Debates of October 26, 2006 (day 16)

I call Committee of the Whole to order. We have quite a number of items before Committee of the Whole today. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Braden.

Bill Braden

Great Slave

Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Committee would like to consider two bills; Bill 11, Tourism Act, and Bill 7, Pharmacy Act, in that order, Madam Chair.

Is committee agreed?

Speaker: SOME HON. MEMBERS

Agreed.

Thank you. Then we will proceed with that after a short break.

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Committee, I would like to call us back to order, please. You had indicated earlier that you would like to proceed with Bill 11, Tourism Act. At this time, I would ask Minister Bell if he would please bring opening comments on the bill. Minister Bell.

Madam Chair, committee members, thank you for your consideration today of Bill 11, the Tourism Act for the Northwest Territories.

For several years, the Northwest Territories' tourism industry, including its tour operators and associations, have expressed a desire to see changes made to the existing Travel and Tourism Act. Specifically, their requests for change have reflected two main themes: create a more streamlined and user-friendly licensing system; and protect the NWT's tourism industry experience.

In its efforts to address these issues, the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment and the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development before it, embarked on a fairly lengthy consultation process.

It was almost immediately evident that the changes and revisions being requested were extensive. For that reason, I am presenting to you today a new Tourism Act for the Northwest Territories; one that reflects the input of, and is strongly supported by, tourism licence holders, tourism associations, aboriginal organizations, other Government of the Northwest Territories departments, and the general public across the Northwest Territories.

One of the most important changes incorporated in the new act will be a simplified process of obtaining a tourism licence in the NWT. The existing tourism establishment licence and travel and tourism outfitter licence will be replaced with a single tourism operator licence.

Only operators who are running guided commercial tourism activities will be required to have this licence. Hotels and business establishments, for example, that do not provide guided tours, will no longer be required to have a TOL.

In the case where a licensed activity does not change, this act will allow for licences to be renewed automatically, providing added stability and long-term certainty for tourism operators and their clients, while further reducing administrative burdens.

Meanwhile we must also protect our territory's tourism product. The quality of a visitor's experience in the NWT depends on their experience of the territory's wilderness.

Changes included in this act will allow us to better govern operations in areas that have cultural or spiritual significance or are ecologically sensitive, through the creation of tourism special management areas.

Licence endorsements will be used to limit the number of tourism operators that may conduct tourism activities in any particular area or restrict or prohibit certain tourism activities by all operators in a certain area.

The actions of a select few tourism operators can easily damage the reputation of the industry as a whole. This act also includes stronger penalties for non-compliance, providing a strong deterrent to those who would break the rules.

Madam Chair, the new act also sets out terms for consultation before new licences are awarded or amendments to existing licences are approved.

These are the types of changes that the tourism industry collectively have indicated are important to them. I'm hopeful that we can see this legislation enacted during this session of our Legislative Assembly and that we can begin our work to bring the new Tourism Act into force by April 1st, 2007.

Our next steps will be to consult with our industry partners, aboriginal organizations and other stakeholders, on regulations for the new act. These consultations will further ensure that the industry maintains a strong voice to speak on matters affecting them.

I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Governance and Economic Development for its careful review of Bill 11, and I'm pleased now to answer any questions this committee may have. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. At this time I would like to ask Mr. Villeneuve, please, if he would provide the committee's comments on the review of Bill 11.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Bill 11, Tourism Act. The Standing Committee on Governance and Economic Development met on September 5th, 2006, and October 16th, 2006, to review Bill 11, Tourism Act for the Northwest Territories.

The committee had a brief presentation from Ms. Robin Wotherspoon, president of the NWT Tourism Association.

The committee is pleased with the new simplified process of obtaining a tourism licence in the Northwest Territories. The existing tourist establishment licence and travel and tourism outfitter licence will be replaced with a single tourism operator licence. A new licence will only be required by operators who are running guided commercial tours and activities.

The committee was also pleased to hear the Minister state that where the licence activity does not change in terms of the payment process, licences could be automatically renewed annually.

The committee would also like to see the licence renewal process extended to three to five years, instead of the current annual renewal. As Ms. Wotherspoon stated, many operators run a high-end business, where tour packages are sold several years in advance, making it important to have the surety of a long-term licence. The Minister said the length of time required for licence renewals would definitely be discussed during the consultation process on the regulations.

Although the act also endeavours to protect the NWT tourism industry and tourism experience, the committee was not convinced the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, or ITI, has sufficient processes in place to identify serious problems that might warrant refusing to renew a licence. For example, there is no mechanism for other government departments which also regulate the industry to be notified of upcoming renewals and advise ITI of any concerns.

