Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, shipping and shipping-related activities are administered and regulated under the Canadian Shipping Act and Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act which falls under the purview of Transport Canada. ENR recently participated in Transport Canada's panel discussion as part of their tanker safety expert review process, and we also participated in an Environment and Climate Change Canada science table that was formed to respond to the grounding of the barge in Tuktoyaktuk. Any opportunity we have, Mr. Speaker, to bring it to the attention of our federal counterparts, we use that opportunity. We recognize that, with the increased traffic flowing through the Northwest Passage coming into our neck of the woods, then we need to be updated as to all these. As a matter of fact, we are having a meeting in Whitehorse in a couple of weeks of Ministers of the Environment and we will continue to have those discussions, raising our concerns with Ottawa.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have seen in the news and my colleagues and the Cabinet have heard people talk about turn-offs and the shape that they are in, and in my riding people are asking who is responsible for this. I assumed it was ITI or ENR or both of them, but I was not totally sure. Can the Minister responsible for Infrastructure identity who is responsible for what with these road turnoffs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a memorandum of understanding between the Department of Infrastructure and the Department of ITI on these roadside turn-offs. The ones that have washrooms available, the Department of ITI looks after that. As for the garbage disposal at the turn-offs and the cleaning of snow removal and the grading and such, it is the Department of Infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for that answer. Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity about three weeks ago to travel from Fort Simpson to Grande Prairie and stopped at the various roadside stops just to stretch our legs as we moved on to Grande Prairie. My concern was that the garbage was spread around the facility. Can the Minister advise the House how much of the area surrounding the turn-off facility is taken care of by the Department of Infrastructure?

The turn-off responsibility would be the Department of Infrastructure for all the garbage there. I will take this opportunity to also talk to the House. It was mentioned to the House when we were in Inuvik for the NWTA. This issue came up. I informed the communities at that point that we have undertaken a harder look at how we maintain these turn-offs in the Northwest Territories. I have instructed ITI to put the turn-offs on a regular basis of cleaning, particularly around the winter season when it is a little more challenging, and have a look at that. With our contractors now in place, the turn-offs that are close to the campgrounds in the Northwest Territories, the contractors will be having a little bit closer look on maintaining them. On a regular basis going forward, the Department of Infrastructure, when we do our highway checks and stuff, they should be maintaining these sites on a regular basis.

I thank the Minister for that answer. It is great to hear that this is starting to happen. I am happy to see we have got an increase of 2.3 per cent of tourists coming into our territorial parks, and, in my riding, 49.84 per cent have seen an increase at Blackstone. To me, these sites are important. Roadside assistance is important to clean them and that. Is the Minister able to share with us the schedule, or is maintenance just done day-to-day?

As I said, in the wintertime, we will have a weekly look at doing these things, especially around the toilets. As far as the garbage goes, that would be on a daily basis. The Blackstone Park that the Member is referring to, there is a contractor in place, and that should be looked after on a daily basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I appreciate both departments taking the proactive approach trying to clean up our areas. Is the Minister able to look at the potential of actually having one department, whether it is Infrastructure or ITI, cleaning up these roadside assistance turn-offs so it is not two departments? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not think the Department of Infrastructure wants to look after the toilets, so I will have to talk to the Minister. Keeping them separate, it seems to be working, as the washrooms are more of a seasonal thing, even though they have got to be looked after a little better in the wintertime, which we are addressing. The thing with Infrastructure looking after the garbage and such, we have people that go out there daily, doing the highway checks, so we will continue on in that manner and that agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier in the week, the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment provided a Minister's statement entitled Approach to Economic Development. I commend him for that. I appreciated hearing from the Minister in that regard, but I would like to ask a few questions stemming from that Minister's statement. My first question would be: we have had some positive uptake on the mineral incentive program over the years past, in fact, over-subscribed; I am just wondering now if the Minister can update us if there has been positive uptake and what the reaction has been like so far to the increased funding to the mineral incentive program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would be glad to update the House. As many of us know under the MIP, the mineral incentive program, there used to be $400,000 there available, and, thanks to this House, we have increased that amount to $1 million. Already this year, we have awarded funding to seven prospectors, seven corporate proposals, for a total of $991,000 that has already been offered. This program this year received 23 proposals and requested $2.4 million under the MIP funding support, so the uptake is over 152 per cent of last year's.

Thank you to the Minister for that positive reply. Mr. Speaker, one only has to look to the many weekend farmers at community gardens, the success of the farmers' market and, in fact, how Polar Eggs is rolling in and out of our local grocery stores to recognize the interest in local foods and agriculture. Can the Minister provide a timeline for the completion of the agricultural strategy, and when local growers might have access to tangible supports stemming from the strategy?

As we all know, the Agricultural Strategy that we have tabled in this House is a five-year strategy, and we are into year one of that. There have been a number of initiatives that were identified in that strategy around the growers and implementation of the strategy and the challenges that we have around regulations and stuff to bring this industry up to where it needs to be. In the meantime, I want to remind all Members that local growers already have access to real supports of $1.2 million that we have that we spend annually to help support the agriculture industry, and, as we move forward, we will look at ways to expand that. They can engage with our regional offices on how to access that money.

Thank you to the Minister for his reply. In the Minister's statement that he provided earlier in the week, the Minister mentions the term "increases to catch volumes in the Great Slave Lake fishery since changes in the fisher support program." Can the Minister give us any numbers on those catch volumes and a sense of what the eventual outlook is for this fishery strategy?

I guess I want to lay a little groundwork how we got here. Three years ago, the formula that was there for fishers for their catch was fairly complex and it involved a number of thresholds and caps that were in place. Through the revitalization strategy, talking to the fishermen on how we are going to move this initiative forward, we changed that to a flat-scale base per-pound production. Total catch in 2014 was 288,000 kilos, and in 2015, following the changes to the support program that we put in place to help the fishermen, we saw the catch increase by 4,225 kilos. Last year, the same changes came into effect, and the record catch now was 520,000 kilos, which is still, historically, probably half of where it used to be. In moving the strategy forward, we hope to increase that significantly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, thank you to the Minister for his update. As the Minister knows, we are starting to have a promising film industry, and, by all accounts, it is thriving, but, as we have heard from those within the industry, there is still a lot of room to grow within this industry, especially as it relates to more along the lines of production and editing. Can the Minister describe what the future of the film rebate program will look like, and will it grow to support these opportunities within the film industry? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.