Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously, first and foremost on my list in a few of these departments is the Inuvik gas situation. When I look at the opening address and the money allocated to helping out the residents of Inuvik. I always said it time and time again, that it’s a bigger issue than just the community of Inuvik. This is something that’s going to affect the economy as a whole for the NWT, the rippling effects should Inuvik run out of gas and the high cost of living.

As mentioned again, we were just there this past weekend for the graduation ceremonies and there’s a lot of discussion of people that are going to leave Inuvik. Get their houses up for sale. It’s very sad. It’s very unfortunate. I feel some help from this government in this dire need for the residents of Inuvik just so the community can continue to sustain itself. It’s something that we need to look at as a government, and take that as an approach to the situation that’s going to be upon us in two years in Norman Wells. I’ve always got to make that as a comment first and foremost. I can get into it more in detail but it’s something that we’ve been hammering out over and over as Members’ statements and questions during business plans that it needs to be taken as a reality to come to the community.

Like driving down Highway No. 7, maybe come down and live in Inuvik when the costs double for people who are going to be on gas and have to deal with the high cost of living even more when the businesses have to get their costs back by putting the prices up for their goods and services and see what the residents and long-term residents of Inuvik

who have made Inuvik their home and called Inuvik their home throughout their whole lives are going to have to live with it.

Inuvik is a transient community, we do get professionals that come and go. For the real people that live up in Inuvik and the ones that stay there and call it a home, the people that have come to Inuvik and called it home, it’s something that they’re all going to have to live with, and it’s, like I said, sad and it’s very unfortunate. With the economy and the lack of jobs up there, it just adds to the situation. I could continue on this but I’ll just make some other general comments within this department here.

Obviously, the socio-economic agreements and the MOUs for the northern mining workforce. We’ve had some mines come up to Inuvik to do some recruitment, but not very many people get hired out of there. It’s a nice gesture but it’s something that we need to push, not only for Inuvik but for all our communities in the North that have some of these skilled workers and don’t have the jobs in their regions or communities to go to work. It’s great to see the work that’s going on in the Sahtu and there’s people from our region that are working there, but if that wasn’t happening, the chances of our regional workers getting into the mines is probably pretty low.

Other comments with the permafrost position, I do believe it’s going to be something that was mentioned in the geoscience building. However, we talk about decentralization with all the technology we have today and being able to work with the groups up in the Beaufort-Delta region where we’re seeing climate change making the most impacts and how it’s impacting the lives of people who live off the land and in our coastal communities.

I was glad to see the money put in there for SEED. I just hope to see that the SEED money when it’s allocated to the communities is distributed fairly throughout the regions. I know that Yellowknife does have a big business sector. Some of our regional communities, as well, do have a big business sector. I do hope that a lot, not a lot, but I just hope for fairness that some of our businesses get the same amount of money that hopefully it won’t all get allocated to our capital.

Once again, speaking on behalf of the community that I represent in Inuvik, our numbers are down in tourism. It varies throughout the NWT but we do have a lot of really good things up there that should be highlighted and addressed and made mention of. We have some good parks up in the region as well. The tourist numbers were down this last year and hopefully we won’t see that trend continue. Maybe we can develop a strategic plan on addressing those issues for Inuvik, for Tuk, for all the communities that are up in that region there.

Another concern was just in our last couple of years we have seen some increases in campground fees.

We do get a lot of locals who do like to go out to the campgrounds on the weekends or during time off in the summer. They have to pay all these high extra costs while they’re already living in a high cost of living community. If there was some way we could address the locals kind of getting a little break when they want to utilize some of our nice campgrounds up in Inuvik and down the Dempster.

As we move forward year to year, we do get a growing disparity in cost of living and the money that people make and the jobs that we have throughout the communities. From community to community but you see it biggest from communities to regions and then regions to the capital. We just want fair, equal opportunities that should be met and addressed throughout the Northwest Territories. There are a lot of concerns and this department can address some of them. As we get into detail here, we’ll have some questions and look at ways we can do this.

Just in respect to the community of Inuvik and in respect to the community of Norman Wells, if it’s not a long-term source of fuel. We have to look at some energy initiatives and look at how we can create a long-term solution using other sources of energy.

Anyhow, just a few comments and as we get into detail we’ll get some more questions and hopefully find some solutions and those kind of things.