I thank the Minister for that answer. It is great to hear that this is starting to happen. I am happy to see we have got an increase of 2.3 per cent of tourists coming into our territorial parks, and, in my riding, 49.84 per cent have seen an increase at Blackstone. To me, these sites are important. Roadside assistance is important to clean them and that. Is the Minister able to share with us the schedule, or is maintenance just done day-to-day?
As I said, in the wintertime, we will have a weekly look at doing these things, especially around the toilets. As far as the garbage goes, that would be on a daily basis. The Blackstone Park that the Member is referring to, there is a contractor in place, and that should be looked after on a daily basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I appreciate both departments taking the proactive approach trying to clean up our areas. Is the Minister able to look at the potential of actually having one department, whether it is Infrastructure or ITI, cleaning up these roadside assistance turn-offs so it is not two departments? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not think the Department of Infrastructure wants to look after the toilets, so I will have to talk to the Minister. Keeping them separate, it seems to be working, as the washrooms are more of a seasonal thing, even though they have got to be looked after a little better in the wintertime, which we are addressing. The thing with Infrastructure looking after the garbage and such, we have people that go out there daily, doing the highway checks, so we will continue on in that manner and that agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier in the week, the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment provided a Minister's statement entitled Approach to Economic Development. I commend him for that. I appreciated hearing from the Minister in that regard, but I would like to ask a few questions stemming from that Minister's statement. My first question would be: we have had some positive uptake on the mineral incentive program over the years past, in fact, over-subscribed; I am just wondering now if the Minister can update us if there has been positive uptake and what the reaction has been like so far to the increased funding to the mineral incentive program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would be glad to update the House. As many of us know under the MIP, the mineral incentive program, there used to be $400,000 there available, and, thanks to this House, we have increased that amount to $1 million. Already this year, we have awarded funding to seven prospectors, seven corporate proposals, for a total of $991,000 that has already been offered. This program this year received 23 proposals and requested $2.4 million under the MIP funding support, so the uptake is over 152 per cent of last year's.
Thank you to the Minister for that positive reply. Mr. Speaker, one only has to look to the many weekend farmers at community gardens, the success of the farmers' market and, in fact, how Polar Eggs is rolling in and out of our local grocery stores to recognize the interest in local foods and agriculture. Can the Minister provide a timeline for the completion of the agricultural strategy, and when local growers might have access to tangible supports stemming from the strategy?
As we all know, the Agricultural Strategy that we have tabled in this House is a five-year strategy, and we are into year one of that. There have been a number of initiatives that were identified in that strategy around the growers and implementation of the strategy and the challenges that we have around regulations and stuff to bring this industry up to where it needs to be. In the meantime, I want to remind all Members that local growers already have access to real supports of $1.2 million that we have that we spend annually to help support the agriculture industry, and, as we move forward, we will look at ways to expand that. They can engage with our regional offices on how to access that money.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. In the Minister's statement that he provided earlier in the week, the Minister mentions the term "increases to catch volumes in the Great Slave Lake fishery since changes in the fisher support program." Can the Minister give us any numbers on those catch volumes and a sense of what the eventual outlook is for this fishery strategy?
I guess I want to lay a little groundwork how we got here. Three years ago, the formula that was there for fishers for their catch was fairly complex and it involved a number of thresholds and caps that were in place. Through the revitalization strategy, talking to the fishermen on how we are going to move this initiative forward, we changed that to a flat-scale base per-pound production. Total catch in 2014 was 288,000 kilos, and in 2015, following the changes to the support program that we put in place to help the fishermen, we saw the catch increase by 4,225 kilos. Last year, the same changes came into effect, and the record catch now was 520,000 kilos, which is still, historically, probably half of where it used to be. In moving the strategy forward, we hope to increase that significantly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, thank you to the Minister for his update. As the Minister knows, we are starting to have a promising film industry, and, by all accounts, it is thriving, but, as we have heard from those within the industry, there is still a lot of room to grow within this industry, especially as it relates to more along the lines of production and editing. Can the Minister describe what the future of the film rebate program will look like, and will it grow to support these opportunities within the film industry? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member. This is a very important program for the film industry. It has been successfully used by 10 productions since its inception two years ago, but, as we know, we are reviewing the success of this program and an annual budget going forward. We are in our budget cycle coming up, and we want to find ways hopefully to find money to support this and make this initiative continue to grow. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as follow-up to my Member's statement, I have a few questions for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the Minister that I was pleased to hear yesterday that the Minister will be talking with Canada about the funding disparity between the northern territories. Can the Minister commit to following up with Regular Members on the outcome of our housing meetings with federal Minister Duclos? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, once I finish with my meeting with Minister Duclos, I would be happy to share the results of that meeting with the Members through the appropriate committee.
Mr. Speaker, in terms of prevention, how does the Housing Corporation advise and work with tenants to prevent mould growth, whether that's a communication plan, preventative maintenance, or other strategies?
We do have mould remediation. Some of the prevention and tactics to deal with it are within our STEP program, our Solutions to Educate People program, which is one of the home ownership programs. The problem is that we realize that we need to expand that training to all public housing residents. We are undertaking a huge training program to better educate people on how to maintain their homes, including mould.
Currently though, online, through the Housing Corporation, you can see preventative tips and remediation for mould online on our website and also within the local housing organization. We do have some information, but as I said we still have some work to do in that area.
Mr. Speaker, now in terms of remediation, what can Housing Corporation tenants do when they identify mould problems in their units?
