Thank you, Minister. Committee, we’ve agreed to go to general comments, I believe. Agreed?
Agreed.
So general comments. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I’d like to thank the Minister for his opening comments today. I’m just going to go through and highlight just a couple of areas of interest to me.
One of the first areas I’d like to highlight is the investment of $150,000 into an economic development officer in the community of Ulukhaktok. I think this is a great step. I attended, in November, a meeting to work on a framework for the Anti-Poverty Strategy and in my opinion for any Anti-Poverty Strategy to be effective, Industry and Tourism and Investment and business need to be there. They need to be a partner. The reason I think that is because without economic development we can do all the social programs we want, but there won’t be any progress, there won’t be anything for these people to do. I think putting something, like, an EDO in a community like Ulukhaktok is going to solve the problem. I think having that person there who can work with local people to identify local opportunities that they can create their own businesses is brilliant and I know we don’t have one in every community and some communities might be too small to warrant them now, but over time it would be great to see more economic development officers in the communities working with the people on any opportunity that exists to bring money into a community and put money into pockets rather than just continuing to circulate the dollars that are there. I think an EDO in Ulukhaktok is a good step.
Also, you talked about increased money for SEED. I think that’s great. Once again, it would be great to see some of that money getting into the communities and more small business occurring in the communities. The more people we employ in the communities, the less we’ll be spending on social programs. So I’m happy to see that, but I’d like to see some additional focus on getting some of that stuff into the communities.
I’m very, very pleased to see additional money, more money going into things like arts and crafts. Now, I do have a question and you can answer it when you’re doing your summation, when you say arts and crafts I do want to know what you mean by art because art is very broad. Does that mean print or painting, or does it include things like performance art and stuff like that? There are many opportunities under that word “art” and under what is art for business opportunities and giving people meaningful employment even if they are running their own businesses.
I’m happy to see the $100,000 in support of the film industry. I know that I and my colleagues have been very vocal about the advantages that the film industry can bring to the Northwest Territories. I am going to be interested to see exactly what you’re spending that $100,000 on, whether it’s the study or whether we’re actually planning some implementation of some of the recommendations that we might see in May. I think it’s May when we’re going to see them. So that’s very good.
Different subject, and you didn’t really touch on this one, but this is something I and some of my colleagues attended a briefing a little while ago with NWT Tourism, the Minister himself and some representatives from the Hotel Association. My colleague Mr. Hawkins was talking about a hotel tax earlier today and I heard something slightly different when I was meeting with those people. I heard some representatives from the Hotel Association saying we would like legislation that would allow communities to choose to put in a hotel tax or not, and that those revenues, the 1 percent Mr. Hawkins was talking about, would then go back to the association to help them promote and support tourism in the Northwest Territories. I think that’s brilliant. I’m not sure that the GNWT should be putting a territory-wide tax, but I do support the idea of us putting in some legislation that would allow communities to choose to do that to support their hotel associations and I would like to see the Minister obviously champion in that to the Minister of Finance so that we can get that to happen. I think the legislation already exists in some jurisdictions. It should not be too hard for us to jump on that, get it to the Minister of Finance and implement it so those communities can make choices in the best interest of tourism in their communities and regions. So I’d really like to see the Minister making some progress in that area.
Very happy to see the investment in agriculture and fishing and community gardens, brilliant. Anything to help reduce the cost of living is a win-win. In October and previously I made statements and comments and I asked questions about red tape and I know my colleague Mr. Hawkins made some statements about red tape earlier in this session. Recognizing that the GNWT is not the only person responsible for red tape -- even though in the report it sounds like everything is the Government of the Northwest Territories by CFIB -- red tape is in the City, red tape is in the GNWT, red tape is in the federal government. I’m going to be asking some questions when we get to that area about what kind of paper requirement, what kind of reporting requirement do we require through SEED and for the small local businesses have we ever really dug into our program to see how much red tape our programs are creating for these small businesses. Is it reasonable? Is it too much? Are we making sure that people understand what the forms are, why they have to fill these things out and if there’s duplication have we considered getting rid of it? So red tape is an issue and when we get to that section I will be talking to it.
There are a lot of things happening in the Northwest Territories, and with the signing of the AIP and devolution in our foreseeable future there’s going to be more opportunities. So I’m really happy to hear you talk about things like Avalon, Canadian Zinc Corporation, Prairie Creek, diamond mines. I think we need to keep moving on those areas, responsible development. We need to be proponents of responsible development. So I’m happy to see some of those things there that could bring fresh new dollars into the Northwest Territories. Like I’ve said before, the dollars coming in are important and we need to bring outside dollars in and we need to find ways to circulate it as much as we can. The big industries will bring in the dollars, but we need as much strong, sustainable small businesses to keep those dollars circulating as much as possible. So it’s good to see some of those big things coming and hopefully we’ll see some more as we take some additional responsibility for our Territory, keeping in mind that it must be environmentally and socially responsible.