Currently, ITI relies only on the informal process of complaints from customers to determine if there are problems. Committee suggested instead the Minister model the licence renewal process on that of the municipal business licence renewal process. All of the information regarding an operator would be kept on their file in a central registry. This process would allow the government to protect the public and help the NWT Tourism Association to monitor the membership, without making it difficult or onerous for the tourism operator to renew their licence.

The committee was also concerned about the non-remittance of fishing licence fees by tourism operators, and urges ITI to put in place a requirement in the regulations stating that these must be remitted on a regular basis before the government will supply the operator with more fishing licences. The committee was pleased with the Minister's commitment to look into this matter.

Finally, both the NWT Tourism Association and the committee agree this act and the regulations need to come into force as soon as possible, and urge the Minister to ensure this happens. The Minister confirmed that Industry, Tourism and Investment will work closely with stakeholders to accomplish this.

Further, given committee's concerns with the regulations, the Minister has committed to providing both a copy of the regulations and a copy of the communications package to the committee.

Following the clause-by-clause review, a motion was carried to report Bill 11 to the Assembly as ready for Committee of the Whole.

The committee would like to thank the NWT Tourism Association for their presentation, and the Minister and his staff for presenting the bill. This concludes the committee's general comments on Bill 11. Individual committee members may have questions or comments as we proceed. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Villeneuve. I'd now like to ask Minister Bell if he would like to bring in witnesses for Bill 11.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Sergeant-at-Arms, could you please escort the witnesses in. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister Bell, if you could, for the record, please introduce your witnesses.

Mr. Chair, thank you. With me today; Doug Doan, ADM, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment; Rebecca Veinott, legislative counsel. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. We'll now move on to general comments, Bill 11, committee. General comments. Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to make a few comments and I want to specifically focus on the Tourism Act under the licensing on the renewal of it being automatically renewed. I want to ask the Minister if that's a concern by the communities or the regions in terms of a licence that's being automatically renewed without any type of scrutiny or type of process that may not sit well with some of the members in the communities or the regions in terms of some of these people, these licensees, may automatically be renewed without any type of process to provide to the government in terms of having some questionable comments on the licence. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Bell.

Mr. Chairman, this is a concern that came up during committee and I think the discussion that we had there was good. I appreciate the thoughts of committee in this respect. I think that the first point to make is if there are significant community concerns with an operator, we would take that into account before issuing any sort of renewal. So it is complaint-based. If the community or the region has concerns, they should bring them to our attention so we can address those before we consider a renewal.

Another issue that was raised was about whether or not an operator was up to date with fees that should be remitted to the government. In the case of fishing licences, it's ENR, I believe, that collects those fees, but we would certainly check to make sure they are current before we issue a renewal. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'm glad the Minister has outlined the process where these renewals will not happen automatically. Maybe the terms of automatic renewal should be described in a different language as to what he just said here in terms of these licences, and what constitutes a valid, legitimate, accumulative complaint. The department may have a different interpretation; people in the communities may have a different interpretation. What checkmark says if you pass this threshold it's a complaint? You have to measure, so that's what I'm concerned about in terms of the process of the Minister. It's a good process. I think it's workable. I think you need to sit down with the region a little more in terms of rubber stamping the automatic renewal of a licence, and there are some questions that have to be asked in terms of the process so I want to let the Minister know that.

The other one is…I'm going to use my time, Mr. Chair, and the Minister can respond as he pleases on my questions here.

Mr. Chair, the other one is that with the licences for the outfitters specifically, because I think I have about seven or eight outfitters in the Sahtu region and they cover a vast, wide area of their own jurisdiction under their own licence. I want to talk to the Minister and his officials in terms of these operators in terms of their requirement for a licence. I think we need to really support the communities and I think they are somewhat being supported by the outfitters by providing them at the end of the season, they fly in moose meat or caribou meat into the communities. That's a plus for us. That's a plus for our elders. I think that needs to be really strongly worded in this new act, especially for outfitters in our region, that caribou or moose is distributed equally in the region, I think it's done, and I want to see if there is a means within the licence regulation that these outfitters begin having somewhat of an access and benefit agreement with our communities. Access to our lands, access to the areas that we traditionally hunt, food, benefits of training, benefits of bringing the moose and caribou meat into our people, benefits of having our people look at the possibility of guides, different levels of guides. So these are the type of benefits from this new Tourism Act that would be really helpful for our people in the region, and tourism that the northern people can take.

