Yes, I would, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the 2011-2012 main estimates for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

The department’s mandate is to promote economic self-sufficiency through responsible development of the Northwest Territories natural resources and the promotion of tourism, trade, investment, business and manufacturing to create a prosperous, diverse

and sustainable economy for the benefit of all residents. Through this mandate, we continue to support the commitment of our government that all residents of the Northwest Territories must have the opportunity to build a stronger future for themselves, their families and their communities.

The department’s main estimates propose total operational expenses of approximately $53.3 million for the coming fiscal year, which is an increase of 3 percent over 2010-11. This includes sunsets of $3.5 million, an increase in strategic initiatives of $3.6 million and forced growth of $1.4 million.

In 2011-12 the department plans to support the Maximizing Opportunities Strategic Initiative by proposing investments in a number of programs and projects.

Industry, Tourism and Investment is proposing to establish an economic development officer in the community of Ulukhaktok at a cost of $150,000 annually. Having a dedicated economic development officer in Ulukhaktok will also assist Sachs Harbour and Paulatuk, by enabling the economic development officer for those communities to be able to focus time and energy on supporting economic development in those locations.

An investment of $150,000 is proposed to provide socio-economic expertise in the technical review of the proposed De Beers Gahcho Kue project, and in the negotiation of a socio-economic agreement.

Industry, Tourism and Investment is proposing to enhance funding for the Support to Entrepreneurs and Economic Development (SEED) Policy by an additional $350,000, bringing the investment to almost $4 million, with $125,000 of the existing funding being specifically targeted for support to the arts and fine crafts sector and $100,000 of the proposed increased funding being targeted specifically for support to the film industry.

The Community Harvesters Assistance Program provides funds, distributed by the local wildlife committees, to community harvesters in support of harvesting activities. Industry, Tourism and Investment delivers this program working with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and is proposing to invest an additional $475,000 annually in this program, for a total of $1.074 million.

In support of Reducing the Cost of Living Strategic Initiative, over the past several years Industry, Tourism and Investment has invested in increasing food production across the Northwest Territories through various initiatives.

Industry, Tourism and Investment proposes to invest an additional $100,000 in the promotion for the support for the Commercial Harvesting Program. This program supports the packaging,

distribution and promotion of fish and meat products to consumers in the Northwest Territories, providing a stable supply of food for local needs and for sale at local markets.

The department is also proposing increased funding of $50,000 for agriculture development infrastructure. Investments in this program are designed to lengthen growing seasons, increase yields in Northwest Territories communities and help lower the cost of living.

Mr. Chairman, the department is also proposing some key areas of forced growth funding for the upcoming fiscal year.

The demand for the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur Program has continued to outstrip available resources for the past three years. In 2010, total income and support to Northwest Territories trappers was $1.3 million. It is proposed that an additional $65,000 per year be invested to support the trapping sector.

Over the last five years the number of applications for business advice, contributions and loan funding has tripled. Industry, Tourism and Investment is proposing $129,000 for an additional business development officer to help deliver business support programs in the North Slave region.

We are seeing increased park usage in all regions of the Northwest Territories, but particularly in the North Slave region. Industry, Tourism and Investment is proposing $85,000 to hire two additional seasonal parks officers, to ensure the safety of our park users and their enjoyment of our beautiful natural parks environments.

Since 2005, the resources allocated to deliver the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission for Harvesters Program have been exceeded by demand, in some cases by as much as $300,000 per year. This program provides benefits to harvesters of renewable resources who are injured while engaged in harvesting activities. We are proposing an additional $225,000 per year towards this program to accommodate the growing costs.

In addition to the activities outlined above, there are also some potential large-scale significant developments in the resource sector that could result in major investments in the Northwest Territories. During this past year we have seen the achievement of major milestones that have brought the Mackenzie Gas Project much closer to reality. Much work remains to be done to ensure we reach our goal in regards to this project.

