Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Department of ITI, when you look at the situation in the Northwest Territories, it’s at a place and time where the department and staff and its resources are most important or critical at this time. You have some big projects going on with ITI. You have tourism with world-class spots in the Northwest Territories that people want to see and visit. We have opportunities with tourism right down the Mackenzie Valley. In some places it’s pretty advantageous to put in some tourism projects and some it’s not too good because of the infrastructure. We don’t have quite the infrastructure there to bring people in. You can only go certain places on the all-weather roads and then they stop. Even that we have to fix up the facilities as we’re attracting tourists from the South, European tourists flying in.

Mr. Chair, if we continue to see development at the pace that we’re seeing in Alberta and the amount of impacts that are happening in our water and stuff that’s happening down in Alberta and down south, people are starting to realize that the Northwest Territories is probably going to be one of the last places in the world that has fresh, clean water, fresh air, and that’s what they want to see.

So ITI is in a very delicate balance to promote tourism and at the same time promote industry. Mining, oil and gas, exploration, even the outfitters and now we’re starting to see that there’s a push to look at how we support industry, especially in my area. The Minister is well aware of preliminary discussions and meetings he’s been having with his officials and various oil and gas companies on what the Sahtu could eventually become if all the stars lined up, and that’s what they say is there with the hydraulic fracking that they want to propose to do. We had several briefings last week; we had some meetings and we’re just at the tip of the iceberg on the Tulita district, shale oil in our area.

The question of the Mackenzie Gas Project I could say, for all intents and purposes, is up in the air unless the oil companies or the builders want to take a cut in their profits and build that pipeline at a

loss. Then we could see the Mackenzie Gas possibly being built. We don’t know, but we know the price of natural gas and we know what it costs the oil companies. They’re not there to lose money; stakeholders are there to make a profit. They’re legally obligated to make a profit. So we haven’t heard much from the federal government.

At the same time, the Minister is supporting and promoting Take a Kid Trapping. That’s a very good program. I fully support this and subscribe to this program, because the Minister is supporting and subscribing to our way of life. That’s something that this government needs to be applauded for. This program is to support our way of life, which is living on the land and we use the trapping for economic reasons. That I like.

We’ve got some proposed parks in my region called the Doi T’oh territorial proposed park. If it ever gets the light of day where we could take over once the federal government does all of its assessments and tells you what’s there and if we’re going to sign over, that will be the largest territorial park in the Northwest Territories and it’s a world-class park.

So the Minister has some very big projects in front of him. I just talked about a few and I’m sure hoping that the Minister looks at an oil and gas strategy. I know he talks about it sometimes as the Economic Development Strategy, but I think if the Minister would look at a specific oil and gas strategy other than the Economic Development Strategy, more specialized. Right now it’s almost like a mineral strategy he’s talking about. If this play as we’re seeing and hearing in the Tulita district, it’s big, it’s huge, bigger than the diamond mines. We should be looking at an oil and gas strategy. He’s talking about a Mining Strategy. I guess that’s something that bothers me a little bit, that we need to look at putting together a strategy, unless he explains really well this Economic Development Strategy. I don’t know enough about it. So I look forward to the Minister talking about that.

I want to ask the Minister when we go through the details on the budget about what efforts his department will be putting forward to Cabinet and to us to look at how they will support the Norman Wells oil and gas exploration work, what type of support he’ll be giving to the community in Tulita and Norman Wells. I want to ask the Minister about the Norman Wells natural gas situation. He mentioned somewhere in Inuvik. I’m not too sure what it will take to have this government write it down. I notice when you write things down it has more potential interaction. For me here a couple weeks and once in awhile I hear the Ministers over there talk about the Norman Wells natural gas situation. People in Norman Wells appreciate that when they’re left out, know it’s a burning issue, it’s facing them right now today. When you mention another community without even mentioning their

community, then they wonder if the government has their pulse on the situation happening in Norman Wells. I certainly know you have it on Inuvik, because you mentioned Inuvik, Inuvik, Inuvik. You haven’t mentioned Norman Wells. I’m not too sure of the reason behind that, but I’d certainly like to know that your government is there for them.

Those are my comments. I would wait until the Minister goes through the item page. I do want to say that the people in Deline are looking forward to a hydro initiative project. It’s been a long time in waiting and I want to thank the Minister for mentioning that small-scale hydro project. I want to see where we look at where some construction can happen.