Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is another item that has fallen out of the work on EOS and we are very excited about the opportunity to put together an agricultural strategy for the Northwest Territories. It will be as far-reaching as possible. We have got $150,000 earmarked in ‘14-15 to accomplish the work of the strategy. I know the Member is very interested in small-scale abattoirs, getting product into local markets. We believe this strategy, if it’s done correctly, can cover off all of that ground as well as food security, domestic supply.
We’ve done a great deal, and I know the Member knows, through the Growing Forward Fund and other programs that the department has. We have the new Northern Foods Development Program that’s in place. We’re trying to get more locally produced food into the market, especially here at home. I think that’s very important that we continue to put our best effort into doing that. Branding, too, on the fishing side is important with that Northern Food Support Program as well. This is a very positive step and it is something, as we move forward with the development of the strategy, certainly we would like to see, and expect, the involvement of Members in getting their input in the development of that strategy as well. We will be in front of committee. We will be asking the committee their thoughts and opinions on how that strategy is developed. Thank you.
I guess there’s a couple of things that I am concerned about here that I hope will be accounted for in the work on the Agriculture Policy. The first is, in fact, the lion’s share of Growing Forward I money actually went to Take a Kid Harvesting and it had really almost nothing to do with agriculture.
That is stealing from the intent of this fund, in my mind. I would ask that the Minister examine that closely because I know it’s amongst the people interested in developing their agricultural businesses and so on. This is a stretch. They regard this as a major stretch. In fact, somehow it is getting the lion’s share of the dollars. That’s not right. I would ask the Minister to have a close examination of that.
The other thing is the face of agriculture is changing and particularly for the North, you don’t need huge amounts of land to conduct this work. In fact, the Minister knows about the commercial greenhouse businesses derived from the space program that is extremely small but extremely productive producing tons of food in a very short time per, I think, two square metres of floor space. This is proving to be true with our producers as well. I have constituents that are well under a sixth of an acre and the department, in its policy, has established that you have to have a one-acre business. They have modified that to one-sixth of an acre, but again it doesn’t meet the needs that are out there.
Again, I would ask that the Minister examine those policies, take off the sorts of limitations, look at what’s being produced, put it on a per square metre basis, perhaps, or something like that that is more realistic, so that people can actually access these dollars. Maybe I can just get the Minister to respond on those comments. Thank you.
I know the Member and I have had this discussion before. It’s good to have it again. It certainly is something that we’re interested in and something we’re going to take into consideration in the development of the strategy and new policies as we go forward. It is important that we maximize any opportunity that we have to get people involved in the agricultural sector here in the territory. We will take that under consideration. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate that. The Minister has listened and, as I said, adjusted the policy from one acre to one-sixth. It’s still not capturing the providers we have in the NWT, in many cases. I know he is listening and I have confidence there.
My last concern is on this division, the department is responsible to take the GNWT lead on trade matters, specifically the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. There are a lot of concerns amongst the public and I know amongst our municipalities about this. First of all, for everybody this will raise drug costs substantially, significantly in the Northwest Territories, not the Premier’s definition of 50 percent perhaps but significant costs. Are we fighting this, and how? What is the position of our communities and municipalities on this agreement? Are they being protected from this trade agreement, and how? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Deputy Minister Vician.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member has indicated, the Canada-European Trade Agreement continues. The federal government is the lead on the agreement. It has asked for provinces and territories to participate as observers in the process, which is new in the process for international trade agreements, but the federal government retains the responsibility and the management of this negotiation with the European Union.
We have dealt with communities and kept communities abreast of these discussions. There are particular procurement thresholds that are included in the proposed agreement that would set off any access to European companies, for example, bidding on community projects. Typically those thresholds are quite large. Some of this has been disclosed. Much of this information still has not been disclosed. The agreement-in-principle has been signed with the European Union and details pertaining to the agreement are still confidential to the federal government and those parties that have been briefed. We have kept communities apprised of this. At this point in time, I can assure the Legislature and the committee that we have protected our Business Incentive Policy and regional economic measures objectives that we identified in the Northwest Territories for this purpose. Some of those do apply to community governments, procurement as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vician. Next on my list I have Mr. Yakeleya, followed by Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister talked somewhat about the locally produced foods in our communities. Is there any type of strategy or plans to look at these miniature abattoirs that we have in our communities? We have one in Fort Good Hope and Deline we are looking at which were made in Hay River. We want to look at how we produce these local traditional foods to bring them into our GNWT’s institutions. The first two I think are the old folks’ home and the Stanton Hospital.