The oil and gas and mining sectors are the bedrock of the Northwest Territories economy and we will continue to support geosciences research as one of the most important investments that a public government can make to sustain these industries. Our Territory has an abundance of untapped resources, ranking seventh out of 72 jurisdictions

on the mineral potential index in the 2009-2010 Fraser Institute surveys, and we are just starting to realize the potential for mineral exploration in our Territory.

Many projects are in the works to explore this potential, projects like De Beers Gahcho Kue, which is currently undergoing environmental impact review. Other examples are the Avalon Rare Metals Nechalacho Project, believed to be one of the highest quality undeveloped rare earth element deposits in the world, and the Canadian Zinc Corporation Prairie Creek Project, with a proposed underground mine capable of processing up to 1,200 tonnes per day for 14 years. Developing mineral exploration projects and providing support for projects that span a wider scope such as lead, zinc, silver, gold, nickel and other rare earth elements has the potential to grow and diversify the Northwest Territories economy.

Reducing our reliance on imported diesel continues to be a key priority for our government. Industry, Tourism and Investment continues to support the Northwest Territories Energy Corporation in the implementation of the draft Northwest Territories Hydro Strategy. We have invested substantial time and effort in the electricity review, and the change we have brought to our electricity system could be one of the most significant achievements to date in addressing the high cost of living in the North, and especially in our remote communities.

In support of these energy initiatives, this government is investing in an Energy Investment Plan, and Industry, Tourism and Investment is proposing specific strategic initiatives for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

Industry, Tourism and Investment is proposing $2.350 million in funding for the proposed Lutselk’e mini-hydro facility to enter the regulatory phase and begin construction. These activities would be subject to accessing federal funding through the Green Infrastructure Fund.

We are also proposing a $50,000 investment towards renewal of the 2007 Northeast Territories Energy Plan.

Mr. Chairman, the initiatives I have touched on are just some examples of how Industry, Tourism and Investment is working on behalf of this Assembly and this government to fulfill its mission and have a diversified economy that provides all regions and communities with choices and opportunities as envisioned by the 16

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Legislative Assembly.

I look forward to the committee’s comments and questions.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Minister McLeod, I’d like to ask you if you’d like to have witnesses in the House with you today.

Yes, I would, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. I’d ask the Sergeant-at-Arms, if committee agrees...

...to please escort the witnesses into the House. Mahsi.

I’d like to ask the Minister to please introduce his witnesses. Minister McLeod.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. On my left I have the deputy minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr Peter Vician, and on my right I have Nancy Magrum, director of financial services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Committee, we’ve agreed to go to general comments, I believe. Agreed?

So general comments. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I’d like to thank the Minister for his opening comments today. I’m just going to go through and highlight just a couple of areas of interest to me.

One of the first areas I’d like to highlight is the investment of $150,000 into an economic development officer in the community of Ulukhaktok. I think this is a great step. I attended, in November, a meeting to work on a framework for the Anti-Poverty Strategy and in my opinion for any Anti-Poverty Strategy to be effective, Industry and Tourism and Investment and business need to be there. They need to be a partner. The reason I think that is because without economic development we can do all the social programs we want, but there won’t be any progress, there won’t be anything for these people to do. I think putting something, like, an EDO in a community like Ulukhaktok is going to solve the problem. I think having that person there who can work with local people to identify local opportunities that they can create their own businesses is brilliant and I know we don’t have one in every community and some communities might be too small to warrant them now, but over time it would be great to see more economic development officers in the communities working with the people on any opportunity that exists to bring money into a community and put money into pockets rather than just continuing to circulate the dollars that are there. I think an EDO in Ulukhaktok is a good step.

Also, you talked about increased money for SEED. I think that’s great. Once again, it would be great to see some of that money getting into the communities and more small business occurring in the communities. The more people we employ in the communities, the less we’ll be spending on social programs. So I’m happy to see that, but I’d

like to see some additional focus on getting some of that stuff into the communities.

