Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We are now on page 315, services to public, operations expenditure summary, $5.152 million. Does committee agree? Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Two questions that I believe we discussed when we were reviewing the business plans but I’m not sure, so I’d like to raise them. I forgot to raise them in my general comments. With the rental office, we now have a rental officer and a deputy or an assistant rental officer. We have seen over the last couple of years that the number of inquiries and the needs within that rental office have increased considerably. I would like to know whether or not having the two officers in the office is enough or is there consideration by the department to add a third person to handle the workload. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. Haener.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The rentals office, we’ve done some work with them to look at workload. At this point in time, given the numbers of files they’ve been handling, having the rental officers and the deputy are sufficient. Having heard some of the comments earlier about needs to get information out that may prompt a need to look at other resources to supplement what is there in the rentals office, at this point, in terms of hearing matters, we do believe we have sufficient resources.
Thank you, Ms. Haener. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the deputy minister for that. My next question has to do with coroners’ reports. The coroners’ reports go to the department and they also often go to committee. Quite regularly the coroner has recommendations within his or her report.
I would like to know from the Minister when a report has a recommendation to a particular department, the coroner falls under Justice but it may be a recommendation to, say, the Department of Health and Social Services, so I would like to know from the Minister what action Justice takes to ensure the coroner’s recommendations are followed up on. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Before we go to Minister Ramsay, I would like to draw your attention to the gallery. We have joining us today, former Member for Hay River North, MLA and longest serving Speaker in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Paul Delorey.
---Applause
Mr. Delorey, thank you for joining us tonight. I will turn the response to Minister Ramsay.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. One heck of a curler, too, Mr. Delorey.
---Laughter
Good to hear you’re here, Paul. When the coroners’ reports come in, if recommendations are directed to various departments, the coroner would follow up with the departments on their response to those recommendations. That’s how that works. Thank you.
One of the jobs that Members take as committee is to also monitor what’s going on, and when we receive a report and see recommendations in there, it’s very helpful for us to get some kind of an update on where the recommendations are at. If the coroner is following up, that’s one thing, but is there any opportunity for a department, whether it be Justice or whether it be individual departments who have received the recommendation, but is it conceivable that standing committee could get some kind of an update on recommendations in coroners’ reports? It doesn’t have to be for every report, but maybe twice a year take all the coroner's reports and report back to committee on how those recommendations have been handled. Thank you.
That would be a great deal of work to put together. What I would suggest is the coroner does put together an annual report and Members avail themselves of that report and have questions from that. That’s something we can address. What the Member is asking for would take a great deal of work to put together and track and everything. We would never know exactly what the Members might want. One Member might want something and another Member might want something else. That would be a difficult task, Mr. Chairman.
I guess maybe the Minister is thinking of something different than what I’m thinking of. The coroner’s report, from my recollection, does not give us how recommendations were handled, what an individual department did with those recommendations. So it’s conceivable that the Standing Committee on Social Programs, for instance, may ask for the data, all the recommendations that came from the coroner in the last year, please provide us with how the recommendations were handled, what each department did. I guess what I’m suggesting is instead of waiting for standing committee to ask for it, the department or the government somehow, maybe it goes through a different department, or that a department is proactive and it’s also a way of ensuring that recommendations have been dealt with. Maybe the department didn’t think the recommendation was necessary and refused the recommendation, but it’s that sort of information that’s important that we get to the public and it’s important that it get to Members so we can consider, from an accountability perspective, that the recommendations of these people that we’ve hired to do these jobs are at least being looked at and hopefully being adhered to and that we’re seeing positive change. Thank you.