Is there any type of discussion happening with his colleagues to look at something like these two miniature abattoirs, so that we can package the meats according to regulations we’re under right now? That would make an option for these two institutions for starting off to say, yes, we can have a little business here using these two different community abattoirs to bring in some of the traditional foods into the hospitals and to the old folks’ homes? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have had some success with the small scale abattoirs that we have in I believe it’s two communities now. We would look at opportunities for additional units as we go forward. All of our programming, when you look at the food development programs that we have, we are trying to get more locally produced food into the local market. That would include institutions like North Slave Correctional Centre, the hospital and any elders homes across the territory. That is something that we continue to strive for and something that is a real goal of the department and the government. We’re intent on seeing that through. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, the optimal end result of this discussion would be the Minister look at this, and given this year’s budget and again next year, we can come forward with these miniature abattoirs to say, yes, we have worked it out through the system and the regulations. For example, next year local traditional foods can be packaged, sent into these institutions to say now you have traditional foods. It will produce skill, economy and make use in the small communities. Maybe the Northern Store or Co-ops will be interested in having these foods on their shelves. My goal here is to see if this is possible as an innovative approach to putting a system in place where traditional foods can be put into the institutions. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, when you look at the Small Scale Food Program and other programs are administered at the regional level. If the Member has folks that are interested in the region, they could approach the ITI staff in the region to discuss the prospect of a small-scale abattoir being added to the community. Our ITI staff at the regional level are well equipped to answer the questions that folks may have.
Again, I will get back to one thing that I mentioned to MLA Bromley and that is the development of our Agriculture Policy and how it is we can fit in the things the Member is talking about, the small-scale abattoir producing locally produced fish and meat products and getting them into where we need to get them in, and that is the institutions and into people’s homes across the territory. That’s something, again, that we’re very much interested in doing. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s comments. I hope the Minister will have the people approach the regional office and once we approach it, that is good, we need to then dedicate some dollars to it if we’re going to move forward, knowing that if we can take care of the Department of Health and Social Services, the regulations and all this stuff, all of this has to be fleshed out to make sure it’s okay to bring these foods into the institutions, the jails, the old folks’ homes, we need to work on that. So we need to have some dollars to say yes, we support you, now let’s work out some of these issues that potentially could be there. So other than that, then find the dollars to make it so. One day they could have caribou meat and fish served at the hospitals or the jails or the old folks’ home. Rather than just bringing in a frozen leg and frozen fish, this could be done properly, because that’s one of the roadblocks that we’re running up against of not having traditional foods. It makes it very difficult. So I look forward to that.
The agricultural dollars that we do have, again, flow into the regions, and our goal is to work with local producers at the regional level. I know the Member has had a great deal of success in the Sahtu, especially in Norman Wells with the potatoes and chickens, and I understand there’s a small-scale chicken operation in Deline and that’s pretty exciting as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Next I have on my list Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just two areas I wanted to touch on here as my colleagues have already talked about a couple that I wanted to discuss. First off is the Community Harvester Program, and I see there’s somewhat of a significant contribution in that area, but I’m just wondering if the department and the Minister have taken into account some things such as climate change, migratory paths of the animals and possibly because of climate change, or even if there’s some development in a certain area that causes some of these harvesters to take a longer route, or if ice hasn’t frozen yet, or other things that are a concern that might require the harvester to purchase more gas, or purchase more materials to go on longer hunts and longer trapping routes to get certain types of animals. If so, how is the department looking at compensating or adjusting these numbers to affect that change? Has he seen the increase in applications or an increase in terms of what the harvesters are needing for going out?
I know up in Inuvik we’re getting more of the guys going on the land and trapping and hunting, mostly trapping, because the economy isn’t the greatest right now. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We haven’t seen an increase in the fund. It is fully subscribed. There are obviously, as the Member makes light of, a number of pressures that are currently on folks that want to get out on the land to hunt or to harvest and those pressures are real. The price of gas, I know he talked about some of the issues with climate change, and I understand there are regions in the Northwest Territories where snow came a little bit late this year, so it was difficult for hunters to get out and that’s something that we understand. We haven’t, again, seen an increase to this budget, but it does provide funding for community hunts and community harvests and it’s a very important part of the funding that we supply to communities across the territory. Thank you.
This is a possible going concern and other pressures. Would the Minister look into conducting some type of questionnaire or survey for anybody that does apply on the program, or is there a questionnaire or survey that the harvesters can fill out and follow up so that it would help us adjust the program as need be for some of these concerns that are brought forth? Thank you.
