Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess with the additional cost, was there any design changes in the building associated with that extra cost. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there were initial design changes, I think in fact still before my time in this role. There's not been further design changes in the interim. But might I just turn that over to deputy minister Strand to speak to briefly.
Thank you. Deputy minister Strand.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So, yeah, the building is a design build. So there's been a series of negotiations between Infrastructure and ITI and the contractor. I think -- I wouldn't be able to comment in the particulars but it's pretty much keeping within the original design and just making choices as to options within that original design. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, you know, I guess just a more of a comment now is that, you know, I'm pleased to see that it is moving ahead and that, you know, I'm not too pleased to see that it's cost another $1.2 million.
I'm hoping at the end of the day that it will be a big benefit to the -- to the fishery on Great Slave Lake and a benefit to the fishers as well. You know, I think we got a lot of work to do to make that plant work, but I think we've just got to be positive and hope for the best and make sure that, you know, that we keep our eye on the ball on this one. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Are there any further questions, comments? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm just going to take this opportunity to ask the Minister if this includes at all the collection points around the lake and maybe if she could provide me with a quick update on where the one is in Great Slave. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ITI.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So this money doesn't include the collection stations. I can give a little bit of an update. There's been a fair bit happening on this. I'm only just starting to assimilate the information myself.
But the collection stations, certainly we are required to work with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, so the federal government is going to be critical in terms of the collection stations work that's going on.
There is money in the budget ultimately to support this work, but the first thing that we need is to identify a site.
So under Fisheries and Oceans, small craft harbours is the division that's responsible. They did come to Yellowknife, I think over the summer and into the fall, to look at a couple of sites that we had anticipated they would be interested in.
We don't, at this point, have our final or full report confirming whether either of the sites that they looked at would in fact meet requirements to create a collection station. And then even once they do, then there's still additional processes that would have to be undertaken, certainly environmental site assessments, in particular if some of the sites had prior uses, and at that point, of course, certainly further consultation with the public, with Indigenous governments in the regions.
But again, the work at least is now moving along. This is another one that certainly saw some delays during the earlier days of COVID when there was less travel by federal department officials. So we were very pleased that they did come up here and that this is now moving forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Minister for the update. Perhaps once the MLA for Hay River's fish plant is built, he can give us some of the money back and we could get a park in Great Slave at that location.
Could the Minister maybe speak a little bit to how she's working with industry, and I guess this is a little bit off topic, but on the -- on that location. I did notice that this at the end of the fall there, there was a deployment by Terra-X, I'm not sure if that's their updated name, of their equipment out of their mine site using that location. It was the first time there had been a barge there, I guess, in a long time.
It seemed like a missed opportunity to perhaps not ask Terra-X to maybe start up one of their loaders while they were sitting there with four of them and perhaps work together to fix up the access down to the road -- or to the lake.
I anticipate they will be looking do more work in that region as they have purchased Con Mine. I think it's the same outfit, please forgive me if I'm wrong. So maybe the Minister could speak to whether or not there's an opportunity there in the next years' demobe to have some of that work done, because it does sound like it it's quite a ways out for the federal government to be doing anything with that site. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, so it was Nechalacho that had come and used the site for their demobilization work, if I'm thinking correctly of the right event. And, yeah, and there are interests or options now by one of the existing gold mine operations, Gold Terra, looking at the Con Mine site. So there is a lot happening in that very specific geographical spot.
And I think what I can do at this point is simply to say that, you know, obviously we do maintain, as ITI contact, with all of those different entities and partners and can let them know that there's this potential for them to have that conversation on the private sector side and be able to enable our support that as it may be.
It would depend obviously on the specifications of the fishers and of the mining companies themselves, but I would think if there's a good news story to be had for all that they would want to be part of it. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I have to hand in my industry card for mixing everybody up there in who was doing what work in the region, but definitely been a long week already.
I do just encourage the Minister to be very proactive in those conversations. We're talking about legacy projects in Norman Wells for, you know, Imperial Oil, etcetera, so there's no reason that that kind of conversation can't happen now and we couldn't have a park named -- I can't say it named -- Nechalacho in Great Slave. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Are there any further questions in regards to this section? Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. I just want to ask about the Behchoko. It says North Arm Park. You did send me a memo but you didn't explain. So I -- the same thing, like -- what's that?
Okay. Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank my colleague from Great Slave for perhaps pushing the parameters of questions on this area.