We have old people in our region that are 60, 70 years ago, that love to go out sometimes and cut up moose meat and cut up caribou and sheep, and cook out there in the mountains. That's their home, Mr. Chairman. These outfitters have to recognize that.

I met with an outfitter this past summer with Mr. Handley and a few people that walked the Canol Heritage Trail, and I did talk to the outfitters and not one single aboriginal person from the Northwest Territories was at that camp. That's what I'm talking about; people talking about why our own people in our own land are not in those camps. At least at the Dechenia Lodge close to the Yukon border there were people there from the Kaska Nation cooking, guiding and working. So this act better speak to something that informs and invests our people into those regions. It's our land. They got these licences at some other time and area. They do good work out there. They provide dollars to our region. They have to make sure it stays in our region and with our people. We can't have old ladies and old men sitting in Tulita. When they can go back on the land, in the mountains, and they're 60 and 70 years old, they're like 30 and 40 years old. They've got lots of energy. That's their land. They can do that. So I think that's something that I'd like to see being really strong for our tourism in our act here. We have to see the benefits.

I want to say that, Mr. Chair, in terms of my disappointment in one of those camps that we visited. Good camp, nice people, God bless them, but I was very disappointed not to see one of our own aboriginal people out there, Dene or Metis, Gwich'in, Inuvialuit, none of them. I didn't see anything. So that's where our people get mad in terms of we have outfitters in our mountains, in our homeland.

My grandfather is from there, Chief Albert Wright. He signed the treaty in 1921. Did you know that he posts along the mountains to indicate that they signed this treaty, a peace treaty? I wonder if these outfitters know about these posts and know about our lands. I don't think so, because I talked to one of the young people that was guiding out there. I asked that young person, you're a guide? He said yes. I said, do you also skin the sheep? He said yes. I said, where do you do it? He told me where. I said, don't you know from our elders that you can't skin a sheep at the place where you shot it? You have to carry it maybe two miles or a mile away from it. That's what we're taught from our values and our culture; respecting the sheep and that they skin it in a certain way. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Well, that outfitter has been there for a long, long time and not knowing the value, the basic culture of our people. So we ought to have some say into this. So, Mr. Chairman, I certainly look forward to seeing if these clauses under the Tourism Act capture something that my people can be proud of, and people in the Northwest Territories can be proud of, that the Northwest Territories aboriginal people's culture and values need to be reflected in acts like this. There's a long history here.

So I want to thank the Minister and thank the committee for bringing forward this act and doing the hard work. It's the first time I'm really making comments to the act like this, so I want to say that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Bell.

Thank you. I appreciate the Member's thoughts and input. I think that's very valuable. I think there were a number of good points that he made.

To the point about effectively what would, I guess, constitute access and benefit agreements when it comes to tourism and our outfitting operators, there's no reason that that couldn't happen with new operations now on, say, Sahtu lands in your region. Mr. Chairman, that arrangement could certainly be made. It is more difficult to go back with people who have had licences in the past and have some expectation of certainty in their business model going forward, because they've made significant investment.

My understanding is I guess that the far majority of operators do use aboriginal guides, I mean it obviously make sense, but not all. Maybe I'm wrong. But most of the caribou operators, I understand, do and I would encourage all of them to work with the communities and have aboriginal guides who know the land and know the region. It only makes sense, Mr. Chairman. I think if you're hoping to provide an authentic experience, if you're hoping to ensure that the respect for the land is upheld, then that's the way it has to be done. I think communities are going to have a greater say now in how tourism licences are awarded, and I think that's a good thing.

There were a number of points raised. You know, how do you determine what community support is or what a significant concern is? I think that is a very legitimate question. I'm not sure we have exactly the answer and it may vary by region, but we need to spell that out in the regulations and we need to discuss that in the consultation that's about to happen.

So I know this from committee. Much of the detail isn't found in this act, so there are many, many questions that can only be answered as we go through the consultation and develop the regulations. In order to safeguard or to ensure the concerns of committee are addressed, what I propose to do is to come back with those proposed regulations and sit down and discuss them with committee. We're going to need to understand whether or not this meets the test in the various regions. I want to hear from the Members and get their thoughts. Within government already for something like tags, and this is ENR now, but there is, before issuing new tags, there's consultation with communities. We do need to do a good job working interdepartmentally to ensure that there is support for the operators, and I think we can do that. I think this act is going to streamline, obviously much of what we do, but also give communities greater input and greater involvement going forward. These tourism special management areas is something that needed to be formalized. We can't be granting tourism licences on ecologically sensitive areas or culturally sensitive areas, and we've been at risk of doing that kind of thing without strictly spelling that out in legislation. So how we get the consent of regions and communities is something that we need to sit down and discuss.