I will have many questions during detail, but thank you for your remarks and I look forward to your general thoughts on some of the things I’ve said and things I’m sure my colleagues are going to say as well. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Committee, general comments, Industry, Tourism and Investment. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few opening comments and I just wanted to echo some of the things my colleague Mr. Abernethy was saying about investment. I want to start off by saying I know the Minister is a real champion of the Northwest Territories and I know that he works very hard at promoting the Northwest Territories and getting out and hustling to get investment and dollars into our Territory and I’d like to thank him for the work that he does. I think as a Territory, and I know the Minister does what he does, but I think we should be doing much, much more self-promotion in getting out and letting people know what’s here, what opportunities are here and attracting investment.
There’s been a lot of work going toward the regulatory process. I know there’s still some work underway there. We need to start seeing those dollars coming back to the Northwest Territories in terms of exploration and development.
I know as well as championing the Territories, the Minister is a big fan of the Mackenzie Gas Project and I share his enthusiasm with that project and what it means to the future of the Northwest Territories. We need jobs, we need opportunities and these things aren’t just going to create themselves. We have to be out in front of it and trying to get dollars here and investment dollars here. The Northwest Territories is full of potential and I think the future is very bright and we need to be acting on the opportunities and possibilities that exist here for mining. I know Mr. Abernethy talked of some and I’m very excited about Prairie Creek, very excited about Gahcho Kue. There’s a real lot of excitement that’s out there and I think we need to harness that and keep moving in the right direction, and the Minister in his time as Minister of ITI has certainly done that.
We could always use more money for tourism and I’m a big fan of tourism, I always have been. Money spent on maintaining and upgrading our parks system and coupled with that is the road system. I know we just had the Minister of Transportation here, but we need to be working with both departments to ensure, and other Members have talked about the Deh Cho loop, the Deh Cho Trail, the improvements to the Liard Highway and the tourism opportunities that exist in the Deh Cho. They need to be thoroughly explored and the road is a big component of that, obviously.
I know the Minister and the department are committed to the parks system here in the Northwest Territories. It’s a fantastic parks system.
We also heard of Members talking about expanding the runway here in Yellowknife and that’s always been an issue that I think at some point in time I’d like to see addressed. We need to be looking at getting international flights directly from places like Japan and Germany into the Northwest Territories. Currently, they can fly directly into places like Alaska and Whitehorse, and we need to level that playing field. I think having an extended runway here in Yellowknife would certainly do that.
I think that’s about it. I’m encouraged with the extra money for SEED as well. I think there are some good things happening there. I know the Minister also did yeoman work in the Electricity Rate Review here in the Northwest Territories and I think he deserves a lot of credit for that as well. In so that it’s going to finally, I think, give people and businesses an opportunity on the ground in small communities to have a chance to succeed, because utility costs were killing people. If we take that big chunk of expenditures out of operating a business in the small community, that’s going to go a long way, I think. It’s early days yet but a couple years from now I think we’ll see more business start-up. I also think we’re going to have to look at finding some more money to get into business start-ups and providing opportunities for entrepreneurs that are out there to get into business at the community level so that we can grow an economy in our smaller communities. I think that the Electricity Rate Review and decreasing the price of power in the small communities, I think that’s going to be a great thing down the road.
I think that’s it for my comments, Mr. Chairman. I may have some comments as we go through the detail, but I just, again, wanted to thank the Minister and his staff I know who worked very hard in trying to deliver the department’s mandate. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next on my list is Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would also like to thank the Minister for the grand opening of our carvers and print shop in Ulukhaktok. I think it’s going to be a big success for the community, the region and for the Territory in selling our quality prints and carvings.
Highlights, especially in the report from Nunakput include the $350,000 in additional funding to support entrepreneurs and economic development in the SEED program, which we really need. The $1 million in Tourism 2015 program, the initiatives are attracting people to the Nunakput region to see our beautiful country up in where I’m from. The Small Communities Employment Program will support short-term job creation projects and skilled development in communities with low incomes. Looking forward to that. The $100,000 in additional funding to support food processing for commercial harvesting such as fish and meat. It will be good to see with our muskox meat that once the harvest is done, that it helps out not only selling it to the restaurants or in the marketplace, it helps out people in the communities as well. The $475,000 for the Community Harvesters Assistance Program amount almost doubles this year’s funding. With the contribution of the local wildlife committee who provided assistance, it now reaches a total of $1 million. We’re really looking forward to the extra funding.
The sport hunting market, the outfitters that are hurting from the ban from the U.S. pulling out of letting polar bears get on the endangered species list. I thank the Minister for all the hard work he’s done with me in regard to trying to get the European market to come hunt in the Nunakput region. We’re working together now to get Jim Shockey -- he’s a big game outfitter -- to come and do infomercials in the market and hopefully by the end of April to visit all the Nunakput communities.
The biggest drivers of the cost of living in the Nunakput region, the budget shows that the $1 million for residual heat in four communities including Ulukhaktok, we really need that. We’re thankful. Continued implementation on the GNWT Energy Plan includes investments in the Arctic Energy Alliance, which they’re a big help. Energy Efficiency Initiative Incentive Program, EnerGuide houses, EnerGuide information and awareness. Other investments are also being made in the energy efficiency initiatives and alternative energy sources, which I think is going to be good to see in the smaller communities. The $150,000 to support community energy plans in the communities are needed for the hamlets and private business people to try to succeed in business in the smaller communities. Business Support Program, business marketing changes in the operations and improved energy efficiency. One of the biggest ones is the wind energy supply in Tuk and Ulukhaktok. We’re looking forward to that. Also, the budget energy management specialist under the GNWT Energy Plan, we’re looking forward to that as well.
