Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments would be more reflective of the situation that we have in my riding around the oil and gas. I do want to thank the Minister and the staff for doing the best they can in the situations of our economic opportunity and working with the region. You responded and you’ve done some things that were greatly appreciated in our region. Right now we have Colville Lake with some activity going on there. Hopefully, in the future we’ll have some other
work being done around Conoco’s lease in maybe other areas. I do want to say to the Minister and the staff that you’re doing a good job. I guess that’s what I want to say.
I do want to say also to the staff there that I’d like to say to the Minister the work that your department is doing on the Canol Heritage Trail, the park itself, the proposed park, we appreciate it. Your team is there working with us. One of the things that we just wanted to give you our peak of interest is a winter recreational park across from Norman Wells. It’s called the Canol area. It will be the first one in the territory. But I really like that idea, and I’d like you guys to pursue it as much as you can and say that it’s not something that you people in Sahtu, specifically the town of Norman Wells, to look at a winter recreation park. It would be the first of its kind in the Northwest Territories. It takes a lot of discussion, but I’m thinking that something like that should be considered.
I do want to say that the agriculture has taken off in the Sahtu. We’re growing some fairly big potatoes over there. It almost could be the capital spud of the Territories here. Some people there continue doing that. There are some people in the Good Hope area who have taken advantage of the agriculture program. There are some things happening there, and I do want to say that we look forward to what this department is doing. I think, my sense from the staff in Norman Wells, the Minister, we’ve been having some pretty good working relationships with our communities. It’s not so much any type of complaint to the department. I just want to say thank you, I guess. It’s kind of rare for me, you know. But I wanted to say that to the Minister because the Minister has worked well in Colville Lake and all my communities, Good Hope, Tulita, the Wells and Deline.
We’re up against some challenges and the one that would really help us, of course, is with the economic activity that could make a boost for us. If there’s anything that this department can help with the transportation of government is to create that sustainability or consistency with economic development, we greatly appreciate it. We are quite aware of the challenge of bringing tourists into the Sahtu region. It’s a given. Not like Yellowknife. Sometimes we get a little bit grouchy because we think most of the money is coming to the larger centres. Lots of people come here from outside of Canada. We don’t see it too much in the Sahtu region and we’re saying, well, what’s going on here. That’s why we’re trying to create, like Mr. Moses said, tourism further north. They’re doing some good things up in Inuvik and they want to do that, which is good, but sometimes we don’t get the amount that we’d like, except for the hunting season where we get big game outfitters and they’re mostly from the South but they come into our region to work. So, I just wanted to let the
Minister know that people are willing to work and I think that’s a good thing and I want to say to the Minister that he has a good staff in the region working for us. That’s all I want to say. Thank you.