Thank you. Again, I just wanted to get back to the number of just over $1 million, $1.074 million. I think it was late in the life of the 16th Assembly that CHAP funding was actually doubled. So there was twice as much money put into this area late in the life of the 16th Assembly. But if there are additional pressures and costs continue to go up, this is something, as we move forward, we could certainly revisit. Thank you.
Just maybe a recommendation for some type of questionnaire or survey to follow up for any harvesters that are seeing any specific challenges or pressures that will give some direction to government.
The second area that I wanted to discuss is an area that I haven’t seen an increase in over the years, but it’s something that does bring some economic increases to our region and Inuvik, and that’s with the Great Northern Arts Festival. With the forced growth, the cost of travel, increased cost of hotel rooms, materials for people that want to participate in some of the events or sell their materials, there’s been a contribution that has been pretty regular of $25,000. Have there ever been discussions of increasing those to offset some of the forced growth that we see in the region or anywhere? Thank you.
Thank you. In addition to the $25,000 that we have earmarked for the Great Northern Arts Festival, our staff, on a regional basis obviously, help with in-kind support to the festival, and have for a number of years, and will continue to provide that assistance to the arts festival in Inuvik. Thank you.
The in-kind service is always in there. I mean, obviously the $25,000 that’s allocated, it can only cover so much. So if the in-kind services are the same services that are always provided, then that $25,000 obviously isn’t doing as much as it used to due to forced growth and other things. So I just want to make that comment and just bringing it to light that although we’re still doing the in-kind support, the money that’s not in-kind is only going so far and it’s not going as far as it used to go. Thank you.
Thank you. I do appreciate the Member’s concerns and the organizers could access additional funding through our SEED Program in the region, and again, they’d need to approach regional staff in Inuvik to do that and to avail themselves of some SEED funding to help out with the arts festival. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Next on my list I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to follow up quickly with a couple of questions about our CETA negotiations. I learned that we are trying to protect our communities, or at least stay in touch with them, and that there are procurement thresholds.
The numbers I’ve seen, and I’m not privy to all this information at all, but in fact would allow most of our infrastructure projects to be susceptible to getting through these agreements. I think partly because our infrastructure is so expensive, and this obviously is a concern. So I’d be wanting to know what the ministry is doing to protect our local providers again on this front.
I would like to know what the department’s, as lead for the government, position is. Are they judging that the benefits to business will outweigh and be acceptable and outweigh the rising cost of living, which the agreement will bring through things like rising drug costs and loss of local contracting, or is their position confidential? Again, that raises the question of transparency. The Minister is right; it’s unusual for provincial and territorial governments to be able to participate here. Again, if it’s happening behind closed doors, that doesn’t do a lot for us, but is there any information, any transparency, any clarity the Minister can provide on what our positions are in these areas?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
What might work is if we could offer a briefing to the Regular Members, to the EDI committee on the CETA agreement, and any questions the Members may have, we’ll be able to share whatever information we have, and I think that might be a better avenue to have a free-flowing discussion on the technical aspects of the agreement.
I never turn down a briefing, as the Minister knows, but my questions stand here because I think this is something that the public is bringing to my attention and would obviously appreciate the Minister’s response to these questions.
There is a lot that’s not supposed to be shared. It’s something that we’d have to be cognizant of the fact that the federal government is negotiating the agreement with the European Union. There are some things we can share with Members, and we’d be more than happy to share what we can with Members and we’ll take things from there.
Can the Minister at least tell us that he’s telling the Prime Minister that the lack of transparency is an issue here?
We work through the Minister of International Trade, Minister Fast, on this file, and we do have our trade-offs here that are attached to this file. For some specific questions, if the Member has specific questions, again, we’d be happy to try to get a response for him.
No. That was very clear. Thank you.
Alright, committee. Page 12-29, activity summary, economic diversification, and business support, operations expenditure summary, $22.970 million.
Agreed.
Page 12-30, activity summary, economic diversification and business support, grants and contributions. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just as more of a clarification, this is the one time of year where I sometimes get an update on some of these great programs. One of them here on this activity page, the Take a Kid Trapping, just a question is how many kids are involved in this program and if they could let me know of how many Aboriginal children versus non-Aboriginal kids.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe it’s over 3,000 children that participate in the program around the Northwest Territories. I could get the number of schools. I think it’s most schools across the territory. I know all the schools in the smaller communities participate in the program and it has been very, very successful in getting young people interested in trapping and out on the land pursuing that.
It’s a pretty impressive number there. I appreciate it. My second part of that question is more of a distribution question between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. Trapping in itself traditionally is considered an Aboriginal program, but we know quite well that there are non-Aboriginals who partake. I just want to get an idea of what is the uptake that we’re seeing in the school systems in retrospect.