I always like to say, you know, in Nunakput we have basically all the oil and gas in the NWT. We’re resource rich and cash poor. Hopefully, with the pipeline going through and all the hard work that the Premier and the Minister are working towards getting the pipeline put through and the offshore exploration that’s going to happen with that and the job creation. Last month I was in Tuk and they’re talking LNG plant for Tuk. That’s looking really good and positive. Making Tuk a deep sea port to cut sailing time and drop the cost of living in Tuk and across the Nunakput communities that we represent. I think, with everything that’s going on, we’re going the right way.
I would just like to thank, again, the Minister for all the hard work he’s done with me and my office to provide services to Nunakput. Thank you and I look forward to page by page. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Next on my list, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to general comments. I want to start off by saying I’m very happy to see the department coming in at a 3 percent including a forced growth raise this year and nothing higher as the previous department did. I think that’s responsible and I appreciate the effort that that takes. I also agree with most if not all of the initiatives that the Minister highlighted here. The $150,000 proposed for the De Beers project, I would ask the Minister to please not use the model he used to develop the socio-economic agreement for the Mackenzie Gas Project. It was obviously an unmitigated disaster for the people of the Northwest Territories, but to stick with the diamond mine model that’s been developed before. We don’t need another travesty like that.
On the SEED policy, we steadily increased that I would like to see some evaluation of that program. We initially were interested in lots of ways of breaking down and examining that. That proved very challenging for this department, so I’m going to be asking again that we get some evaluation of those investments on a sector basis. As onerous as that might be, I think it’s the responsible way to go and perhaps that’s easily done now.
I also was happy to see the increase for the film industry. I’m awaiting the results of the review that’s ongoing, I believe, and will inform whether that’s a sufficient investment or not. I’m also curious on how it will be invested, of course.
The general approach to increasing food production or general highlighting and identification of that item is one I know the Minister is aware that I’m really supportive of. I think our investments there are somewhat modest, particularly in the area of agricultural development. They have done studies there with experts that have demonstrated the amazing gains that could be achieved with a very modest investment and really superb economic contributions that would be sustainable, I think, simply to provide 25 percent of our produce and meat products in the agricultural industry in the southern part of the NWT. But I appreciate all the other work that’s been done in the communities and I think that’s where society is and that there’s good response happening to the department’s efforts there.
I just want to highlight a couple of other areas. Of course I know we are supporting geoscience research to the tune of millions of dollars per year. A huge subsidy to this industry. I’m not sure whether we’re getting returns back on that. I know the federal government should be playing that role and I know they do in fact spend millions in that source. I’m a bit unclear about what we get from any investment there. I think where I saw productive investments was in the prospectors programs, modest as it was. That’s a role for our government until after devolution, after which I think it would be appropriate to get into that area of investment.
Again we’ve heard how the substantial investment of time and effort -- and I notice the Minister left out money, over $250,000 -- in the electricity system review. Probably pointed to as one of the most significant achievements in addressing the high cost of living. Really, this exercise simply has hidden the cost by shifting them from the ratepayers to the taxpayers. While I’m of course happy for the business community, for all the rest of us this is a pretty hollow victory. If this is something we’re proud of, I think we’re setting the bar awfully darn low. I hope we’ll correct that and start going after real costs.
One of which I think is highlighted here and that is the decision to get after -- I can’t say go ahead yet, apparently -- the Lutselk’e mini-hydro facility. Apparently this is vulnerable, depending on access to the federal Green Infrastructure Fund. I guess I’d be interested in how vulnerable that is, where we are at with that. We’ve been working on this for a decade. I would have thought we’d have nailed that partnership down by now.
I am concerned with the considerable drop in revenues of this department. If there’s one department you would expect to see some increases, it would be this department.
I’d say good things are happening with tourism, which I’m very happy to see. I think if we can enhance that with real environmentally responsible and innovative approaches to tourism business we would see even more benefits. I think sort of the green tourism potential is high. Not only that, the more we can show that environmental responsibility, the more we’ll have other types of tourism. My colleague Mr. Krutko and I, when we visited the Nordic countries, we were amazed at the number of people visiting those countries simply to see their technologies and how they do things in such an effective manner environmentally and how much it stimulated their economies.
I haven’t heard much about the significant role this department should be playing in the Protected Areas Strategy and supporting our Aboriginal partners, and any role in the land use framework. Again I remain concerned about the ongoing overlap and confusing mandates between Environment and Natural Resources and ITI.
I think one of my colleagues, I believe it was the chairman, mentioned the airport extension as a possibility in Yellowknife during our review of Transportation. I think there’s obviously an important role for ITI here in contributing to the development of a business case or not. I’d be interested if perhaps that’s happening too.
Again, as far as the Mackenzie Gas Project, I don’t think we need to be salesmen for this project. I think we need to be critical managers of it. It’s been approved. Let’s now drop the rose-tinted glasses and make sure it’s managed in a way that actually benefits our people, something that hasn’t been done to date and is not even in the three objectives of this government in real terms. I will be asking questions and contributing to the ongoing efforts on that project that may happen someday, but seems to be a huge priority every year for the last I don’t know how many years. It’s just simply costing us.
