Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly share the Member’s enthusiasm when it comes to growing – pardon the pun – our agricultural industry here in the Northwest Territories and supporting the local production of fish and meats. Very important for us here in the Northwest Territories.

We’ve had some real opportunity I think through the Growing Forward Program funding that’s come to us from the federal government to advance initiatives around the Northwest Territories. We’ve got the Small Scale Foods Program in northern agri-foods, inter-settlement trade, traditional harvesting and commercial wildlife. Also, I’ve seen it first hand when I travelled to the Sahtu and was on a tour with Doug Whiteman in the Sahtu, a gentleman who grows tons of potatoes in Norman Wells and raises chickens. He also processes wild meat at a facility in Norman Wells. It was very, very impressive. That type of ingenuity and hard work, if it could make its way into a number of other communities around the Northwest Territories, I think that would really help on the cost of food in some of our smaller communities.

When I was in Fort Simpson just the other day with Mr. Menicoche, we were staying at the same bed and breakfast as two young ladies who were working for ITI as part of the Community Gardens Initiative and they were on their way to Wrigley to plant a garden for the community. It’s efforts like that that I think will make a real difference. On the food security issue, I’ll go to Deputy Minister Vician just for an update on that.