That's an interesting example. I thank the Minister for it. That water legislation has basically been in place since 1970, early 1970, so this is a very rare occurrence, indeed. I don't understand why the Minister did not write to the company after the first letter and say no further representations could be considered after the public hearing by the board. Some may view this as a breach of procedural fairness. Why did the Minister not tell the company that the proper avenue for questioning procedural fairness was to seek judicial review? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. It was sent back to the board because there was a question of procedural fairness. As he said before in his Member's statement, with devolution we will have more responsibility and ability to deal with these a lot quicker than they have been dealt with in the past, and I can commit to the Member and this House that we take that responsibility very seriously, and we will be looking at ways in the future where we can avoid the confusion.

I'm glad to hear the Minister is prepared to clear up this confusion, but can the Minister tell this House and the public whether there are any specific measures or policies in place to prevent this kind of approach of accepting submissions from water licence applicants after public hearings?

Mr. Speaker, we can't control the correspondence from any external parties during the ministerial decision phase of the water licensing process, and correspondence received during the decision phase is not considered in making the decision. The Minister, we rely on the board's reasons for the decision, and, as far as any policies in place, I would have to do some research and follow up with the Member.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I am pleased to work with the Minister to make sure that we can protect the integrity of our co-management systems, but some would say the GNWT has shown its cards by siding with the mining company rather than the protection of the environment and thrown the integrity of the evidence-based co-management system into doubt. We'll also have to convince Ottawa that we are capable of managing our own resources if we hope to get any further jurisdiction or powers under the devolution agreement and process. Mr. Speaker, how does the Minister intend to rebuild public confidence in our co-management systems, ensure procedural fairness, and convince Ottawa that we can properly and fairly manage our own resources? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't think that it's true that the government is siding with the mining companies, and as far as restoring public confidence, as I said before, there was a bit of confusion and we will take steps to ensure that this doesn't happen again, and we will have a clear set of rules that everyone is going to need to follow, and I believe Ottawa will come to the conclusion that we are quite capable of managing our resources. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've had the opportunity to bring the Agriculture Strategy to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment, and, based on their review of the document, we are revising the daft presently and putting in their recommendations, and once it's completed the draft will be circulated to other departments and include their internal reviews, and once that's done it's our goal to bring the draft back to committee next month.

Thank you to the Minister. There's been other issues with agriculture in the territory, good issues. Industry is moving quickly. The problem is government needs to catch up. There's been issues with selling domestic meat. We don't have the proper regulations in place. There's regulations in place for the sale of wild harvested meat, but, when it comes to domestic farm-raised animals, we're not quite there yet. Is the government doing something to address this so next season in the spring there will be something in place where farmers who wish to have livestock will be able to sell this meat?

During the review of our agriculture strategy, there has definitely been some challenges that were identified in this and one of them was the sale of and safe sale of locally produced meat. We are working on it. We are working with a number of departments, Health and Social Services in particular, to ensure that locally produced food can be sold to the public safely in the Northwest Territories, and I can update the Members now. The Department of Health and Social Services is reviewing its Public Health Act and regulations to address these gaps related to the food inspection, so hopefully by next summer we will be able to sell locally produced meat to the public of the Northwest Territories.

I appreciate that answer, as well. That's good to hear. We have a program, an agreement with the federal government, Growing Forward 2. It matches GNWT contributions 60:40, and it's used to grow the agriculture sector, particularly commercial agriculture. At the current rate of GNWT contributions we're going to miss out on over $1 million of this federal funding. Does the department have a plan to increase its contribution to take full advantage of the federal funds before the five-year agreement ends?

The Member is absolutely right. This is a 60/40 plan cost-shared with the federal government, and the annual contribution last year from the federal government was $732,000 and the GNWT was providing up to $488,000 in this program. The movement of programming dollars to ENR’s Take a Kid Harvesting and Take a Kid Trapping programs has negatively impacted ITI's Growing Forward equity funding, so what we've done is ITI is currently checking with other departments such as Health and Social Services and ENR to see if they have any programs that could fall under this funding requirement to help us to build our equity portion for the Growing Forward position. ITI is meeting with the federal government representatives next month to see what additional equity we can be using, and I will gladly get back to the Member on how that works out.

Masi. Oral questions, Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise again. This is the second time this week that this matter has been raised. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation. It's with regard to the safety of Highway No. 4 on the stretch from Niven Gate into town, the four-way stop in front of the Explorer Hotel.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to get correspondence from concerned citizens with regard to the safety of that stretch, and, as most know, now we have two hotels there with visitors as well as higher vehicle traffic in the area. It's becoming really concerning, given that there is no delineations on the roadway whatsoever right now as it relates to painted lines, and, as we're getting into the darker days, Mr. Speaker, this is all very problematic and troublesome as it relates to public safety; and so my first question for the Minister is: first, does the Minister recognize that this is now a commonly used active transportation corridor for walkers and cyclers and the like? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Transportation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a commonly used area. As I walk it every day when I come to work, I have crossed the highway and I come up the side of the highway and then take the secondary road to the Legislative Assembly. As I have stated in the House yesterday, we are working on this. We've met with the City of Yellowknife, user groups from Niven Lake, and we will continue to meet with them, and, as of even recently today, I've mentioned to another Member from the City of Yellowknife that at our next meeting I will gladly invite all the MLAs from the City of Yellowknife to participate in those talks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Although I appreciate that the Minister continues to give this reply, the meetings are not being productive; and what do the meetings mean, anyway? This is not the city's stretch of road. This is not the hotel's responsibility. This is not the other stakeholders' responsibility. The bottom line is, this stretch of road is under the ownership, operation, and maintenance of the Department of Transportation and it is their budget that needs to be invested in the public safety of this highway. We are putting people at risk. When are we going to stop the meetings and pushing this aside, and when are we going to start to invest in public safety? Will the Minister commit his department to this capital budget in putting in a delineated line where the public can walk safely and ride safely from Niven Gate into town?

As I stated in the House yesterday, we want to move forward with painting the lines on the highway, weather permitting, and this would be including the line along the edge of the highway where people can walk. Weather permitting, we are committed to doing that within the next coming weeks, so long as the weather is there.

Thank you to the Minister for his reply. Also in addition, as it has been requested a number of times and now that there is a significant amount of foot traffic, bike traffic, and in some instances, parents pushing strollers, now with the new hotel and seemingly traffic coming in four different directions in and out of the Ledge, in and out of the new hotel, in and out of town, will the Minister make a commitment from his department to put an illuminated pedestrian crosswalk from the entrance to the new hotel across to the Legislative Assembly so people can safely cross that stretch of road?