been. Money spent on maintaining and upgrading our parks system and coupled with that is the road system. I know we just had the Minister of Transportation here, but we need to be working with both departments to ensure, and other Members have talked about the Deh Cho loop, the Deh Cho Trail, the improvements to the Liard Highway and the tourism opportunities that exist in the Deh Cho. They need to be thoroughly explored and the road is a big component of that, obviously.
I know the Minister and the department are committed to the parks system here in the Northwest Territories. It’s a fantastic parks system.
We also heard of Members talking about expanding the runway here in Yellowknife and that’s always been an issue that I think at some point in time I’d like to see addressed. We need to be looking at getting international flights directly from places like Japan and Germany into the Northwest Territories. Currently, they can fly directly into places like Alaska and Whitehorse, and we need to level that playing field. I think having an extended runway here in Yellowknife would certainly do that.
I think that’s about it. I’m encouraged with the extra money for SEED as well. I think there are some good things happening there. I know the Minister also did yeoman work in the Electricity Rate Review here in the Northwest Territories and I think he deserves a lot of credit for that as well. In so that it’s
going to finally, I think, give people and businesses an opportunity on the ground in small communities to have a chance to succeed, because utility costs were killing people. If we take that big chunk of expenditures out of operating a business in the small community, that’s going to go a long way, I think. It’s early days yet but a couple years from now I think we’ll see more business start-up. I also think we’re going to have to look at finding some more money to get into business start-ups and providing opportunities for entrepreneurs that are out there to get into business at the community level so that we can grow an economy in our smaller communities. I think that the Electricity Rate Review and decreasing the price of power in the small communities, I think that’s going to be a great thing down the road.
I think that’s it for my comments, Mr. Chairman. I may have some comments as we go through the detail, but I just, again, wanted to thank the Minister and his staff I know who worked very hard in trying to deliver the department’s mandate. Thank you.