I’m very, very pleased to see additional money, more money going into things like arts and crafts. Now, I do have a question and you can answer it when you’re doing your summation, when you say arts and crafts I do want to know what you mean by art because art is very broad. Does that mean print or painting, or does it include things like performance art and stuff like that? There are many opportunities under that word “art” and under what is art for business opportunities and giving people meaningful employment even if they are running their own businesses.

I’m happy to see the $100,000 in support of the film industry. I know that I and my colleagues have been very vocal about the advantages that the film industry can bring to the Northwest Territories. I am going to be interested to see exactly what you’re spending that $100,000 on, whether it’s the study or whether we’re actually planning some implementation of some of the recommendations that we might see in May. I think it’s May when we’re going to see them. So that’s very good.

Different subject, and you didn’t really touch on this one, but this is something I and some of my colleagues attended a briefing a little while ago with NWT Tourism, the Minister himself and some representatives from the Hotel Association. My colleague Mr. Hawkins was talking about a hotel tax earlier today and I heard something slightly different when I was meeting with those people. I heard some representatives from the Hotel Association saying we would like legislation that would allow communities to choose to put in a hotel tax or not, and that those revenues, the 1 percent Mr. Hawkins was talking about, would then go back to the association to help them promote and support tourism in the Northwest Territories. I think that’s brilliant. I’m not sure that the GNWT should be putting a territory-wide tax, but I do support the idea of us putting in some legislation that would allow communities to choose to do that to support their hotel associations and I would like to see the Minister obviously champion in that to the Minister of Finance so that we can get that to happen. I think the legislation already exists in some jurisdictions. It should not be too hard for us to jump on that, get it to the Minister of Finance and implement it so those communities can make choices in the best interest of tourism in their communities and regions. So I’d really like to see the Minister making some progress in that area.

Very happy to see the investment in agriculture and fishing and community gardens, brilliant. Anything to help reduce the cost of living is a win-win. In October and previously I made statements and comments and I asked questions about red tape and I know my colleague Mr. Hawkins made some

statements about red tape earlier in this session. Recognizing that the GNWT is not the only person responsible for red tape -- even though in the report it sounds like everything is the Government of the Northwest Territories by CFIB -- red tape is in the City, red tape is in the GNWT, red tape is in the federal government. I’m going to be asking some questions when we get to that area about what kind of paper requirement, what kind of reporting requirement do we require through SEED and for the small local businesses have we ever really dug into our program to see how much red tape our programs are creating for these small businesses. Is it reasonable? Is it too much? Are we making sure that people understand what the forms are, why they have to fill these things out and if there’s duplication have we considered getting rid of it? So red tape is an issue and when we get to that section I will be talking to it.

There are a lot of things happening in the Northwest Territories, and with the signing of the AIP and devolution in our foreseeable future there’s going to be more opportunities. So I’m really happy to hear you talk about things like Avalon, Canadian Zinc Corporation, Prairie Creek, diamond mines. I think we need to keep moving on those areas, responsible development. We need to be proponents of responsible development. So I’m happy to see some of those things there that could bring fresh new dollars into the Northwest Territories. Like I’ve said before, the dollars coming in are important and we need to bring outside dollars in and we need to find ways to circulate it as much as we can. The big industries will bring in the dollars, but we need as much strong, sustainable small businesses to keep those dollars circulating as much as possible. So it’s good to see some of those big things coming and hopefully we’ll see some more as we take some additional responsibility for our Territory, keeping in mind that it must be environmentally and socially responsible.

I will have many questions during detail, but thank you for your remarks and I look forward to your general thoughts on some of the things I’ve said and things I’m sure my colleagues are going to say as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Committee, general comments, Industry, Tourism and Investment. Mr. Ramsay.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next on my list is Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Next on my list, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to general comments. I want to start off by saying I’m very happy to see the department coming in at a 3 percent including a forced growth raise this year and nothing higher as the previous department did. I think that’s responsible and I appreciate the effort that that takes. I also agree with most if not all of the initiatives that the Minister highlighted here. The $150,000 proposed for the De Beers project, I would ask the Minister to please not use the model he used to develop the socio-economic agreement

for the Mackenzie Gas Project. It was obviously an unmitigated disaster for the people of the Northwest Territories, but to stick with the diamond mine model that’s been developed before. We don’t need another travesty like that.