I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I have nobody on my list. Is committee agreed that we’ve concluded general comments?
Agreed.
I will now go to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment to respond to the general comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Members for those general comments. With regard to some of the specific comments that Mr. Abernethy raised, we certainly agree that we need to promote investment in the smaller communities and I think that’s evidenced by putting on the EDO in Ulukhaktok. I think the air rates were killing us, so it was a lot better to have somebody right there to maximize the funding. I think it was when Senator Eggleton came and talked about the anti-poverty, and that certainly cemented to me that job creation was a very large factor in reducing poverty. Certainly the more investment we can do in creating employment, the better it is.
On the investment with SEED, that’s certainly one of our objectives with SEED, is to create more small business in small communities. We are working very hard at that. There are still some challenges we have to address in terms of applications and approval rates for issuing and approving loans in communities, but we’re working on pushing more of those authorities out to the communities.
Arts and crafts, we are talking about artisans, not performers. Right now ITI has the responsibility for artisans and ECE has the responsibility for performers but we work very closely together to maximize that.
The film industry we have spent money on consulting. I think we have the report now. We’ll be meeting with the film producers and expect to finalize and table the report in May. Our expectation is that the money that we’ve identified now will go over the years as we get more and more into that field.
Hotel tax, that was my understanding as well, was that we would find a way to have the communities decide and also invest the money as the money is collected within the communities. We’re continuing to work with the NWT Association of Communities and Finance. My understanding of the process is that we have to go through the roundtable process and work to get this through the mill or the sausage maker or whatever they call it.
Local harvesting, it’s very important. In the past we used to value the results of harvesting at about $50 million. If the harvesting wasn’t there and you had to buy all the food at the grocery stores that’s how much extra it would cost. Now with division, we’re probably looking at closer to $25 million or $30 million, but local harvesting is still very important and the more self-sufficient we can get, the better it is.
On red tape, we used to have a red tape directorate. I think it was in the 13th Assembly. They ran out of things to do, I don’t know if they ran out of red tape to cut or I think it was more through cost reductions that the directorate was closed and the responsibility for reducing red tape was passed out to the departments. So each department is responsible for that. As a government we believe that with devolution, overall red tape will be reduced significantly, and of course we’re promoting the implementation of BizPaL throughout the Northwest Territories. We’re working very closely with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
On the comments on Avalon Canadian Zinc, other Nico Fortune Minerals, those kinds of projects, I think that devolution we’ve said many times is a game changer and without devolution we would have to just watch the federal government deal with it. With devolution we can now go and talk to these proponents to see what it would take to advance the projects and we can have much more hands-on approach. I think that’s a better way to go.
With regard to Mr. Ramsay’s comments, promoting NWT investment, and I know it’s been a big priority and I’ve been very grateful for the Members that have travelled along and helped promote the Northwest Territories. I think it’s been very worthwhile and gone a long ways.
The regulatory process is still an issue and whenever we go to mining meetings that’s one of the big concerns. They always compare us to Nunavut and Yukon and our regulatory process. The issues they need are some fiscal incentives. They’re finding it very difficult to access capital for exploration. Those kinds of things.
The Mackenzie Pipeline, that’s, as we’ve gone up and down the valley talking to communities, quite a few communities say, well, when we say do you think we should be promoting the local economy instead of promoting the Mackenzie Pipeline, quite a few communities say to them the Mackenzie Pipeline is promoting local economy.
More money for tourism. I know we’d always like to have more money and we think that if we had more money we could probably develop more products and have more visitation, but we realize the fiscal realities that we have to work under.
NWT parks again is, thank God we have beautiful, spectacular opportunities and experiences that can be developed and we will continue to work on that.
On expanding or extending the runway, ITI did lead and commission a study and we held a number of stakeholder meetings and consultations. The conclusion was that the primary local business didn’t support extending our runway. They felt that the business plan wasn’t there. They weren’t prepared to subsidize or spend money on a runway where they didn’t see the return on investment. That’s about as far as it got. We’re prepared to revisit it as we go along and as the economy continues to improve.
The money for SEED, that program has been oversubscribed pretty well since we instituted it. The more money we put into it the more it goes into the smaller communities.
The Electricity Rate Review, we’re starting to see the results of that. People are starting to receive their bills. So in the thermal communities they are benefitting.
Dollars for business start-ups, this is an area that we’re continuing to promote and we think that becoming an entrepreneur is a very excellent way to go. I think there are opportunities we can promote.
MLA Jacobson, Ulukhaktok was quite an eye-opener to go and see the impact that the opening of the print shop and carving centre had on the community and all the thanks and how grateful the people were and I think it is really going to be good for the community.
I talked about SEED already, tourism, fish and meat. I think that with increased investment in local wildlife committees and community harvesters, people in our communities that have to go further to get caribou will now be able to use that funding for that. It’s been quite a while since we had put money into that program. The outfitting, I think Jim Shockey -- I saw one of his promotions on TV -- would be excellent.
On the energy side, the residual heat, Arctic Energy Alliance and EnerGuide, every time we meet with a federal Minister we tell them that one of the biggest mistakes was they got rid of their Housing Efficiency Program. I thought that was an excellent program. If they wanted to do something for Canadians, they should reinstitute that. Offshore Mackenzie Pipeline, we are participating in the offshore review of the Mackenzie Pipeline. We are still waiting for the Order-in-Council from the federal government as to whether they’re going to approve the pipeline or not.
