Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I talked about the issue of unlicensed tourism operators in the Northwest Territories. I'd like to ask the Minister of Industry Tourism and Investment if he can speak to these issues. Internal documents reveal a significant number of complaints concerning illegal tour operators in the NWT. When was the Minister first made aware of these illegal operations? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, there's immense growth in the Northwest Territories, but with all that, we don't believe there's an unlicensed tourism situation that's rampant with unlicensed operators. The first thing that came to light to me, this is on its second day of its story on CBC, and we take these comments by the news outlet seriously, but I can reassure the Member that this situation is not as diehard as it is projected to be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker
Some of my constituents who are tourism operators have been complaining for quite some time, and I am very surprised to hear that this information has not made its way to the Minister's desk, considering we have operators who are not following our laws and regulations. Since the Minister became aware of it yesterday, what has he done to ensure that all of our operators are compliant with our own laws and regulations?
First of all, for the record, I want to put it on the record that the Northwest Territories is one of few jurisdictions in Canada that asks for operators to have a licence. I want that on the record.
Since this story has come to light, of course, I have been briefed up, because it has been in the news for two days and may be even coming out for a third day. This is something that the news outlet has latched onto. As I have said, I don't think this is a rampant thing happening in the Northwest Territories. Sure, there are problems that come along with success, and success in the tourism industry is huge within the Northwest Territories, and particularly Yellowknife, but I don't believe this is a rampant situation.
Our department has done a ton of work around what we are trying to do to alleviate concerns about this. Some of the complaints that have come forward have not been very substantive, and the accusations that people are providing are hearsay, and they don't want to go much farther than that. We do follow up on complaints. I can tell that, the majority of the time, they turn to be compliant, licensed operators.
What we have done as a department, we have moved to how we are going to set up to improve enforcement, particularly in the North Slave region, because that is where most of this issue is happening right now. We have staffed our regional office to facilitate, manage, and police expanded use of our parks of aurora tourism. We have now a dedicated manager of tourism in the North Slave. We are completing weekly tours and inspections of the aurora touring operators.
For enforcement purposes, we have given enforcement authorities to our tourist development officers, as well as our full-time and part-time parks officers. We have changed the deadlines. This is one of the big ones that we have done lately. We have changed the deadlines of our tourism operator licence renewals so that the tourism development officers can better balance the renewals with enforcement duties.
All tourism operators in the NWT are required to carry a card confirming they are registered and compliant under the Tourism Act, and as a pilot project this winter, I can inform this House that we are introducing a new vehicle identification sticker for aurora operators in the North Slave so that they can be easily confirmed as compliant tourism licence holders.
I was going to say comments about fake news, but it appears the Minister has actually got some substantive replies, and I appreciate that.
One of the concerns that has been raised by, again, the internal correspondence that has been revealed through some of this reporting is that tourism officers don't feel that they have the resources to properly track the growth of these businesses and properly maintain enforcement.
The Minister talked about staffing positions that are currently in place, but based on what we are seeing, and based on these issues, is the Minister going to bring forward additional resources to support the staff who are having trouble keeping up with the growth of the industry?
I have clearly laid out what we are doing to improve enforcement in the North Slave. We are just rolling some of this stuff out, and once we get some more data and feedback, if this problem becomes more rampant, then we can certainly have a look at it.
It is no different than the discussion that we had in this House a couple of weeks ago, asking me to put more resources to tourism. There is only so much money to go around, but at this point, right now, we will track this concern and keep a close eye on it. I know that tourism is a very important part of diversification of our economy, and this type of news that gets out there like this does not certainly help to attract people to come to the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I disagree with the Minister. I don't think this is a deterrent to tourists coming; I think it might be a deterrent for people who might be wanting to operate unlicensed operations.
The Minister said that we are the only jurisdiction in Canada that requires licences. What is the specific policy rationale for that, if no one else deems this necessary and it is not an industry standard in Canada? Why are we requiring additional red tape for something that the Minister says isn't a problem? Thank you.
For the record, I didn't say we are the only jurisdiction; we are one of very few.
One of the reasons that I believe that we need to keep track of the operators is, first of all, we have had some safety concerns, and that has been raised by other Members in Yellowknife, and particularly around the Ingraham Trail. Safety plans have to be incorporated. This is a whole new industry for the people of the Northwest Territories. This is an evolving business situation where it is growing so large and so fast that the city can barely keep up with it. We can't even get a hotel room in this city half of the time.
One of the reasons we need to track this stuff is to make our operators compliant, particularly around safety issues, how they operate in the Northwest Territories. Winter and summer tourism are two different things, but there is safety that needs to be in place, and we need to make sure that our operators are operating within the laws and follow procurement with how we follow it in the Northwest Territories through our BIP and our procurement programs as well. There are many things that we need to do, and that is why we track these sorts of things.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