On the SEED policy, we steadily increased that I would like to see some evaluation of that program. We initially were interested in lots of ways of breaking down and examining that. That proved very challenging for this department, so I’m going to be asking again that we get some evaluation of those investments on a sector basis. As onerous as that might be, I think it’s the responsible way to go and perhaps that’s easily done now.

I also was happy to see the increase for the film industry. I’m awaiting the results of the review that’s ongoing, I believe, and will inform whether that’s a sufficient investment or not. I’m also curious on how it will be invested, of course.

The general approach to increasing food production or general highlighting and identification of that item is one I know the Minister is aware that I’m really supportive of. I think our investments there are somewhat modest, particularly in the area of agricultural development. They have done studies there with experts that have demonstrated the amazing gains that could be achieved with a very modest investment and really superb economic contributions that would be sustainable, I think, simply to provide 25 percent of our produce and meat products in the agricultural industry in the southern part of the NWT. But I appreciate all the other work that’s been done in the communities and I think that’s where society is and that there’s good response happening to the department’s efforts there.

I just want to highlight a couple of other areas. Of course I know we are supporting geoscience research to the tune of millions of dollars per year. A huge subsidy to this industry. I’m not sure whether we’re getting returns back on that. I know the federal government should be playing that role and I know they do in fact spend millions in that source. I’m a bit unclear about what we get from any investment there. I think where I saw productive investments was in the prospectors programs, modest as it was. That’s a role for our government until after devolution, after which I think it would be appropriate to get into that area of investment.

Again we’ve heard how the substantial investment of time and effort -- and I notice the Minister left out money, over $250,000 -- in the electricity system review. Probably pointed to as one of the most significant achievements in addressing the high cost of living. Really, this exercise simply has hidden the cost by shifting them from the ratepayers to the taxpayers. While I’m of course happy for the business community, for all the rest of

us this is a pretty hollow victory. If this is something we’re proud of, I think we’re setting the bar awfully darn low. I hope we’ll correct that and start going after real costs.

One of which I think is highlighted here and that is the decision to get after -- I can’t say go ahead yet, apparently -- the Lutselk’e mini-hydro facility. Apparently this is vulnerable, depending on access to the federal Green Infrastructure Fund. I guess I’d be interested in how vulnerable that is, where we are at with that. We’ve been working on this for a decade. I would have thought we’d have nailed that partnership down by now.

I am concerned with the considerable drop in revenues of this department. If there’s one department you would expect to see some increases, it would be this department.

I’d say good things are happening with tourism, which I’m very happy to see. I think if we can enhance that with real environmentally responsible and innovative approaches to tourism business we would see even more benefits. I think sort of the green tourism potential is high. Not only that, the more we can show that environmental responsibility, the more we’ll have other types of tourism. My colleague Mr. Krutko and I, when we visited the Nordic countries, we were amazed at the number of people visiting those countries simply to see their technologies and how they do things in such an effective manner environmentally and how much it stimulated their economies.

I haven’t heard much about the significant role this department should be playing in the Protected Areas Strategy and supporting our Aboriginal partners, and any role in the land use framework. Again I remain concerned about the ongoing overlap and confusing mandates between Environment and Natural Resources and ITI.

I think one of my colleagues, I believe it was the chairman, mentioned the airport extension as a possibility in Yellowknife during our review of Transportation. I think there’s obviously an important role for ITI here in contributing to the development of a business case or not. I’d be interested if perhaps that’s happening too.

Again, as far as the Mackenzie Gas Project, I don’t think we need to be salesmen for this project. I think we need to be critical managers of it. It’s been approved. Let’s now drop the rose-tinted glasses and make sure it’s managed in a way that actually benefits our people, something that hasn’t been done to date and is not even in the three objectives of this government in real terms. I will be asking questions and contributing to the ongoing efforts on that project that may happen someday, but seems to be a huge priority every year for the last I don’t know how many years. It’s just simply costing us.

