Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. As I mentioned in my Member's statement, I believe it's time to build on our successes in our growing film and television production industry. I would like to start asking the Minister, the NWT's three-year film strategy will soon be coming to an end, so I'd like to ask the Minister: can the Minister tell us what discussions have taken place in the department about renewing or updating the strategy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct. We are about to begin a process to review and evaluate our current NWT film strategy, as the previous Assembly had one laid out for us. In order to move forward on that, we needed to look and build on the success that we have. As all Members know in this House, the amount of work that we've done around the film industry in the 18th Legislative Assembly, there has been a lot of great work done there working with these people. It's one of my favourite diversification files to work with these individuals. There's a lot of fun in this group of people, but we have to ask ourselves: where have we been? What are we doing? What do we need to do moving forward, and how can we get there?
These are the questions that we have to ask ourselves, and also I think a lot of Members in this House pushed on the ITI file, in particular. How do we measure, and what kind of indicators do we need to put in place to be able to confirm what our progress is? These are the types of things that we have to ask ourselves to allow us to identify the next steps moving forward.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. I appreciate that he is, in fact, very fond of this industry, and that diversifying the economy is certainly a big piece of our mandate as a government. Earlier, I spoke about a possible program similar to the Mining Incentive Program, but specifically designed for film production. I'm wondering: would the Minister be willing to entertain discussions on such as program, in particular, with industry types, even now and during the life of this 18th Assembly?
I welcome the Member's enthusiasm, as well, for this industry. He was actually at the Dead North Festival with myself, and participated in the awards night. I'm always happy to have a discussion with all Members of this House about the importance of this industry, particularly the Member for Yellowknife North. As I said, he has a keen interest in this, as well.
As I said, this industry has grown significantly since the 18th Legislative Assembly, and we need to consider how much we invest in these projects and productions with NWT residents. With the review coming up, it's due in 2019-2020. We have to sit down and have a look at this. There have been some good successes, like I said, in the film rebate programs. A good example is where our department has invested in 11 projects across the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker, and we invested roughly $375,000 and were able to leverage $1.5 million out of these projects in NWT. Is this something that we have to build on, or is this something we want to change and do something differently? We need to have those discussions going forward.
I appreciate the Minister's comments, once again. It seems as though at minimum we are going to at least to agree to have a discussion with industry types and see where the future will lie. That said, if a program such as what I was proposing is to come about, then we recognize that any new program would obviously need new money. In many jurisdictions, Mr. Speaker, a visiting film or TV crew will have to buy a licence or permits in order to work in that particular jurisdiction. As well, there may be requirements for local hiring, et cetera. Does the NWT currently have any, call them, "location fees" that they charge to visiting production crews?
Currently, no, we do not charge fees for out-of-town producers in the Northwest Territories. This is something that I am glad the Member has brought up so that we can be aware of it. As far as the film industry goes, we are in a competitive marketplace. We are in a higher-cost jurisdiction. These are things that we have to be relatively paying attention to. I think it would be difficult charging and a financial challenge for these guys who are looking to invest in the Northwest Territories. We are just building on the momentum of attracting these people here in the Northwest Territories and help us build our capacity and awareness around the Northwest Territories as an attractive jurisdiction. Like I said, do we want to be able to risk these opportunities with a small fee that probably would not have a large impact on the revenue that we would collect to help support the industry? These are the discussions that we are going to have to have and have a serious look at these things going forward.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to go down this road a little bit further because there are a lot of jurisdictions around the country that are in fact charging these types of fees and/or issuing these types of permits, and they are for the simple case that (a) you at least know they are in your jurisdiction; (b) you know that they are following certain safety conditions. You never know where they might be filming. In other jurisdictions, like if you are going to go into a territorial park, maybe you need to take out a permit of some kind, and so I am wondering: would the Minister create these kinds of measures in support northern film industry? It would be nominal. It's not something that would be extensive, but I think the payback in terms of being able to support a program like the Producers Incentive Program is what these funds could go towards.
As I said, I do not know if the risk is worth the reward at this point, without some more research and analysis of what implications it would have on the industry. I would certainly like to have a look at it, but I would love to sit down with the Member and have a little better understanding and conversation with him of how he thinks we could implement this thing. Maybe we could even pull some of the people from this industry together and have a chat about what these things are going to look like going forward, as we renew our strategy in the 2020-2021 session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
