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.