The coroner would make recommendations. They are not required and there is no legal obligations for them to feed responses back to the coroner. There’s just not that legal obligation there. It would be hit and miss, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
To the Minister, yes, I know there is no legal obligation, but I think there is a moral obligation on the part of government to respond to recommendations from people that we hire to try to make life better for our residents. I would encourage the Minister to think about providing some kind of a summary of coroner’s recommendations and how they have been handled by various departments in the government. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, we will give that some thought and take a look at how we can accomplish that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, we’re on page 315, services to public, operations expenditure summary, $5.152 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 316, services to public, active positions, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 317, Justice, lease commitments, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Page 318, work performed on behalf of others – it’s actually pages 318 and 319 together – information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, if I could get you to return to page 289, department totals. Justice, department totals, $128.797 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Does committee agree that consideration of the Department of Justice is completed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank our witnesses today here, Ms. Haener and Ms. Schofield. Thank you for joining us and, of course, the Minister. If I could get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses out of the House. Thank you.
Thank you, committee. We’re going to continue with our main estimates here. We’re going to continue with Industry, Tourism and Investment. With that, we’ll turn it over to the Minister responsible for opening comments. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the 2015-2016 Main Estimates for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Overall, the department’s main estimates propose total operational costs of approximately $65.6 million for this coming fiscal year, an increase of over $3 million, or 5.6 percent, from ‘14-15. This includes sunsets of over $4.4 million, over $6 million in new initiatives and nearly $800,000 in forced growth, most of which is collective bargaining increases. It also includes the transfer of ITI’s energy planning division and associated initiatives to Public Works and Services at nearly $1.7 million as well as a transfer of $2.3 million to Environment and Natural Resources to implement the realignment of fur harvester support programming.
The mandate of ITI is to promote economic self-sufficiency through responsible management and sustainable development of Northwest Territories’ mineral and petroleum resources and the promotion and support of trade, tourism, agriculture, film, fisheries, business and manufacturing. Through our mandate, we support this government’s commitment to ensure that all residents have the opportunity to build a stronger future for themselves, their families and their communities.
In 2015-2016 ITI will help to strengthen and diversify the NWT economy by proposing investments in a number of programs and projects. This includes a focus on implementing strategies to support economic growth and prosperity as well as initiatives to support the added responsibilities that ITI now has as a result of devolution.
The Northwest Territories’ future economic growth is closely linked to mineral development, and through the advancement of the Mineral Development Strategy Implementation Plan, ITI is proposing to invest $1.4 million in 2015-2016 towards initiatives outlined in the implementation plan, including:
$650,000 for the Northwest Territories Geoscience Office to deliver its Geoscience Research Program, which helps to provide publicly available geoscience information, supports resource development and land use decisions, and attracts mineral exploration activities and investment.
$400,000 for the Mining Incentive Program. This program was launched in June 2014 to provide funding to eligible prospectors and mining exploration companies operating in the NWT, offsetting some of the financial risks associated with grassroots mineral development.
$100,000 for Aboriginal capacity building. The funding will be used to support Aboriginal organizations and communities to participate in the consultation and decision-making process related to mineral development.
$149,000 to support business coordination, helping to connect NWT business owners with those involved in the mining industry and to identify development opportunities in the regions.
$140,000 to market and promote the NWT as an attractive place for investment in responsible mineral exploration and development.
ITI also proposes $85,000 in the coming year for purchases necessary to relocate geological materials to the proposed Geological Materials Storage Facility. This facility will house the GNWT’s significant geological collection, which will provide key information to prospectors and exploration companies, helping to lower their costs, reduce the environmental footprint of exploration and support future exploration. Another key objective for ITI in the coming fiscal year is to invest in the actions outlined in the Economic Opportunities Strategy Implementation Plan. The EOS plan focuses on diversifying the economy through supporting the NWT’s small business community; pursuing major investment projects; growing a stable and attractive entrepreneurial environment; and attracting, retaining and preparing residents to become active participants in the territory’s economic environment.
ITI proposes to invest $2.4 million for the ‘15-16 fiscal year in the following EOS initiatives:
$1.5 million to revitalize the commercial fishing industry through the construction of a new fish plant, raising the profile for fish harvested in the territory and marketing locally caught fish to consumers, and improving our capability to export through the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation.
