Thank you, Madam Chair. The Northern Food Development Program does aim to remove barriers, create employment, and facilitate the development of a northern food production sector by providing supports to commercial producers of northern fish, meat, or other food products, so that they are safe to be sold to consumers.
We have identified food security as one of our priorities of the 19th Assembly. It does cross more than just the ITI spectrum and into other departments, as we mentioned earlier, like ENR and Health and Social Services, as well. We have hired a senior advisor for food security for a one-year time frame at this point. The senior advisor for food security will assist us in the immediate COVID-related food security issues and coordinate the entire GNWT food security effort to identify any of the gaps and the opportunities that we can to strengthen food security results across the territory. It is our hope that, in this work right now, they're doing immediate relief for food security, but in that same time, they are going to be looking forward to the overarching direction that the GNWT needs to take to ensure that we are not so vulnerable to southern producers.
When this all started, even before COVID, what was going on in the United States was concerning to me because a lot of our food not only comes from the US, it comes through the US from Mexico. Already, in my mind, even way before COVID was ever on our radar, it occurred to me that, in the North, we are particularly vulnerable if the US and Canadian border were to ever shut off. As I have sat on the agriculture calls now with the federal Minister and my territorial and provincial counterparts, they also are very aware of the food security issues. Thank you.