Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT is implementing its strategy to revitalize the Great Slave Lake commercial fishery. I am very supportive of its goals, mainly to develop a commercial fishery into a sustainable industry and to increase returns to fishers. However, I am very troubled by the approach that the Department of ITI has taken in its dealings with the fishermen, which, from what I hear, sounds like a paternalistic way of doing business that should have been dead and buried decades ago.

A key component of this strategy is the construction of a new fish processing plant in Hay River. From what I can tell, the $12-million facility will be owned and managed by ITI and, at some point, the Tu Cho Fishers Co-operative, a co-op of local fishers, will somehow come to own the plant, or maybe they'll lease it, or maybe they'll just manage it. It is all very unclear to me, and it is unclear to the fishermen, as well.

The GNWT used the names of the Tu Cho Cooperative and the NWT Fishermen's Federation to access $10 million of federal funds to help build the plant, but is treating the fishermen more like pawns than partners. The government has well-paid employees and budgets for consultants, all of whom can work to advance the department's own interests on this project. They are actually in the process of hiring someone to manage the plant right now.

If ITI thought of the fishermen as partners, then they would ensure that they had similar supports. Neither the federation nor the co-op has the administrative capacity or the budget to hire someone with the skills needed to help them fully participate in the project and to advocate on their behalf, and ITI uses this power disparity to steamroll ahead while fishers are kept in the dark. Their participation is further eroded by ITI's insistence on engaging individual fishers instead of the elected heads of the federation or the co-op, and approach that has sown division among fishers. That's colonialism 101, Mr. Speaker.

The government has also actively taken steps to reduce influence of fishermen. The GNWT has a seat on the board of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, which has always been filled by a fisherman, but this summer the GNWT installed one of its own on the board. That directly contradicts the very first recommendation of the federal ministerial advisory panel that has been studying freshwater for the past number of years, which recommends increasing fisher participation on the board.

I have also been informed that ITI has discouraged the fishermen from pursuing partnerships with Indigenous governments and has worked to thwart the efforts of Indigenous entrepreneurs who want to invest in the industry and help it grow.

Mr. Speaker, ITI should not be working to consolidate its power and crush its competitors. The department has lost sight of the goals of the strategy and who the strategy is meant to benefit, and that needs to change. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.