Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This morning my colleague and I had the privilege of joining the Minister of ENR and the Premier in our Caucus room of our Legislature here to witness the signing of the Forest Management Agreement Memorandum of Understanding between the GNWT and the Deh Gah Gotie Dene Band and the Fort Providence Metis Nation.

This was an historic milestone and brings one step closer the dream of a proponent in Hay River, Mr. Brad Mapes, who has wanted to set up an operation to manufacture wood pellets in the Northwest Territories.

We know that we have a very vast resource of inventory of vegetation and forestry in the Northwest Territories. It’s a renewable resource, and when we can harvest that and put that into the manufacture of pellets, it’s a win-win for everyone.

It will certainly create a lot of employment and industry in Hay River. It will create a lot of employment and industry in the regions around Hay River as those folks become involved in the jobs that will be harvesting that vegetation.

In order to get to this milestone today, though, I want to say that we have to give some recognition to the folks at forest management under ENR, because in order to come up with this agreement, there were many hours of work that had to first go into doing an inventory of what’s out there, what can be sustainably harvested over the years to come, and also to come up with the actual Forest Management Agreement. Many, many hours of work, and compliments to the folks at forest management under Minister Miltenberger’s guidance for getting us to this point.

I understand that there will be a celebration in Fort Providence in conjunction with what took place in the Caucus room this morning, but I just wanted to take this opportunity today to thank and congratulate all the parties to this agreement for this milestone, and we look forward to its continued and future success.