Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Tourism Product Diversification Program is an important one to diversify and expand the tourism market. We don't, as such, do a review of the exact spending on that department, but as a whole, like I said, the tourism numbers are up and so is the spending in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. $150,000 has been approved for the community tourism initiative and $125,000 for the Youth Mentorship Program. There is $275,000, plus we have another $125,000 we can get from other pots of money. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That would be devolution funding. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have established a working group that is having a look into this right now, currently, which includes ourselves, Public Works and Services, and Lands. As we move forward, we are going to have a look at legislation options we have available to enable geothermal exploration and development in the Northwest Territories, so we are currently working on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess, to be clear, we made a contribution to NWT TTA. They pull their own board together from across the Northwest Territories to represent all the regions. They put together their regional marketing plans, territorial marketing plans, and how they are going to move the tourism initiative forward in the Northwest Territories. As the Ministry of ITI, we have a broad overview of what they do, but they pretty much run their NWT TTA as a totally separate entity. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think there's some confusion. Right now we're doing community energy plans, like I said, for the community of Fort Providence and Aklavik. That's an energy plan. The other ones that we're currently trying to finish up in the Northwest Territories is the community energy profiles for all the communities, and that is the ones -- the Sahtu community is done, I will be able to give the Member from across.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said yesterday, there is probably no probability of anything happening in the next 10 years, but the truth is that we don't control the commodities markets. We don't know what is going to happen. It is no different than the previous question, why we have employees in the petroleum division. We have to work on a number of things, our legislative proposals and such. We might as well be working on a strategy at this time, as well, when things are in a downturn, so it just makes sense to continue moving that forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Tourism 2020 is for original marketing support, so that is the reason we want to keep them separate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What I can tell the Member is that we give the NWT TTA $3.3 million as core funding and they distribute that as they see fit. I would have to get that information from NWT TTA and what allocation is for destination. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reduction reflects the balance of a position reduction from 2016-17 as well as a sunset of devolution funding for receiving documents, core rehabilitation, core relocation, as well as funding no longer required for a portion of the shortfall for compensation and benefits for positions that came over to the GNWT during devolution. Thank you, Mr. Chair.