Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about tourism, my support of it, and certainly I recognize the hard work going on in the ITI shop to make sure that the Northwest Territories is certainly advocated in a very positive way to attract tourism. But one of the areas that I’d like to find out today and lay before this House is what is this government doing specifically to provide services for that type of tourism market. I referred to the RV sector, which is a very popular tourism group. Mr. Speaker, specific to investment in the Northwest Territories, what is the government doing to prepare for these RV tourists? Are they investing in infrastructure or services that can be seen? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Specifically to increasing the infrastructure to provide for RV parking, I’m pleased to announce to the Member that we are increasing the number of parking sites or camping sites that people with RVs can pull into. We’re also looking or studying the potential for expanding Fred Henne Park and we’re also looking at whether there are any possibilities out at Prelude Campsite. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that’s certainly good news. In the riding of Yellowknife Centre there are a lot of small businesses and they certainly rely significantly on this infusion of tourist dollars and, as we all know, the Territory’s economy relies seriously on the infusion of new types of dollars. Could the Minister elaborate a little further to what he means by looking at extending the Fred Henne Territorial Park to accommodate RV tourism, that type of sector? Can he elaborate to basically explain size, what dollar investment and when we can expect something? Thank you.
When I say we’re looking and studying Fred Henne Park, we’re looking at the available land that we have. We’re also looking at how many campsites we can build in there. Once we get all of that information we’ll have to put together a business case so we can come to the Legislative Assembly as part of our business planning process to obtain additional resources so that we can expand our capacity for RV camping. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as I said in my Member’s statement, Northern House, in my view, is a clear example of hard work and certainly an excellent demonstration of what the North has to offer.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve been highlighting my issue, trying to raise awareness about preparing for RV'ers, and certainly I know the staff working down there are clearly providing excellent examples of how people can get here and things to do. But if all that work is for naught, if we’re not prepared for them, I’d like to find out from the Minister what type of work is being done by Industry, Tourism and Investment to prepare for these types of tourism and hopefully a wave of tourism that may come this summer? Thank you.
We’ve been doing a lot of work and preparing for this invasion of tourists. In 2009-10 we’ve spent resources to upgrade our facilities. We’re planning to do additional work this summer. As well, I should point out that we will be examining opportunities with some of the land claim organizations or land claim, their government or businesses, to see if we can work in partnership with aboriginal governments to identify opportunities in the tourism sector. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I like the phrase of the Minister “preparing for the invasion of tourism,” but I would encourage the Minister not to count them until he sees the whites of their eyes crossing our border.
But, Mr. Speaker, how do we find out if this investment is working? That’s what I really want to make sure, is that all the investment done at the Northern House and all the work being done to attract tourism, how are linking it to any type of results to ensure that type of investment will be long-term dividends to our northern economy? One dollar spent anywhere in the North helps the whole North, so it’s about a big northern picture. Thank you.
There are a number of ways we can analyze how successful we’ve been at Northern House. One is to impute the value of all of the media coverage that we’ve been getting. We’ve been on major international networks, we are getting a lot of coverage from the tourism media and different newspapers and publications, so that’s one way of imputing value. If we had to pay for all that coverage, it would probably be in the millions of dollars, perhaps in the tens of millions of dollars.
Other ways will depend on how many people come to the Northwest Territories, and we capture that information through our tourism surveys and exit surveys, and I guess we’ll see on the ground. We’ve been getting very positive comments. A lot of people have indicated they’re coming to the Northwest Territories. So that would be how we would determine how successful we were with our campaign at the Olympics. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
QUESTIONS 372-16(4):
IMPROVEMENTS TO SAHTU
Mr. Chair, my question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to ask the Minister in terms of the education issue here. I want to ask the Minister what improvements to education have been made in the Sahtu communities because of the new investments approved through the budget process.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Through the new initiative, we’ve had several meetings on the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and they’ve made some recommendations to our department and we’ve implemented those particular initiatives. Although it may be small, it’s a start. We provide funding to each of the school education councils, so they can deal with enrolment issues, enrolment challenges. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, we’ve provided a laptop to the grade 12 students and now we’re looking towards next year of providing possibly to grade 11 students and other initiatives along the way that will certainly provide benefits to the students, to the communities and also the community as a whole. So those are the areas that we’re looking at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister, in his ministerial statement, talked about education and I also heard some Members talk about the Mentorship Program here. I want to ask the Minister, I’ve been working quite diligently with him over a couple of years to look at a mentorship program in the Sahtu in terms of involving our real teachers in our culture, the elders. How do you get the real teachers into an education system to work with us and the parents? When will the Minister put forth a directive saying elders now have to be involved in our education system?
Mr. Speaker, the amount of funding that we provide to education councils, it’s to their discretion on where to disclose the funds, whether it be to the elders or to the Mentorship Program. Some of the school districts are providing mentorship to improve student attendance using various examples. So it will be up to the Sahtu education council to provide that available information.
Mr. Speaker, although this is a small initiative that we’ve initiated, we are already making progress, we are seeing some changes in student attendance going up a bit. Mr. Speaker, on a going forward basis, this summer we’re going to have a package available from the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and I’m looking forward to implementing that with the support of the Members. So I will be coming back to the Members on an update. Mahsi.
I look forward to the initiative that the Minister will bring forward to the Members on the Aboriginal Achievement Initiative. We know students have to do hard work. They have to be disciplined. They have to have the parents influence them to go to school. The Minister is right; if you’re not in school, valuable lessons will not be learned. In terms of monitoring support for students, is the Minister monitoring the types of supports that can be provided in the school and the types of supports needed to have successful graduates to come out with a quality diploma?
I think the Member touched on it; parental involvement and community involvement. It has to be monitored at the community level as well. The school can only do so much. The education council can only do so much as well. As a department, we can do what we can to make a very successful program. So there are all these partners actively involved, Mr. Speaker, but we do have ongoing... We are currently discussing what the Member is alluding to, such as a Mentorship Program where elders could be involved. So those are the initial discussions we are having to date and the outcome will be this summer. Mahsi.
There are many issues in the Sahtu regarding education. I just recently was notified that two students that did attend a Fort Smith course at Aurora College and one wanted to attend the NAIT program. Both dropped out and went back to the Sahtu and are now working. Mr. Speaker, these are two young men that weren’t able to pursue the post-secondary education. That’s a crying shame, Mr. Speaker, in terms of supporting our students. With regards to all these issues that can be raised in the Sahtu, the Minister will be getting an educational symposium proposal from the Sahtu to have education looked at seriously in our region here. Is he open to areas that education could be looked at differently in the Sahtu in the Northwest Territories, so we can have culture and spirituality tied strongly into our education system?
I do believe we are making some changes in our curriculum, as long as it benefits the communities, benefits the schools, benefits the students. If we do it for one, we have to do it for all jurisdictions, not just one region. So, Mr. Speaker, those are the areas that we continue to have with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. There is valuable information and discussions taking place. Each of the regions are well represented and very fruitful discussions are happening. So, Mr. Speaker, all the issues addressed here today are being addressed at those particular committee meetings. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