LNG terminal, I am not sure. I know we looked at economics of doing it in Alaska. The economics up there weren’t that great, but they have a different kind of natural gas there that needs to be cleaned up and is a lot further from an ocean port. I would be interested in looking at what the economics would be for something like that in Tuk. I agree a deep sea port would be very good for that area.
MLA Bromley, 3 percent growth is pretty hard to live with, but it is a commitment that we made as a government. I think that we are trying to stick to that.
On the Gahcho Kue, we will be continuing with the diamond mine socio-economic model. On the SEED program, I think that SEED has been in place now for four years so we probably have enough information to be able to do an evaluation of some sort. I talked about the film industry, local food production and I remember we went out to visit one of the local homes that had really gotten into food production. We talked about developing a food policy. I think that is still something we want to do but we are running out of time, so maybe it will be something we put on a transition arrangement with the next government.
Geoscience, we have been fairly successful getting money out of CanNor, the federal government in trying to protect the Arctic. They have invested $100 million in geoscience. We will probably have a debate on it. In my view, for every dollar you spend on geoscience you get $5 spent on exploration and $150 spent on development. I think that is a pretty good return.
Prospectors, I think we want to do something with devolution. I think that the devolution AIP, I think that we can look at doing something next year.
Electricity review, it is something we will have to continue to debate that. I think that we will see in two years. I think that, in our mind, we put ourselves in a better position to deal with that two years from now, as the media have raised.
The Lutselk’e mini-hydro, we can discuss that. The federal government, we have been pushing them pretty hard and we are trying to get a response, a commitment from them.
The dollar revenues, I would have to check our revenues. I know that our parks revenues have been going up and I’d to look at what our other revenue sources are.
Tourism, that’s something that we would like to continue to invest in and grow. The Protected Areas Strategy, we are a participant. We are sponsoring the Five Fingers/Five Fish Lakes in Jean Marie River.
Land use framework, we are working with the different departments to develop a land use framework. We are leading it through the Managing This Land Committee. The mandates of ITI and ENR, that was set by the Assembly, so we work with that. I already talked about the airport and the Mackenzie Pipeline. Those are my responses to the general comments, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. We already concluded general comments. Does committee agree that we move on to detail? Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was over in Dettah meeting with our Aboriginal brothers. Hopefully some other Members could have been there and I am here and I would like to make general comments.
Does committee agree that we go back to general comments?
Agreed.
Committee has agreed. Go ahead, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regards to the Department of ITI and I think that realizing that we seem to put a lot of energy and emphasis on the energy sector there. We have to start focusing on people’s needs, especially in our smaller communities. We have to start really investing a lot of resources into small business developing our local economies, especially where we have high pockets of unemployment, and more importantly, the potential of tourism and also in regards to the potential of the big game hunting in the Mackenzie Delta. One of the things they have been doing is looking at the potential of commercial harvesting the muskox in which there are is an abundance of muskox especially in the Richardson Mountains in which there is the potential of that activity taking place. I think that with the downturn in the commercial harvesting of caribou in regards to big game hunting, this could be an alternative. I think that we have to look at those types of opportunities.
We look at the potential that can generate in regards to tourism, eco-tourism, the big game hunting and also in regards to the road traffic travelling up and down the Dempster Highway from the Yukon in which we are seeing higher volumes of people coming through. Again, without programs and services for the travelling public, they are just going to drive by the community and they won’t stop because the people don’t provide a coffee shop or a gas station that is open 24-7 and they know that the services aren’t there, that they are not going to stop. I think we have to start investing more money especially in this department in the area of looking at the renewable resource sector and also the tourism potential that we have especially in regards to road traffic and also with the working again with small communities.
In the past we did have a fur shop in Aklavik and a canvas shop in Fort McPherson. Again, I think we do have that business model, but since they got rid of the general manager of the canvas shop in Fort McPherson, it seems like the business basically dried up. I would like to know what are we doing to enhance that business. I am looking at the possibility of expanding it to maybe include partial ownership, regardless if it is between the bands of the Mackenzie Delta or the communities of, say, Aklavik and Fort McPherson, even Tsiigehtchic and maybe expanding the program out to the other communities and using the canvas product as the means of marketing. I think we should start looking at thinking of expanding not only the product but expanding the potential that we have to market through the logo of Fort McPherson Canvas Shop, which is world-renowned, by using other products in regards to traditional products regardless if it is slippers or something that is sewn locally or even expanding the canvas products to other types of items. I think what got the canvas shop going in Fort McPherson was selling coveralls to Dome Petroleum. That opportunity is there in regards to the pipeline or in regards to any non-renewable resource. I think that without having a manager that really is on top of things, you’re basically missing out on those opportunities and also formulating partnerships with either the local community development corporations and whatnot. We have to be able to show that we are trying to stimulate the local economies and also get people to work, more importantly, it is trying to reinvest a lot of these resources that we spend tons of dollars in excess of millions dealing with the non-renewable sector but we spend very little when it comes to the renewable sector such as trapping, fishing, agriculture. I think that is where we have to start making these new investments and deal with that segment of our economy. I think that as a department we have to seriously look at those type of investments.
