Wally Schumann

We continue to reach out to all the territories and provinces on how we can enhance Aboriginal tourism in the Northwest Territories. The last report that I read, there are 32,000 Aboriginal people involved in Aboriginal tourism across Canada, and I believe the initiatives that we brought forward in Tourism 2020 are only going to enhance and improve tourism in the Northwest Territories and reach out to the world and show that Aboriginal culture and our languages that we have here bring more people to the North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe that is been in place roughly about five years, if I remember correctly. I do not believe it is tied to CPI. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. BDIC is aware of this reduction, of course, and it's a reflection of their corporate plan that's coming out. First of all, we don’t think that's going to have an impact on any of their programs and services, and the reason that we've done this is just part of our reduction exercise across the board. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we have said, it is a five-year initiative, and we are in our last year. I guess we will have to see who all comes forward to apply for some of this stuff, and what initiatives we move forward. We won't know until the end of the five years, but I suspect that we probably would not have any money left at the end of that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that's exactly what we want to do with it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Member is quite right. We've worked on a number of initiatives, and the one particular one, to directly answer his question, is a Community Tourism Coordinator Program that has just been enhanced in the new 2020. The communities can come forward and put funding towards hiring this individual. I don’t believe that we totally fund the whole program. It would have to be a cost-shared basis with the communities or Aboriginal governments that want to come forward. We're even open to ideas of where multiple communities within a region may apply for this individual to help promote tourism and be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would have to look that up and get back to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's under the economic diversification and business support page.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I have said, we are working with all departments, crossdepartmental, on how to move this initiative forward. Agricultural strategy is only getting tabled here. Hopefully in this session we are going to bring that forward and table that. It is part of our portfolio to diversify the economy of the Northwest Territories, and we believe that there is valid investment into it.

It has hit a roadblock on the Lands issue. We are going to work on that to try to get that alleviated so the people who want to go into superlarge commercial farming in the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, we would not be considering doing that right now. As I've said, we don't believe oil and gas is going to come back into the Northwest Territories for some time. The duties for this position, though, we believe will be carried forward by the client service and community relations division and ITI, which manages similar duties. So we believe that, if something does happen in the short-term, we will be able to fill that from internally. Thank you, Mr. Chair.