I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I have nobody on my list. Is committee agreed that we’ve concluded general comments?

I will now go to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment to respond to the general comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Members for those general comments. With regard to some of the specific comments that Mr. Abernethy raised, we certainly agree that we need to promote investment in the smaller communities and I think that’s evidenced by putting on the EDO in Ulukhaktok. I think the air rates were killing us, so it was a lot better to have somebody right there to maximize the funding. I think it was when Senator Eggleton came and talked about the anti-poverty, and that certainly cemented to me that job creation was a very large factor in reducing poverty. Certainly the more investment we can do in creating employment, the better it is.

On the investment with SEED, that’s certainly one of our objectives with SEED, is to create more small business in small communities. We are working very hard at that. There are still some challenges we have to address in terms of applications and approval rates for issuing and approving loans in communities, but we’re working on pushing more of those authorities out to the communities.

Arts and crafts, we are talking about artisans, not performers. Right now ITI has the responsibility for artisans and ECE has the responsibility for performers but we work very closely together to maximize that.

The film industry we have spent money on consulting. I think we have the report now. We’ll be meeting with the film producers and expect to finalize and table the report in May. Our expectation is that the money that we’ve identified now will go over the years as we get more and more into that field.

Hotel tax, that was my understanding as well, was that we would find a way to have the communities decide and also invest the money as the money is collected within the communities. We’re continuing to work with the NWT Association of Communities and Finance. My understanding of the process is that we have to go through the roundtable process and work to get this through the mill or the sausage maker or whatever they call it.

Local harvesting, it’s very important. In the past we used to value the results of harvesting at about $50 million. If the harvesting wasn’t there and you had to buy all the food at the grocery stores that’s how much extra it would cost. Now with division, we’re probably looking at closer to $25 million or $30 million, but local harvesting is still very important

and the more self-sufficient we can get, the better it is.

On red tape, we used to have a red tape directorate. I think it was in the 13

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Assembly. They

ran out of things to do, I don’t know if they ran out of red tape to cut or I think it was more through cost reductions that the directorate was closed and the responsibility for reducing red tape was passed out to the departments. So each department is responsible for that. As a government we believe that with devolution, overall red tape will be reduced significantly, and of course we’re promoting the implementation of BizPaL throughout the Northwest Territories. We’re working very closely with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

On the comments on Avalon Canadian Zinc, other Nico Fortune Minerals, those kinds of projects, I think that devolution we’ve said many times is a game changer and without devolution we would have to just watch the federal government deal with it. With devolution we can now go and talk to these proponents to see what it would take to advance the projects and we can have much more hands-on approach. I think that’s a better way to go.

With regard to Mr. Ramsay’s comments, promoting NWT investment, and I know it’s been a big priority and I’ve been very grateful for the Members that have travelled along and helped promote the Northwest Territories. I think it’s been very worthwhile and gone a long ways.

The regulatory process is still an issue and whenever we go to mining meetings that’s one of the big concerns. They always compare us to Nunavut and Yukon and our regulatory process. The issues they need are some fiscal incentives. They’re finding it very difficult to access capital for exploration. Those kinds of things.

The Mackenzie Pipeline, that’s, as we’ve gone up and down the valley talking to communities, quite a few communities say, well, when we say do you think we should be promoting the local economy instead of promoting the Mackenzie Pipeline, quite a few communities say to them the Mackenzie Pipeline is promoting local economy.

More money for tourism. I know we’d always like to have more money and we think that if we had more money we could probably develop more products and have more visitation, but we realize the fiscal realities that we have to work under.

NWT parks again is, thank God we have beautiful, spectacular opportunities and experiences that can be developed and we will continue to work on that.

