Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not looking for a number of total visitors. I acknowledge that, in fact, they have gone up. Let's take the Tourism Product Diversification Program; what kind of evaluation happens annually on that program? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Tourism Product Diversification Program is an important one to diversify and expand the tourism market. We don't, as such, do a review of the exact spending on that department, but as a whole, like I said, the tourism numbers are up and so is the spending in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in other parts of his portfolios, the Minister has been able to rhyme off statistics for dollars spent and benefits for the Northwest Territories economy. I am puzzled that he doesn't do a systematic evaluation of this program as well to ensure that money is well spent in this area. I wonder if the Minister has given any thought to a systematic evaluation of the Tourism Product Diversification Program? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you go to, as I referred you yesterday in the grants and contribution book for 2015-16, in there on page 33 is the product diversification marketing allocations that we have spent. It has a number of clients in there that have received funding and their amounts. As I have said, it has a total amount of money that was spent in there. It was $1,178,732 versus the amount of increase in tourism and dollars spent in the Northwest Territories, is what I see value for money spent in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think it is good practice to measure outcomes for grants and contributions, and so I'm not hearing that the Minister is interested in doing that and I'm puzzled by that. Can the Minister commit to doing a systematic evaluation of the outcomes of this program that goes beyond just the number of people who visited the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the things we do is make sure that the money that's allocated in the funding applications is these people do what they say they're going to do. So for instance, let's pick number four; $250,000 went to the Village of Fort Simpson. I believe Fort Simpson's probably very happy to get that money. They did three community tours of infrastructure enhancement projects in the Simpson with the Liidlii Kue First Nations and the Heritage Society. They did landscaping, branding, signage, dock lookout, teepee renovation at the Papal grounds which we had an opportunity to see, interior completion of the Fort Simpson Heritage Centre.
This is the type of expenditures that this program is used for, and we believe they're value for money in every one of them. I don’t feel that we need to be doing a systematic review of this tourism product diversification and marketing funding at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm not doubting that the recipients are doing what they said they would do with that, but is this self-reporting or is this the department providing oversight on the self-reporting? How is this information determined? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This would have been actual expenditures on these projects. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Ms. Green
Thank you, and for this particular example that the Minister used, can he correlate that to number of visitors in Fort Simpson and the amount of money that they spent? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure I can take one little community like that in isolation and compare those numbers, but what I can tell the Member I can do is have a look if we tracked the number of actual visitors who visit Fort Simpson. I'm not saying that every visitor checks into the Village Tourism Information Booth or not, but I can get the numbers for that particular community, the number of visitors that they had. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that commitment by the Minister. This is the kind of reporting or evaluation that I'm asking for, is to look at the outcomes of the funding; not just to say that it happened, but what did it produce, and the more specific the better. I don’t have any further questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Any further questions, committee? Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'm just wondering, can the Minister tell us whether there's any core funding or other kinds of funding that are provided through the budget to the Northern Frontier Visitor Centre? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The money that you see on line 3 on page 211, the $161,000 is what we give the Northern Frontier Visitor Centre. That would be excluding any other SEED money or something we're doing right now to do the evaluation on the centre. Thank you. Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister Schumann. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. So is there any possibility of increasing that funding say one time to help with the infrastructure at the visitor centre within the O and M budget so that it wouldn't necessarily appear in capital? Is that a possibility, Mr. Chair? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that'd be a little premature until we get all these studies back. I believe also the City of Yellowknife is having a different look at their strategy on how they're going to involve tourism and the City of Yellowknife in the downtown core. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I understand the study is probably going to be available in a matter of weeks, so I really look forward to talking to the Minister again about what additional support we can provide for the centre, but in his opening remarks he talked a lot about the new initiatives that the department's doing. One of them was $132,000 for a full-time tourism development officer position for the North Slave Region. Can the Minister just explain a little bit more about what this position is going to do and whether that individual is going to be in a position to offer support to the visitor centre here in Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This initiative was brought forward just based on the success of tourism specifically in the North Slave of the number of tourism operators and licensees that are approaching the Government of the Northwest Territories to get licences up. The uptake has been significant, and we need to increase our staff on the ground to deal with this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the response from the Minister, but it didn't really answer my question. So is this individual going to be coordinating in any way or assisting the Northern Frontier Visitor Centre with their workload? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, this position is strictly for the operators. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Maybe I'm just a little bit thicker today, but then can the Minister tell me what this position actually does? Do they regulate operators in some way? What exactly does this position do? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This position, as I said, is to assist the operators and regulators. As I've said in the House earlier this week, we have some safety initiatives that new licensees have to follow up on to make sure they're compliant, so we want operators that are safe and operating the environment to ensure a very safe but compliant operator so we can ensure the safety of all the tourists in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Look, I'll be the first to admit I don’t really know a lot about how tourism operators are regulated. So is this individual then going to look at applications for potential operators, check to see whether they've got insurance coverage, go out and do inspections or something on their infrastructure or vehicles? Maybe the Minister could just get a little bit more specific about what this position really does. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to make it simple, I think I'll get the Member a job description of exactly what this position person does. I want to make it clear; there are 51 operators in the North Slave Region right now with five pending to come onboard, so that's going to be 56 operators. The majority of tourists in the Northwest Territories who come here right now, especially for aurora viewing, are concentrated in this area and we need to make sure that our operators are running, like I said, in a safe and compliant manner. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the commitment by the Minister, and just so that he understands, I'm glad that the department is getting ready and they're responding to a growing tourism industry here. That's a good thing. I just want to understand a little bit better about what exactly this position is going to do. I'll give you an example. I was over at the Frontier Visitors Centre a week and a half ago; I was there for about 45 minutes, they had, like, five staff on. Probably 50 people came through the doors and were buying things. The place was crazy, quite frankly. So those people are overworked and they need some additional support, and if there's a way that this new position can help them with their growing workload, that would be great, but I look forward to getting the information from the Minister and I thank him for his efforts in this regard. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess the one thing I want to make clear, though, is the Northern Frontier Visitors' Centre is not a GNWT asset. It is a non-profit organization. I understand the Member's comments. They are a victim of their own success, basically, with the amount of tourism increasing in the Northwest Territories. We will continue to reach out and try to help them as much as we can, but it is also the City of Yellowknife's responsibility to probably help them as much as they can, too. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Schumann. Any further questions, Mr. O'Reilly? Okay. Next we have Mr. Thompson.