$461,000 in tourism-related initiatives including tourism product diversification and marketing, infrastructure to support community-based tourism, a convention bureau to profile the NWT as a top conference destination, and support to address gaps in the hospitality and tourism training needs.
$100,000 in support for the film industry through a new rebate program that will help to increase film production by providing incentives to production filming on location in the NWT.
$200,000 for regional economic plans, to help residents across the territory to become directly involved in planning regional development activities.
$100,000 to develop an agricultural strategy to support the agriculture industry, which has been flourishing across the territory the past few years and holds great promise for future development and lowering the cost of living.
$100,000 for business internships support to assist small businesses, particularly those located outside the regional centres, and to attract and retain qualified people.
ITI supports this government’s priority to ensure the francophone community in the NWT can access programs and services in French. Therefore, the department is looking to invest $272,000 in 2015-2016 to provide these services.
ITI also supports this government’s goal to increase employment opportunities in the regions, where they are needed most. ITI is already a highly decentralized organization with five regional offices and a BIP office located in Hay River, and the petroleum resources division, which has offices in Hay River and Inuvik.
For 2015-2016 ITI plans to relocate the territorial parks office from Yellowknife to Hay River.
To support parks operations in the South Slave and Beaufort-Delta regions, forced growth funding of $112,000 is being proposed to cover increased operational costs associated with utilities and park operator contracts. Existing internal resources have been reallocated to pay for an additional parks officer in the South Slave region, to be located in Fort Providence.
While support for new programs and initiatives is important to foster economic development and opportunities for residents and businesses, the department will continue to invest in existing programs and services that help to provide economic benefits throughout the NWT. It is the programs and services available at the community level that directly impact the lives of our residents.
The information I have shared today are some of the many examples of how ITI works on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories to provide residents and businesses in all communities with opportunities and options to turn potential into prosperity. That concludes my opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Do you have witnesses you’d like to bring into the House?
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses into the House.
For the record, Mr. Ramsay, if you could introduce your witnesses to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Peter Vician, deputy minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and to my right, Nina Salvador. She’s our director of finance at ITI.
Ms. Salvador and Mr. Vician, welcome to the House again. It’s always nice to have you back.
Committee, we are on general comments, ITI. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have two comments that I want to make here, and the Minister has heard them already, but they bear repeating. One is my concern with the decentralization of the parks office to Hay River. Not so much that we are moving the positions but that we are uprooting families and forcing people who have lived here for a very long time to reconsider their life’s path, to reconsider whether they are going to take their spouse out of a job and move them with them, children in school. That whole ball of wax that I talked about the other day. I would just like to state again that I wish that in this particular case that the department could consider looking at when a decision is made to decentralize that the decision is made to look at positions which happen to be vacant or new positions as opposed to positons which are filled. If we really value our employees, I think we would give them a little bit more, we would think of them in a better light.
The other thing that I wanted to mention, and I mentioned this to the Minister yesterday, but I am very disappointed that the Minister is going to only have industry representatives on the Mining Industry Advisory Board. I again urge the Minister to think outside the box a little bit. The mining industry is extremely important, and I agree with the Minister that we have to make sure our mining industry, both exploration and development of mines, increases. It is a huge part of our economic development. But I think there is also a place on any advisory board for a differing point of view. Mines affect people, they affect communities and they create social problems, and I think it behooves us to have somebody, at least one person on this board, who can present a bit of a different point of view. We all want development but we don’t want development from only one point of view.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Decentralization was a priority of this Assembly. At ITI, I mean, we’re carrying out those marching orders. We’ve relocated our BIP office to Hay River, and through the process of devolution, I mean, we relocated our petroleum resources office to Inuvik. We’ve got two other positions slated to go to Hay River. We will be dealing with our staff fairly. That is our goal in all of this is to treat the staff fairly, the incumbents that are in those positions, and we will do just that.