In regards to the issues that were in your report, I think that we have to also realize at some point we have to make a political decision in regards to delivery of programs and services and do they really fit within this department. Especially when we are dealing with hunting and trapping issues and using the SEED program, for instance. Talking to a lot of harvesters, they find it very hard to access the SEED program, but again the SEED program in my riding is mostly used to basically buy items or supplies for people that sew, which is basically capped at that $500,000, which that is all that is. The only benefit from that program in my communities, in talking to the economic development officers, that seems to be that type of applications they are processing and yet you look at how the dollars have been allocated and we have to be able to show that we are really generating the local economies but also straying out into other sectors of our local economy, regardless if it is in the retail industry, in tourism or even, like I say, a small business that wants to get started in regards to the area developing a business opportunity either in the area of providing cooks and people to clean the camps and whatnot down the road and I think that is an area we can look at.
The same thing in regards to all those opportunities that are there in regards to small business, because the small business is what is going to drive our local economies. Being with the boom/bust cycle we do live in, in regards to oil and gas, those cycles that again we are not sitting on the sidelines waiting for the pipeline which is a couple of years down the road before a decision is really going to be made. Again, it is one of those things, are we just going to wait or are we going to start looking at our economies and develop business plans for the different communities. Let the communities develop those plans and business cases and promote the communities. Promote what they have to offer, more importantly, promote their local economies and basically take advantage of the travelling public, but more importantly, the tourism traffic that flows through, especially my communities in my riding, and also the potential we have for tourism in regards to big game hunting, eco-tourism.
Again, I think it is important that we do have to sometimes, looking at the big picture, sometimes we lose sight of the little things that really mean something to people. Little things for most people in our communities are trying to find a job when you have 45 percent unemployment, knowing that the average income is $18,000 a year, and you basically are missing out on that opportunity in which we are spending a lot of money just travelling to oil and gas conferences and dealing with those industries. At the end of the day, those dollars probably could be better spent put into local economies to generate jobs for people and getting them off income support and being able to develop that economy.
Another area, in regards to the Mackenzie Pipeline, in regards to the regulatory systems and the information that has been compiled, I think there has been a lot of questions asked in regards to that report of how communities are going to be impacted by those developments, and I think, if anything, this department could do a lot to avoid and mitigate a lot of those impacts by ensuring people have the fundamental elements in their communities so that they can also provide and take advantage of the opportunity when it comes. So it is a question about being ready, but more importantly, having the skilled workforce and having the people in place when it does happen and they are ready to go.
The other issue, I know that in regards to your energy stuff, I have to applaud you in regards to the energy initiatives that we have put forward, especially lowering the power rates in our communities. I know that everybody might not be satisfied on this side of the House, but for me it’s probably the next best thing to winning a lottery for a lot of our community members. To see our power rates go down, I think, if anything, you should be applauded for that and also from the government. Sometimes you don’t hear a lot of good news stories, but this definitely is one of them that we in our communities definitely are seeing the results that we were hoping for. Again, I think it is another area where we can hopefully entice businesses to come back into our communities and be put on a clear playing field in regards to a competitive playing field, because now their power rates are also going down and they are a little more competitive than what they were paying before, where in some cases businesses in my community were paying something in excess of $30,000 a month in the winter months, such as the Co-ops and Northern Stores. Again it does have a direct impact on those communities.
On closing, I would just like to get the Minister to tell me how are we going to monitor the program. More importantly, ensure that the businesses that are receiving the commercial subsidy are basically bringing down the cost of goods and services in our communities, because I think from the general public, you go into the Co-op and the store, the prices are still kind of high, we are $29 for a jar of Cheez Whiz, I think we are just about there in some of our communities.
Again, I will leave it at that and hear what the Minister has to say. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko, and I will give the... Sorry. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say to the Minister and staff that we look forward to the increased support that this department is going to receive for the trappers. That just says that we believe in trapping and the way of life and support the Aboriginal trappers’ way of life in general, in terms of the value that the trapping industry brings to the Northwest Territories. I know our furs in the North are one of the most sought after in the world in terms of the quality that we bring to the industry down south, and it speaks a great volume and we have increased the dollars to this lifestyle. It is a lifestyle and it is sometimes difficult turning it into a business; however, it has been done, it has been proven and I want to thank the department for supporting that type of lifestyle that we have in our small communities where unemployment is high and there are some young people that do want to become trappers and it is a very honest and honourable way of life, I say.
I also want to ask the Minister to continue to forcefully push the initiative for small foods, such as wildlife, into our communities where it could be available. Even available to our Legislative Assembly here and into our institutions that we operate up and down the Mackenzie Valley. Food, I think that is one of our most unused resources that we have is the good food that we have up here. So I support the department to continue to push its Cabinet colleagues to strongly invest into the northern foods, take advantage of what we have here. I want to say that to the Minister.
I do want to say also, my colleague that spoke about the depreciative efforts by the department regarding bringing our electricity rates down through the initiatives of the Ministerial Energy Committee and all the Assembly itself had something to do with it, so that is a very good news that the Member has said from Mackenzie Delta. Once in a while we get to toot our horn all together. I say this to our people in the North, that we are listening. Sometimes it doesn’t seem we’re listening quickly enough, they say, because a bunch of other things have to take form before we can actually make it a reality. So I’d like to thank the Minister for his persistence and patience for making this become something we can all benefit from in the North.