The first thing that tenants should do if they identify mould within their units is let the local housing organization know that. The initial thing is to identify whether it's mould or not. Mould has become a pretty scary topic and so people are afraid to even touch it, so things like condensation from windows and stuff which is not at the stage of mould have sometimes been misinterpreted for mould.
The first thing is to let the local housing organization know that you have an issue. We will go in and do a thorough inspection of it. We have specialists within the housing organization that specialize in mould remediation, and we also have contractors within the Northwest Territories who specialize in mould remediation. We use whatever supports we can to deal with the mould, but the most critical thing for residents to know is let us know if you have an issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral question. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister did answer part of my next question, but I'll ask it anyway. Does the Housing Corporation have an overall territory-wide plan for unit remediation specific to mould rather than having this work delegated to an individual? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under the last leadership of the Minister, before I took the position of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, it was identified that we needed to be more proactive in our work. That Minister at the time took the initiative to actually start a preventative maintenance care program which goes in annually to look for issues such as mould or other issues that can cause major problems to houses. I will not take credit for it. I will give credit to the appropriate Minister, but it is something that was very proactive, very good, and we will continue to maintain that work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today, I spoke on the importance of immigration for countless benefits to our society here, in the Northwest Territories. I'd like to ask questions to the Minister of ECE's role in supporting our nominee program. I understand there are two new families and businesses and seven new residents in total that have come to the Northwest Territories through this program. Can the Minister explain how the department works to support family reunification through the nominee program? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have a great nominee program here in the Northwest Territories. The waiting time is probably one of the best in all of Canada. However, with the family reunification that the Member is speaking about, that is solely the full responsibility of the federal government's Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. They have made some changes. However, the changes that they have made are outside of the NWT, our territorial nominee program, as well as our current agreement with Canada.
However, seeing as that is an important issue and we do want to reunite families together, I will commit to raising this issue and this concern with the federal Minister and/or federal officials to see how we can have that type of program here, in the Northwest Territories, or work to get this reunification of families. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'd like to thank the Minister for that commitment. I didn't even ask for it, but it's very good to see this is being taken seriously. I've been told by some members of our community that they are looking to leave the territory to find a more favourable environment for family unification. Currently, it is a lottery system. I wonder if the Minister has any information on if any of those lotteries were awarded to northern families and if the current process that the federal government operates is benefiting Northerners or if all those lottery visas are going to southern Canada.
Our nominee program here, in the Northwest Territories, has actually been increasing over the years, 25 per cent almost on a yearly basis. We exceeded our nominee program last year, and we are looking to exceed last year's nominee program this upcoming year. We will continue to promote nominee and immigration to the Northwest Territories. As for the lottery program and the way reunification happens through lotteries, I don't have that specific information for any families here, in the Northwest Territories. I will get that information from the department and get it back to the Member.
Thank you again to the Minister. It is very concerning when members of the community bring these concerns forward and are talking about leaving the territory. In other provincial jurisdictions that have more robust provincial programs to support nominations, the federal government is taking their cues from that. I think particularly of Quebec, which has a very robust system to attract francophones and anglophones into the province.
Would the Minister commit to starting that work here, in the Northwest Territories, not just a conversation with the federal Minister, which is important, but also put some preliminary work together in a way that we can develop a fast-tracking program for family reunification?
As I mentioned earlier, under the IRCC, it is a full responsibility of the federal government. I can't make decisions or go and tell federal government what to do in terms of immigration into the Northwest Territories, here. However, I can make a commitment to bring this concern and issue up to the federal officials. Also with the family members that the Member is talking about, I encourage them to come see our department officials and see how we can work out some type of arrangement or something that we can learn a little bit more about their case. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral question. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will certainly encourage and potentially facilitate those discussions with the Minister's department. We have an immigration framework and action plan that's currently in development as of this year. Kind of what I was getting at with the last one: will the Minister find a place for family reunification in that framework, even if it is just advocacy items that will go to the federal government? Will he make it clear when we develop that strategy that family reunification is on the agenda, even if it is not directly our responsibility? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That strategy is right now, I believe, going to committee if not already in committee's hands, but, as I mentioned, this is full responsibility of the federal department, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. I can't tell them what to do. We can advocate for them though, and we can bring these concerns up to our federal counterparts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral question. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today, I thanked the Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation for meeting with a couple of constituents who have issues around affordability of housing in Northlands Trailer Park. People on fixed incomes are finding it difficult to pay the local improvement charges and condo fees. Can the Minister briefly describe our current housing programs that may provide some assistance to residents living in Northlands? Merci, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have many programs, so it is going to be difficult to make it brief, but I am going to try to speak fast and get through this. First of all, tenants need to know that there is an income threshold, so, if they fall under the income threshold, which is close to $100,000 depending on how many bedrooms you have, then you would qualify for support.
We also need to ascertain the condition of the home. I do hate to say it, but some of the trailers in Northlands Trailer Park are very, very old. We need to make sure that they are economically viable. Once they do qualify, though, we have a number of supports that can be utilized. We have CARE Major that will provide up to $100,000, which will provide for roofs and foundations, and we have CARE Minor that will do minor renovations that are needed to the homes, windows, et cetera. We have preventative maintenance that will go in regularly to look at things, once a year. We have a SAFE program that will deal with things that are an emergency. If your oil tank is falling off or your furnace is out, that is an emergency. We have CARE Mobility, which will deal with if you have mobility issues, for anyone with disabilities who needs things put in for accessibility. We do have a number of programs that are available to tenants, to residents, throughout the Northwest Territories, and I would really stress for all people to go on to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation website to get a thorough understanding of the programs we have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
