Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up with my colleague Ms. Bisaro’s questions to the Minister of Transportation on the new licence plate. First off I must say the licence plate itself is very nice, but it’s the process that I think people are taking issue with. As the chair of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure, the Minister came to Members and told us that the department was in the process of developing a new licence plate. At no time were we given any opportunity to provide input on what that design would look like. Not only does the public not get an opportunity to provide any input, Members of the House didn’t have an opportunity to provide input into the design of the new plate that was given to us. I’d like to ask the Minister about the process that allowed us just to come up with this one design. Thank you.
The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, we’ve been writing to committee since 2009. The Member, as the chair, could have requested a briefing at any point.
Mr. Chairman, we should also clarify that we didn’t change the design of the plate. We upgraded the plate to meet national standards that require some safety, there were safety concerns. There was also a size that needed to be incorporated into this new plate, and while we were at it we wanted to be able to be consistent with the government’s slogan, which is “Spectacular,” and incorporated that as a way to promote the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
I agree with the Minister on all those points but the fact is the design of the plate itself. I know the department came back to the committee and told us this “Spectacular” slogan would end up on that. We agreed with that. However, there is some design on the bottom of that plate that was never discussed with committee.
I’d like to ask the Minister why the committee, why the public wasn’t given some opportunity to comment on proposed options for the new design of the plate.
I guess the committee didn’t provide feedback because we didn’t have an opportunity to brief them. There was no opportunity to go in front of committee to present on the licence plate. We did talk to North America’s leader in licence plate design, 3M Corporation, who provided us some advice. We talked to the NWT Tourism Association, who provided us some advice. We also talked to the veterans, the Legion, the municipal officers, the RCMP, and we also consulted with other jurisdictions.
We didn’t go out and do a full-blown consultation process because we were not planning to change the design. It was one design and we wanted to incorporate safety factors into this plate. We wanted to deal with the environmental concern. We also wanted to meet industry or national standards and work with NWT Tourism and our government to promote the NWT. I think we did all these things.
The reality, and I respect that change is always hard to accept, especially with a new fee incorporated, but the reality is that we would have had to replace the licence plate in any event and if we had tried to maintain the old plate, the old design, I guess we could have, but that’s not the advice we got. The cost would have been a lot more than what we are incurring right now.
I thank the Minister for that. The bottom line is that there is a new design on the plate. We can agree to disagree on whether there’s a new design on the plate, but anybody looking at the new plate will certainly see that there’s a new design on the bottom portion of that plate. I’ll leave it at that.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation, for example, if somebody had personalized plates with the old plates, they pay a specialized fee for getting personalized plates. If they’ve just done that in the past six or eight months, now they’re going to be expected to not only pay the $10 for the new plate but also $25 to keep that plate after having already paid a fee for a personalized plate. I’m wondering if the Department of Transportation has any ideas in mind when it comes to folks like this, if they’re going to be paying twice within a short period of time for what in essence is the same plate on their car.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; there are instances where individuals have recently purchased personalized plates and they will now incur a new cost to replace them. It’s not the full cost. It’s $25 for the personalized plate plus $10 for the new plate. That doesn’t seem to be stopping people coming forward. We’ve already had up to 200 people come in and request new plates or replacement personalized plates. We think it’s a cost that’s fair and we’ll be sticking to the price that we are trying to take.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Getting back to the question Ms. Bisaro had and that Mrs. Groenewegen raised in her Member’s statement, the utilization of existing plates. If folks could go into the Department of Transportation and give them their old plate -- and I know the Minister talked about there being some kind of toxic paint or something on them. People aren’t going to eat them. They’re going to put them in their rec room or have them as a memento of their visit to the Northwest Territories. What’s stopping the Department of Transportation from collecting the plates from residents, giving them to ITI or some other agency to sell to tourists when they come North?
Great idea.
We are collecting the plates right now. As this moves forward, we will be collecting plates. People will be coming forward with the plates for disposal. ITI has already requested to see if we can recycle them. We’ve turned them down. We don’t want the plates going back on the market and being utilized in any other form, especially as souvenir plates on the front of a vehicle.
We are creating souvenir plates for the public to use, for the public to do whatever they want to do with it. They’re free to do that. That will go out to consultation, and Members, people across the floor can have input on that if they want to change the design or format of how it looks, colours, that’s open for discussion. As for recycling the plates, the public can retain their licence plate and do what they feel they want to do with it. But for the plates that are turned in, we are not putting them back on the market. We will be finding a way to dispose of them.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