On expanding or extending the runway, ITI did lead and commission a study and we held a number of stakeholder meetings and consultations. The conclusion was that the primary local business didn’t support extending our runway. They felt that the business plan wasn’t there. They weren’t

prepared to subsidize or spend money on a runway where they didn’t see the return on investment. That’s about as far as it got. We’re prepared to revisit it as we go along and as the economy continues to improve.

The money for SEED, that program has been oversubscribed pretty well since we instituted it. The more money we put into it the more it goes into the smaller communities.

The Electricity Rate Review, we’re starting to see the results of that. People are starting to receive their bills. So in the thermal communities they are benefitting.

Dollars for business start-ups, this is an area that we’re continuing to promote and we think that becoming an entrepreneur is a very excellent way to go. I think there are opportunities we can promote.

MLA Jacobson, Ulukhaktok was quite an eye-opener to go and see the impact that the opening of the print shop and carving centre had on the community and all the thanks and how grateful the people were and I think it is really going to be good for the community.

I talked about SEED already, tourism, fish and meat. I think that with increased investment in local wildlife committees and community harvesters, people in our communities that have to go further to get caribou will now be able to use that funding for that. It’s been quite a while since we had put money into that program. The outfitting, I think Jim Shockey -- I saw one of his promotions on TV -- would be excellent.

On the energy side, the residual heat, Arctic Energy Alliance and EnerGuide, every time we meet with a federal Minister we tell them that one of the biggest mistakes was they got rid of their Housing Efficiency Program. I thought that was an excellent program. If they wanted to do something for Canadians, they should reinstitute that. Offshore Mackenzie Pipeline, we are participating in the offshore review of the Mackenzie Pipeline. We are still waiting for the Order-in-Council from the federal government as to whether they’re going to approve the pipeline or not.

LNG terminal, I am not sure. I know we looked at economics of doing it in Alaska. The economics up there weren’t that great, but they have a different kind of natural gas there that needs to be cleaned up and is a lot further from an ocean port. I would be interested in looking at what the economics would be for something like that in Tuk. I agree a deep sea port would be very good for that area.

MLA Bromley, 3 percent growth is pretty hard to live with, but it is a commitment that we made as a government. I think that we are trying to stick to that.

On the Gahcho Kue, we will be continuing with the diamond mine socio-economic model. On the SEED program, I think that SEED has been in place now for four years so we probably have enough information to be able to do an evaluation of some sort. I talked about the film industry, local food production and I remember we went out to visit one of the local homes that had really gotten into food production. We talked about developing a food policy. I think that is still something we want to do but we are running out of time, so maybe it will be something we put on a transition arrangement with the next government.

Geoscience, we have been fairly successful getting money out of CanNor, the federal government in trying to protect the Arctic. They have invested $100 million in geoscience. We will probably have a debate on it. In my view, for every dollar you spend on geoscience you get $5 spent on exploration and $150 spent on development. I think that is a pretty good return.

Prospectors, I think we want to do something with devolution. I think that the devolution AIP, I think that we can look at doing something next year.

Electricity review, it is something we will have to continue to debate that. I think that we will see in two years. I think that, in our mind, we put ourselves in a better position to deal with that two years from now, as the media have raised.

The Lutselk’e mini-hydro, we can discuss that. The federal government, we have been pushing them pretty hard and we are trying to get a response, a commitment from them.

The dollar revenues, I would have to check our revenues. I know that our parks revenues have been going up and I’d to look at what our other revenue sources are.

Tourism, that’s something that we would like to continue to invest in and grow. The Protected Areas Strategy, we are a participant. We are sponsoring the Five Fingers/Five Fish Lakes in Jean Marie River.

Land use framework, we are working with the different departments to develop a land use framework. We are leading it through the Managing This Land Committee. The mandates of ITI and ENR, that was set by the Assembly, so we work with that. I already talked about the airport and the Mackenzie Pipeline. Those are my responses to the general comments, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. We already concluded general comments. Does committee agree that we move on to detail? Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was over in Dettah meeting with our Aboriginal brothers. Hopefully some other Members could have been

there and I am here and I would like to make general comments.

Does committee agree that we go back to general comments?