Thank you for that commitment, Mr. Minister. My final question for the Minister is how decisions will be made about who gets access to the land for growing.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. My question for the Minister is: If somebody wanted to grow food that they would later sell at the successful Yellowknife Farmers Market, how would they obtain land outside of the city to do that?

I am still a little unclear. If I wanted to begin…

What I heard is that land will not be available in some areas until all land claims are settled. I’m wondering how we can sustain the growth of the agriculture sector if there is going to be no additional land available for the production of food.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my statement today, agriculture has become a significant growth sector in the NWT economy in the last few years. It also has the added benefit of reducing food cost by substituting imported food. More growth is possible, but one of the limiting factors is the availability of the land. My question for the Minister of Lands is what plans the government has to make more land available in the NWT for agriculture and food production. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also wanted to acknowledge Nancy Vail, a tireless volunteer in our community working on a number of different files to improve our lives. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. As we turn to considering our economic supports and infrastructure spending, let's target our money where it will do the most good, producing the most durable jobs for dollars spent, and producing the most social good with the least environmental harm. I will have questions for the Minister of Lands. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the government has sounded the alarm about the impact of weakened markets for non-renewable resource products and the need to broaden the base of our economy. The Commissioner's Opening Address referred to the need for strategic investment, diversification, and modernization of the economy in its growth sectors. I agree. The growth of sectors outside of non-renewable resources is impressive. Tourism contributes over $100 million and has good potential in every region. The contributions of the forestry, fishing, and agriculture sectors, while small, have posted the largest growth rates of any sector in the past five years. The manufacturing sector has increased by 26 per cent over five years and at $10 million, shows great prospects for growth in the renewable energy sector. Forestry, fishing, hunting, and agriculture have also posted significant gains at almost 14 per cent in five years and are now worth a combined total of $29 million. The Yellowknife Farmers Market is a million dollar enterprise that didn't exist five years ago. Bear in mind that these are the jobs that provide the greatest return on investment. One million dollars invested in the oil and gas industry results in just 0.5 jobs, while the diamond industries creates 1.1 jobs for $1 million dollars spent. Compare that to the forest sector where $1 million dollars returns a whopping 23.4 jobs. Locally-owned enterprises offer the greatest multipliers and provide more stable, accessible and longer term jobs. They have a smaller environmental footprint by replacing imports, thus reducing the cost of living. Communities with locally-owned small enterprises have lower crime rates, use fewer social services, have better public health, maintain cultural continuity, and have lower rates of poverty, according to recent research commissioned by Alternatives North, and perhaps above all, any success in diversifying our economy gives our territory greater stability. It fights the non-renewable resource sector boom and bust.

Where this government can make a difference is in promotion of those renewable resource sectors. Small investments can provide major returns in reducing food insecurity, addressing energy costs through the introduction of renewables, and generally lowering the cost of living and the need for big paycheques. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Thank you. ---Unanimous consent granted

I won't repeat the points that have been made by my colleagues, although I agree with them. This document reflects some of the major points that I campaigned on. The process has not been very gratifying. When the document was created, I thought that we had an agreement to make a limited number of very specific priorities for the Assembly, but it turned out that refining the document meant adding so that we went from five major areas to, I don't know, 137 sub-areas or something like that, and in the process what we lost was the ability to make SMART goals. What I mean by that is the acronym SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Very few of these priorities fit into this framework of being a SMART goal, and as a result it will be difficult for us to show progress on the realization of this mandate. Maybe not coincidently, it will also be difficult to hold the Executive Council to account for what they have achieved or not achieved, because the goals themselves are phrased in such a vague way. While I appreciate that there have been a number of changes made, I still feel that there were some changes that were never on the table. I guess to the point of trying to create an atmosphere of greater collaboration and consultation, I think it's worth remembering that consultation doesn't mean only “I discussed it with you.” It means that “I discussed it with you and you had an opportunity to influence the outcome.” You have an opportunity to help us change directions. I guess I didn't really feel that that was the case with this document. I didn't feel that it was a process of equals, but a process that was really led by the Executive Council and with us running behind. As others have said, while there are many good things in this document that are aspirational, there's almost nothing that can be measured, and I think that that is a failing of this document.