The uptake has been very good in all regions across the Northwest Territories. For a breakdown of where the contributions have gone, we could get that for the Member, but in our estimation it’s been spread out across the territory and it is accessible by any school in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Committee, we are looking at page 12-30 through 12-33, activity summary, economic diversification and business support, $13.958 million. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On page 12-32 we have the Film Industry Pilot Project. I know other Members have spoken to it. I want to go to your opening comments and your statement where you talk about $100,000 for a film industry pilot project in response to increased interest in the NWT filming location. This project will measure the impacts of a rebate program to the film industry. Yet, in here it shows $50,000. Is there another allocation of money besides this entry?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On our page 12-32 it is $100,000, and it is meant to be $100,000.
I’m actually going off an old book so they must have updated it since the estimates were given. With respect to that money, I know that speaking to the film industry directly, being a participant in a number of their Q&As and open houses and speaking to a lot of the film directors themselves, I got the impression that although they’re appreciative of a potential rebate, that was not exactly what they felt would have the most and deepest impact on their bottom line. They were very clear and very adamant that they need what they refer to as cultural film advisors or cultural film experts. I know I talked about this with the Minister about a year ago, and if we would have acted then I would assume by this time of year we would have had graduates. If we would have worked with ECE to have these programs in place, we could have put possibly students into this area, graduate them and they could be working right now alongside these film experts.
My question is why isn’t – and I know there are Members that were there from the Department of ITI listening in – why didn’t we look at this endeavour rather than going directly to a rebate pilot?
Part of the explanation might be that we tried to put some support immediately into the industry here in the Northwest Territories, and that’s why you look at this program being a rebate program and some support to the film industry. That could have been the thinking that was involved in that.
Certainly, we’re moving forward, as well, with our film strategy. Hopefully, that is going to outline some other areas, as the Member indicated, that we could avail ourselves up to grow the industry here in the Northwest Territories. We’ve had a great deal of success and we believe the future is certainly bright when it comes to the film industry here in the Northwest Territories.
Again, this is something that was made available through the Economic Opportunities Strategy, something that we felt that we needed to move forward on and move forward on quickly. That’s why it’s here, but that isn’t to say we’ve given up on anything else or trying something else in the future.
I tend to have to disagree a little bit here with the Minister. If we wanted to work more expeditiously, these type of questions, if you go back to Hansard, these have been asked over two years ago, and we’re only seeing this now, almost year three into our term here. I agree, the website that was designed for potential film industry executives to use is a good tool, but three years later we’re only now starting to think about investing into a rebate program.
I’m a bit disappointed only because the film industry is very nomadic and if you don’t do things to react more intensively, you notice that other regions in Canada who have not reacted have now lost that industry. I’ll use Saskatchewan, for example, as a classic example. We have a golden opportunity. We have a number of reality shows. We’ve just had another one recently announced here in the South Slave and in the Hay River area. Again, I’m asking, and I’m asking the Minister here to work with his counterparts, with ECE, if this is exactly what the industry is asking for, let’s put some cultural film experts, programs into our Aurora College. Let’s graduate some of these students. Let’s get them to have jobs. Let’s get them to represent the Northwest Territories. Let’s get them in Vancouver. Let’s get them in Los Angeles. Will the Minister commit beyond this $100,000 to do this in this fiscal year?
We’ve got to make a commitment to ensure that they try to stay in the Northwest Territories, as well, and I think that’s a goal that we should have. I will commit to continue to work with ECE on that. I think it’s a good idea and it’s something that I’d like to see move forward.
We have to look at the big picture. The big picture is we have had a great deal of success with film here in the Northwest Territories. I know the Member mentioned a new reality series; it is totally filmed and edited here in the Northwest Territories, the first reality show to have that all done here in the Northwest Territories. We are very excited about that, and on a per capita basis, the success of the film industry here would probably rank overall the best in the country for what is happening here in the Northwest Territories.
Can we do better? Yes, we can. Are we putting together a film strategy? Yes, we are. We will continue to work with Minister Lafferty in ECE. We will continue to explore ways to attract new film investment and filming production here in the Northwest Territories. That’s something I can make a commitment to and I certainly want to see this industry be successful here in the NWT.
A lot of this too, you know, the dollars, we need to find some additional dollars, as well, as we go forward. We need to put our best effort into this, and perhaps through the business planning process next year, if we have had success with this, it is an area that we could potentially be looking at for further investment. If the Member’s idea pans out and we can work with ECE, that is another opportunity to make some very exciting things happen here in the NWT. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next on my list I have Mr. Blake, followed by Ms. Bisaro.
