Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Because we have given the communities a lot more responsibility and a lot more financing, the purpose of the accountability framework is to work closely with the communities to have a pretty transparent system of how that money is dealt with. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. We give communities a grant, an infrastructure contribution and we have given them the responsibility of using that money. Does the Minister mean that the department is trying to keep tabs on communities? Is that kind of what this accountability is intended to do? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t say it is to keep tabs on the communities. I would call it work closely with the communities to ensure that public funds are spent the way they should be. It is more of a communication tool. We want to make sure that public funds are well looked after. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister for that. I appreciate that. I firmly agree with the Minister that we should be making sure that public funds are used properly. But in the Minister’s statement there is a statement he made that I really don’t quite understand. I would ask him to clarify. The Minister stated, “We will be asking communities to provide quarterly reports to ensure the framework continues to meet their needs.” Does this mean that communities are required to do quarterly reports on their spending or does it mean something else? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we do keep tabs on the community spending. We work with communities. This here is just to see if this accountability framework is meeting their needs. Is it working for them? Is communication between the community and MACA? Are there ways we can improve? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate this is intended to be a communications tool and a back and forth. I guess I just wanted to say that asking communities to report quarterly may be kind of onerous. It sounds to me that the Minister is open to suggestions for improvement on this framework. Is that correct? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we could have asked them to report once a year. That may not have been enough to satisfy some Members. We could have asked them to report 12 times a year. We thought for the first part, this would be a good starting point. If there are other options we can explore in the future such as less reporting once things get rolled out really good, then there may not be a need for further reporting. I am sure the communities will let us know that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about the great work that our youth were doing at our national skills competition, mirroring the similar comments mentioned by the Minister of Education himself, as well, on today’s subject.

There is no doubt that we are very proud of the previous Assembly who continued funding for Skills Canada. I applaud the government of the day for making those commitments, because I believe this is an incredible opportunity for our youth. Being part of it and seeing with my own eyes, with the Minister, the great things that we can do with the money that we give organizations. With that, one of the things the Minister and I saw when we were down there was the opportunity for these things called Try-a-trade demonstrations which clearly showed other skill sets that could be promoted and enhanced for the NWT youth. Because the Minister of Education was with me and we saw it with our own eyes, can he commit his department in investigating a department skills challenge and making this possible maybe in the future events? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I feel that we definitely need to explore this area where demonstration of other skill sets, those talented individuals from the Northwest Territories can be exposed. The Member and I talked about this in length, about the possibility and where we can explore opportunities. I will definitely commit to the Member and this House that we will be further exploring this opportunity on the demonstration of other skill sets at the National Skillset Competition. So I’m committing to that.

Thank you. I do appreciate the Minister for his thinking in this capacity. Again, we saw great things that we could do for our youth to open up doors, polish these gems as we’ve called and talked about. But adding one step further, would the Minister commit to potentially bringing, when we have our own skills competition in our own territory, bringing some of these quality, gifted, talented people in the trades area, bring them here to open it up a little bit better? Again, budgets are tight, I understand that, but sometimes we can bring these people to the Northwest Territories, these talents, so that we can actually encompass and touch more lives in the Northwest Territories. Would the Minister commit to looking at that aspect as well? Thank you.

Mahsi. This is an area where we need to work with Skills Canada. We provide funding to them. I believe its $80,000 on an annual basis and they also have corporate sponsors to bring in those individuals or send those individuals out, those talented Northwest Territories individuals. But I am pursuing this in looking further into potentially having those individuals from the Northwest Territories, maybe one per region, just for exposure at the national stage. They may not be competing, but to see them in action. So those are the areas that I seriously want to look at and possibly having those individuals from outside coming to the Northwest Territories when we have our competition here in the Northwest Territories as well. So that’s an area that we definitely want to explore and see the benefits of it. I’m sure there will be plenty of them. Mahsi.

The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of ITI. I’ve been a strong advocate of communities for some time. Recently we highlighted the cost of goods in terms of bringing goods from down south and making it available to

communities. Our communities are really relying on subsistence activities at the same time and whenever they can they grow their own gardens.

My question is to the Minister of ITI to see what programs exist to support initiatives such as schools undertaking to ensure that people grow their own foods in the community. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I really appreciated the Member’s statement today. I think it’s good news for the community and for his riding when community and especially youth take the opportunity to look at growing locally produced fruits and in this case strawberries.

The Government of the Northwest Territories certainly supports that type of initiative. We’ve got a number of programs. We’ve had the opportunity to get some real money into communities through the Growing Forward federal program and we’ve also augmented that with some of our own programs in the area of Agriculture Development Infrastructure Program. We’ve got about $263,000 going out and $60,000 earmarked as well for the Deh Cho. We’re certainly looking forward to the opportunity to expand the programs that we have, because we do realize the potential that exists of the locally produced produce, vegetables and meat, and fish products as well. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Minister for his response. It seems the government is encouraging people to undertake those initiatives and it does have existing programs, which is good.

My question to the Minister once again is: Has there been an agricultural assessment or study to indicate whether there’s potential for communities such as Fort Providence to look at some long-term investment planning to undertake community gardens and initiatives so that people can be able and communities can be able to grow their own food? Mahsi.

Thank you. I believe some of that work has been done in conjunction with the Territorial Farmer’s Association, a group that I’ve had the opportunity to meet with, and I’d be more than happy to try to get that information for the Member and put that together for him.

We also have this Community Gardens Program and I mentioned this earlier in this session in relation to a question that I was asked I believe by one of the other Regular Members. When I was down in Fort Simpson recently, we ran into two young university students who are working for ITI delivering the Community Garden Program, and they were in Fort Simpson just on their way to the community of Wrigley to help the community plant a garden. I think we’ve been in 29 communities across the NWT with this Community Gardens

Program and we’ve met with great success in that. Thank you.

Thank you. My question is, agriculture seems to have been cited as a very important potential for us to develop an industry so that we support our farmers that would like to make a living, at the same time to ensure that Northerners are independent to grow their own food. I know this government has committed to develop an overall Northwest Territories economic strategy. How does agriculture fit in that strategy? Mahsi.

Thank you. We hope that when the Sustainable Economic Development Strategy gets rolling, agriculture certainly will fit into that strategy and will be thoroughly examined. Some communities have a lot more opportunities in that area than others, especially communities, of course, in the southern part of the Northwest Territories. But as I mentioned in my Minister’s statement earlier today, it will be at the community level where opportunities exist. Again, agriculture for many communities is going to be one of the areas that we will target. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will continue to be to the Minister of Transportation regarding the Deh Cho Bridge. For clarity, did our engineers ever order Ruskin to take steps to complete the Deh Cho Bridge by the end of 2012 at Ruskin’s cost and by what authority are they instructing that direction?