I want to ask the Minister to continue to work on these socio-economic agreements with the mining companies. I’d like to see how it’s going to benefit the Sahtu people in the long run in terms of employment. Again, I said unemployment is quite high in the Sahtu communities and we’d certainly like to see those benefits come further away from the radius of the Yellowknife area into the Sahtu region. I know there are some people that are working in the mines from my communities. However, it’s not enough and we haven’t really seen the impact of the mines in my region. Hopefully that will continue to be the focus of the Minister and his staff to look at that area.
I had some other things to say. I wanted to touch a little bit on the parks. There’s only one park that we have I think in the Sahtu. McKinley Park is a very small park in Norman Wells and when I look at the other regions I see a list of rolls and rolls of parks in the other regions and when it comes to the Sahtu I see only one. I’m not too sure what initiatives the department and the Sahtu Region can work together at to look at more than one park. I know we are working on the possibility of the CANOL Heritage Trail, Do et’q Park, however, that has to go through some other federal work and they were not yet ready to implement any serious types of real work from this department. So it’s in the federal government’s hands. I thought maybe we might do some prep work, or we could do some things that would look at Do et’q Canyon, the CANOL Heritage, especially when there’s activity going on there and INAC is the one that holds the lands and there are uses of that trail. Hopefully we can have some other discussions on it, on the use of ATVs and vehicles. It’s not in our jurisdiction, but we are getting that park and we want to get a park that’s not being damaged. So I think we need to sit down with INAC and put some restrictions on that trail. Again, the GNWT can certainly voice their concerns. This department has also voiced concerns in other areas of our land on parks. So we could certainly do that. The Minister of Environment was here the other day. I certainly hope that he heard some of my concerns on the water, but they certainly can hear some of the concerns on parks also. So I think it’s a matter of priorities.
The Minister has done some good work in tourism in promoting the Sahtu. I just got sort of a report card on what’s happening in my region and I’m very pleased that people are working on some initiatives. I believe this department needs to be congratulated in terms of promoting the arts and crafts and world stages such as the Olympics. I was down there and it was very impressive. They did a darn good job. I’ve got to watch what I say here, but they did a darn good job of promoting the North and the people and we have some pretty good talent that the department showed off to the world.
So I wanted to thank the Minister for promoting some of the initiatives that we have in the Sahtu. We’ve built some very impressive projects such as the moose skin boat last year in Tulita, which is something that hasn’t been built in 20 years, Mr. Chair. This was done because of the cooperation between the department and the community of Tulita to build a moose skin boat and people were happy. I was actually there and I put a couple ribs in that moose skin boat. So kudos to me for helping out, but I’m just a beginner learner in that process. I wanted to say that brought a lot of joy to a lot of people, a lot of memories in putting together that moose skin boat for our people. So it’s these types of small initiatives that go a long way in my people’s minds, yet we still need to work with the Minister.
I want to say thank you to the Minister and his staff for continuing to work with the Sahtu people and I look forward to other things that could help us out. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I believe that concludes comments. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’d like to give a brief response.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to comment on some of the general comments that have been made. MLA Krutko, a lot of the comments that he made are exactly what we’re trying to do as a department and as a government to promote small business, develop local economies, promote tourism at the local level, and the tools that we have we’re working very hard to do that with. As a department our main goal when we started the 16th Assembly was that we want to have development in every community, every one of our 33 communities in the Northwest Territories and I think we’re well on our way to getting there.
Big game hunting, I know there’s big game hunting in the Mackenzie Mountains all the way. I’d be prepared to look at that to see what the communities want to do and I’d have to see what would be involved in them getting involved. I think there are licences already and so on.
On the Dempster Highway, the constant challenge that we have, we have a tourism centre in Dawson to divert people to go up to the Dempster and I think we need to develop more tourism products so that when they do go up there they spend a lot more time in the communities.
The canvas shop, we have a new board of directors for the canvas shop and we’re trying to get that back on track.
On the mandates, well, the last Legislative Assembly decided to split up RWED and make two departments and those are the mandates that were given to us.
On the Mackenzie Pipeline, I agree. There’s been a lot of work going on. The Aboriginal Oil and Gas Skills Training Fund of $9 million, that’s going to run out fairly soon. It’s probably going to go the same way as the Mining Skills Program. So I think we need to put pressure on the federal government to keep that going and we need to make sure that we’re ready.
The energy initiatives, I know that when we went to some of the smaller communities that have been affected, everybody is very pleased and we have to make sure that those reductions are passed on. We are engaged with our Statistics Bureau to monitor all of the retailers that we met with before we reduced the rates, before we introduce commercial rates. They all said their preference was to have lower rates that would be transparent and that they were going to make sure that those lower rates were passed on resulting in lower costs. We’re going to be following up also with the larger retailers that we had met with before these were passed on.
On support for trappers, I agree that it’s been a long time since we increased it. The fur prices are increasing. I think the projection for this year is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 percent. We agree we have the best fur in the world and that’s why we’ve developed the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur brand and everybody recognizes, it’s world-renowned and that’s added value to our product.