But I agree with the points that the Member is making. We've got to use local people. It only makes good business sense to involve communities, be respectful of the communities, bring meat back to the communities. I would suggest that if he wants support for the renewal of your licence, it would seem like a good business practice. So that you to the Member.

I will say that I think the tourism industry is generally doing a good job; not everybody, but we can certainly always improve and one of the biggest areas to improve is respect for the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Next on the list I have Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a quick question on the Minister's opening comments. He said they're going to start consulting with aboriginal organizations. I'm just wondering, Mr. Chairman, presently the Inuvialuit are entitled to a private…(inaudible)…on 7(1)(a), 7(1)(b) and also have a say with the ISR of our agreement. I would just like to ask the Minister, basically the process now is there are a number of commercial tourism operators on 7(1)(a), 7(1)(b) that have to apply to Inuvialuit Land Administration, and also they have to apply to the GNWT for operation on Crown lands. So I'm just wondering what kind of consultation was done to put the two together to make sure there's one process in line. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Minister Bell.

Mr. Chairman, I understand that we can't process a licence unless we have the consent of the Inuvialuit organizations on ISR lands. So I think that's the insurance that the Member has, that we will consult and, obviously, it's critical. It doesn't happen without it. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you. I'd just like to ask the Minister, how are you going to monitor that? Inuvialuit might want to do a tourism operation, commercial operation on 7(1)(a) and 7(1)(b) land. How would the Minister ensure that in order to monitor correctly, how will that be done? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Minister Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in terms of granting the licence, how will we ensure the consultation is taking place, is that the question?

Thank you, Minister Bell. Just to clarify your question, Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has sort of something to do with that, but again having worked at the Inuvialuit Land Administration before I know that some people sort of get approved and I don't know how much follow-up is in regard to licence issued to the individuals and then what the department is doing after. So I'd just like to know what kind of monitoring system is there to ensure that the Inuvialuit that are going on 7(1)(a), 7(1)(b) will apply to this legislation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Minister Bell.

Mr. Chairman, in terms of ongoing monitoring, we aren't out there acting to police the industry, and that's why I say that we do need communities to come forward, and the aboriginal organizations, on a complaint basis if they have concerns about an operator, they don't feel the conditions of it's 7(1)(a) and 7(1)(b) are being met. They need to bring that to our attention; obviously, to the proper authority in the Inuvialuit settlement region, as well. If they are significant concerns that haven't been addressed, then we wouldn't issue the renewal of the licence. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Anything further, Mr. Pokiak?

Yes, thank you. Just one quick last one here. Will the Minister sit down with the land administration, or his regional office in Inuvik ...(inaudible)…and Tuktoyaktuk to go through these new regulations? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Minister Bell.

Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. We will meet with them and have extensive consultation in order to develop the regs before we come back to the committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Next on the list I have Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A quick question in relation to what other Members are asking. Specifically in areas when negotiations are still in the works, like the Dehcho and Akaitcho, when the tourism licence that is going to be issued is reviewed and consultation has taken place, how much weight does the aboriginal organizations offer, I guess, with their decision on whether to renew or issue a tourism licence that’s given by the government when they make the final decision on whether to issue or renew?

Mahsi, Mr. Villeneuve. Minister Bell.

Mr. Chairman, I understand within the interim agreements that we set out with these regions, Dehcho and Akaitcho regions specifically, there are provisions that speak to exactly how tourism operator licences are granted and so we would follow the agreements. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Villeneuve.

I think in these interim measures agreements that we have, I think the Minister or the government still has the final say on whether to issue a licence or not, whether an aboriginal organization or community organization, NGO, for example, has some issues surrounding the issuance of a licence to a particular operator or an operator that is maybe not from the territory. How much consideration is given to the final outcome of any issuance or renewal to an organization that has those concerns? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Minister Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding, and in the past I think it’s been conducted in this manner and we propose that it be conducted this way going forward, obviously we meet with the authorities, sit down and go through the proposed licence. We would expect that they would not just issue a veto without raising any concerns. If they have concerns related to wildlife, cultural sensitivity, ecological sensitivity, those are all very legitimate reasons for us to reject a tourism licence if they are founded. But just a veto without any rationale or explanation would be a problem for us, so we would want to work with the region to understand the nature of their concerns. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Anything further, Mr. Villeneuve?