On the Industry Advisory Board, it is just that, an industry advisory board. There is ample opportunity for other groups to write me letters, to meet with me, to meet with Members. I don’t want anybody to get the idea that the advice the Industry Advisory Board gives the Minister or gives the government is automatically going to be rubberstamped and in place the next day. That’s not what’s going to happen. There are layers here. There are the committees; there’s the Assembly; there’s Cabinet. It all has to flow. It has to go through the system. This is advice from industry. It’s not advice from anybody else but folks involved in the mining industry. That’s where that’s at, and those appointments will be made at my discretion.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Continuing on with general comments, ITI, I have Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments would be more reflective of the situation that we have in my riding around the oil and gas. I do want to thank the Minister and the staff for doing the best they can in the situations of our economic opportunity and working with the region. You responded and you’ve done some things that were greatly appreciated in our region. Right now we have Colville Lake with some activity going on there. Hopefully, in the future we’ll have some other work being done around Conoco’s lease in maybe other areas. I do want to say to the Minister and the staff that you’re doing a good job. I guess that’s what I want to say.
I do want to say also to the staff there that I’d like to say to the Minister the work that your department is doing on the Canol Heritage Trail, the park itself, the proposed park, we appreciate it. Your team is there working with us. One of the things that we just wanted to give you our peak of interest is a winter recreational park across from Norman Wells. It’s called the Canol area. It will be the first one in the territory. But I really like that idea, and I’d like you guys to pursue it as much as you can and say that it’s not something that you people in Sahtu, specifically the town of Norman Wells, to look at a winter recreation park. It would be the first of its kind in the Northwest Territories. It takes a lot of discussion, but I’m thinking that something like that should be considered.
I do want to say that the agriculture has taken off in the Sahtu. We’re growing some fairly big potatoes over there. It almost could be the capital spud of the Territories here. Some people there continue doing that. There are some people in the Good Hope area who have taken advantage of the agriculture program. There are some things happening there, and I do want to say that we look forward to what this department is doing. I think, my sense from the staff in Norman Wells, the Minister, we’ve been having some pretty good working relationships with our communities. It’s not so much any type of complaint to the department. I just want to say thank you, I guess. It’s kind of rare for me, you know. But I wanted to say that to the Minister because the Minister has worked well in Colville Lake and all my communities, Good Hope, Tulita, the Wells and Deline.
We’re up against some challenges and the one that would really help us, of course, is with the economic activity that could make a boost for us. If there’s anything that this department can help with the transportation of government is to create that sustainability or consistency with economic development, we greatly appreciate it. We are quite aware of the challenge of bringing tourists into the Sahtu region. It’s a given. Not like Yellowknife. Sometimes we get a little bit grouchy because we think most of the money is coming to the larger centres. Lots of people come here from outside of Canada. We don’t see it too much in the Sahtu region and we’re saying, well, what’s going on here. That’s why we’re trying to create, like Mr. Moses said, tourism further north. They’re doing some good things up in Inuvik and they want to do that, which is good, but sometimes we don’t get the amount that we’d like, except for the hunting season where we get big game outfitters and they’re mostly from the South but they come into our region to work. So, I just wanted to let the Minister know that people are willing to work and I think that’s a good thing and I want to say to the Minister that he has a good staff in the region working for us. That’s all I want to say. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his kind comments. I appreciate that and I know our staff appreciates his comments as well.
We have to continue to work on all sectors and it’s very unfortunate what’s happened in the past six months with the collapse in oil prices globally. It’s really had an impact on the Member’s riding, so that’s why, again, it’s important that we look at all sectors, not just oil and gas but mining, tourism, our support to business. We have to continue to work with other departments. The traditional economy is very important, trapping and training efforts through Minister Lafferty and ECE. We have to continue to find new investment in the territory and that’s something that’s very important.
On the park development, that is something that we will continue to work on with the land corps, the regional and community governments in the Sahtu and also the federal government has a big role to play in all of that, as well, with the cleanup of the Canol. So we’re anxiously awaiting that to happen as well.