Socio-economic agreements, we think it’s important to make sure we maximize the benefits.
On the parks, Nechalacho is going to be one of the biggest parks in the Sahtu and that’s pretty close.
On the use of ATVs, this is still an issue. We’ll have to continue to work together.
I can vouch that when the federal Environment Minister was here we did put forward the issues and concerns about water quality, quantity. We also talked about parks. We support parks but we also have some issues with parks boundaries and how you deal with areas of high mineral potential.
On promoting arts and crafts and Northern House, we’re finding that there’s an expectation of what next. A lot of the performing artists, visual artists, feel that we have to build on the momentum, so we’re getting a lot of suggestions such as maybe we should have a mobile exhibition or so on, but that’s something that we will be looking at.
That’s all the comments I had, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Does committee agree that that concludes general comments?
Agreed.
Does committee agree we go on to detail?
Agreed.
The summary for Industry, Tourism and Investment is on page 12-7, the operations expenditure summary. We will defer that until after consideration of detail, and start on page 12-8. Industry, Tourism and Investment, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 12-9, Industry, Tourism and Investment, information item, revenue summary.
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 12-10, Industry, Tourism and Investment, information item, active position summary. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 12-11, Industry, Tourism and Investment, information item, active positions, Business Development Investment Corporation. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 12-13, Industry, Tourism and Investment, activity summary, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, $7.735 million. Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regard to the shared services with the federal government agencies that are out there, especially in the area of mines and minerals, and more importantly, resources, I think especially from areas that are looking at the area of oil and gas and minerals and how can we access some of those federal dollars, especially in light of the APG obligations that they have as partners, one of the obligations is that they can bring to the table any oil and gas that they may have under their First Nations lands. But again, to get to that you need to do the basic information gathering by geotechnical information and also potentially, at some point, have to do seismic work and possibly drilling. It’s a costly endeavour and I think that’s something that’s always been out either working with the Canadian Petroleum Association or working in regard to…
I believe that’s actually coming up shortly, minerals and petroleum resources. Would that be the most appropriate place? It sounded like it to me, but I’ll let you be the judge of the most appropriate place for your questions. That’s on page 12-19.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was looking on...(inaudible)...in regard to geomatics and geographical information system in regard to the government’s responsibility under the geographical aspect. I think that we seem to be looking at the federal government for a lot of this stuff, but again, I think the GNWT is now looking at it. Again, it’s what are we doing to stimulate those economies. We put a lot of money in developing the mineral industry but what are we doing to promote the oil and gas industry, especially in my region, the Mackenzie Delta and also in regard to the Sahtu, and how can we get the land distribution system and land evaluations done in regard to geographical types of information. That’s what I was talking about in regard to the shared services, in regard to that type of analysis. What do we have to do to get the GNWT interested in doing geomatic and geographical information on potential for oil and gas or even minerals in our different regions?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe that the page the Member is looking at, this is a shared service that we share with ENR. I think the majority, 75 percent of it is with regard to ENR. We also do some GIS work on behalf of the federal government and it’s basically a remote sensing program. Whether it is something that can be utilized for geophysical surveys and so on would be something that we would have to look into. I don’t know if the technology that we have that we operate would lend itself to doing that type of work, but if it doesn’t fit there we can probably look at in other federal programs now that we’re looking into entering into a transitional arrangement with the federal government on the programs that they deliver. Thank you.
Again, I mean, if we’re spending money as a government and we’re collecting data, I think that data should be the privy of the public. I think that if we’re doing anything that there has to be a way that those public funds are being utilized, but more importantly, that the public can actually see how we’re spending those dollars. I know that you go to different conferences and whatnot and that you see all these different presenters and presentations on geotechnical information in regard to mostly mining potential, but I think we also have to look at it in the confines of oil and gas. I would just like to know what happens to the information that we do compile, and more importantly, how much money do we spend on it.
All of the information that we collect is in the public domain. It is not only the remote sensing or the geomatics or the work that we do on behalf of the federal government for NTGO, it’s all available. I guess the problem we have is that unless somebody asks for some specific information, we have so much information that we wouldn’t know how to accumulate it unless somebody was specific in what they were requesting. Thank you.
Again, I mean, we know this is just another department. It seems like we’re spending a lot of money on people going out and getting the information on contracting services. Maybe that’s the question I’ll ask under corporate management with regard to corporate services. How much of that $400,000 are we spending? Is that money we’re spending on geologists or people who specialize in different areas looking at geology from the perspective of mining or oil and gas? Could you give me a breakdown of that $400,000 and how much of that is outside sources by way of geologists and people who compile that type of information for us?
I’m not sure what number he’s talking about, but our share of the geomatics is $476,000. If he’s asking about the contracts, I’ll ask Ms. Magrum to respond to that detailed question.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Krutko, I believe that was the $406,000 under contract services. Thank you. We’ll go to Ms. Magrum for that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The $406,000 under contract services and corporate management relates to the corporate management function. There wouldn’t be any geological contracts under this section. It relates to the directorate in headquarters and the corporate management function throughout the regions for the Department of ITI.
Thank you, Ms. Magrum. Mr. Krutko.
If possible, since it’s broken down by region, could you give us the regional breakdown of the $406,000 so we can see how much is going into the different regions?