There are a lot of positive things that are happening, you know, and the Member and I have had many discussions about the prospects in the Sahtu. When it comes to oil and gas, it is a long game and I think it’s a game where you have to have patience, but the one thing that can’t be taken away from the central Mackenzie Valley and the Sahtu is the fact that they have resources in the ground and at some point in time those resources are going to be developed to the benefit of the people that live in the area and in this territory. So, it is a long-term goal of ours. We’re hoping to have that happen sooner rather than later, but in the meantime, while we’re waiting for the price of oil to come back and companies to come back to do more work there, we need to focus on other areas where we can have a positive impact and can create jobs and have that economic opportunity, and those are the things that are going to make a difference to people not just in the Sahtu but around the territory. Thank you.
So, Minister, and Mr. Chair, that’s for all of the Northwest Territories, because we certainly heard it in the budget dialogue that we need revenue, and if you have revenue to do things that we want to do, that will certainly help us.
I just wanted to make a last pitch for the Aboriginal business people in the region, the ones that have the ma and pa type of tourism lodges. You know, we want the best for them. They’ve put sweat and equity into that business and at times it’s quite expensive to bring people out to those lodges, but when they get out to those lodges they sure love the country. Even down here outside of Great Slave Lake, when they go to those lodges it’s beautiful country. Not a lot of people are going there because it’s quite expensive, no different up in the Sahtu region where there are a couple of lodges on the land that people who want to make a living or making their lifestyle, but it’s really expensive and they get the tourism few and far and between. So I want to make a pitch to ask the department however, through this government, to encourage the department and the people who go to those lodges, however they can do it, and that’s a big request to this department. I just want to make a pitch, come out and visit, take advantage of those lodges in and around the region there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We continue to work with Northwest Territories Tourism, which includes representatives from the Sahtu. We’re always looking at opportunities to market visitors to get into the Sahtu, and there are some excellent operators in the Sahtu. I think I may have said Deline a few times already today, but Deline really is a shining star when it comes to tourism, Destination Deline and the product that they’re developing there. So we’re excited at that prospect and the Sahtu does have, and I know the Member and I have been around his riding a number of times, by jet boat down the Great Bear River, we’ve been into the mountains and the beauty of the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, it’s beautiful, but if you’ve ever had the opportunity to visit the East Arm of the Great Bear Lake, that is something to behold as well. It’s beautiful and there are so many beautiful areas in the Sahtu, things that we can market to visitors from around the world.
So that’s all part of our effort in trying to get more marketing dollars. The announcement we had earlier this week is going to allow us to do more of that work in Asia, in Europe, in North America. So we’re excited about all that opportunity when it comes to tourism in the Sahtu as well as other parts of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Continuing on with general comments, ITI, I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also want to say, once again, congratulations on the announcement with the CanNor funding. I think it’s going to go a long way in the small communities.
During our business plan review, and something that our Minister of Finance has mentioned, was our fiscal restraint policy moving forward, and looking at your opening comments what I see is you have sunsets of $4.4 million but over $6 million in new initiatives, and seeing the fiscal restraint that we’re in, the department is funding new programs and investing in our people. I understand that we’ve also got to invest in our economy and this is a department that does most of that groundwork, that front work, trying to do those announcements. So in coming up with the operations budgets this year, was the fiscal restraint policy taken into account moving forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. For that we’ll go to Deputy Minister Vician.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department was, like all departments, requested to identify opportunities for fiscal reduction and the department stepped up and made a number of reductions in its overall operational base, approximately $830,000 of reductions overall in terms of targeted areas to direct. Of course, during the course of the fiscal year we were also going through the last phase of the devolution process and our operational budget reflects those increases as well. For example, the establishment of the office of the oil and gas regulator as part of the increase to the budget. Furthermore, our investments focused on elements that are very important to this Legislature with regard to economic opportunity investment and the tourism investment portfolio as well as the Mineral Development Strategy investments that are reflected in this current base. So those are reflected through the mains, and as we go through detail we can identify those through you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Vician. Mr. Moses.