Most recently, the Department of Lands in remediating Giant Mine kicked all of the commercial fishermen who store their boats there off. A few of them were forced to make a late run to Hay River, which allows people to store boats. A few got creative and put them on barges, a couple have illegally put them on government dock in Yellowknife.
I just think it's one of those things we try to support local fishermen and spending $15 million on a plant while at the same time kicking them off where they've conventionally beached their boats for years, and I know Con Mine could be in that conversation although obviously it's someone else's -- there's a lot going in that geographical location.
If we're building a staging plant, I think consideration of boat storage has now become an issue for everyone on this side of the lake.
Can I get a commitment out of the Minister that her department will look into some sort of solution in this area. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. And this is about as far off course as we're going to go. But I'll let this go to the Minister and...
---Laughter
Thank you, Madam Chair. It's fortunate we actually don't have a whole lot of capital projects so maybe we have extra time to talk about some of the other operational things we're doing.
This wasn't something where the fishers came to us, as far as I'm aware. So it is unfortunate that -- that it came -- it didn't -- it didn't come to ITI. We weren't in a position to engage in any advocacy or any creative work with any of my colleagues here. So certainly going to take that away and see what we can do to work with our colleagues over in Lands, whether it's to identify a site or otherwise.
I mean, it's hard to react to something when it's already happening, but, you know, this is going to happen again next year. So let us look into what the situation was, where they were, what they were doing there, and what sort of situation they need, and see where we're at next year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Any more questions related to the capital estimates? No? All right.
Industry, Tourism and Investment, economic diversification, business support infrastructure investment, $1,459,000. Does committee agree?
Agree.
Thank you. Committee, please turn to page 43 tourism and parks, with information items on page 44 and 45. Questions. Member for Monfwi.
Sorry, I was ahead of myself here. Well, yeah, it's the North Arm Park. It's Behchoko in both places. But you did send me a memo saying that, you know, $200,000 will be reallocated. So I just want to know where is that $200,000 going. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister of ITI.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is one of those examples where when there's changes being proposed and it's actually changes that are being proposed under the last capital plan, the departments are expected to notify MLAs of those changes and yet the Member for Monfwi did mention earlier to me this week that we should go through this letter, and I'm still happy to do that in more detail.
But just briefly, it's a situation where there's a surplus from one project, specifically a security fence around the North Arm Park, and so looking to take that. There's money that was allocated to an outhouse, and all of which now is going to move over to the North Arm campground that's expected to have more outhouses, probably doesn't need, I know, more outhouses -- what is it with me and outhouses, and to just take the money that's not being used there and to be able to put it to a shortfall on the -- an otherwise shortfall in the North Arm Park. So it's taking some money that's from within the same riding to a different project also within the riding.
But, again, I can certainly spend some time with the Minister -- or from -- or with the Member and kind of walk through the different projects and why we're hoping to essentially keep everything afloat.
Nothing's -- now, projects aren't being cancelled, nothing's being taken away. It's a matter of moving the money from where either there's a surplus or where it doesn't seem to be needed to where there's a shortfall. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member, did you have any further questions?
Community access. So I just want to know if the Minister is working with, like, community leaders, like the Chief, or ignore Tlicho government in -- on this project.
Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, yes, I'm quite pleased to say this is one of the projects that, well, for one, was, I think, fell under the Tlicho Investment -- and now I'm -- can't say it right. The agreement that we have with the Tlicho government with respect to procurement and project development, the infrastructure agreement. And so that certainly does fall under that, which I think, hopefully, is good news in terms of the way in which it's proceeding, which does bring about quite a bit of direct involvement from the Tlicho government and has included within it there's requirements that the Tlicho government, who are involved as the lead, would be, you know, providing training, would be providing a certain number of jobs to local residents, various other procurement related tools. So, yes, sort answer is yes, but that's the longer explanation. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
Yes, thank you. I guess I want to know if the Minister is working with other community Chiefs to promote -- to promote the tourism industry in the communities and other businesses as well within the Tlicho region.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Again, Madam Chair, the short answer is yes, and this is one where, I think, I'm fairly familiar with the extent of involvement in Whati because I know with the road going in, there was a real desire to make sure that there was a lot of work done with the community of Whati to the extent that they wanted it.
But what I would like to perhaps commit to doing is -- is offering to have the Member from Monfwi sit down with the folks at our North Slave office, who are the leads from ITI, who have been working directly with Tlicho, and we can walk through what we are doing and if there's gaps that she can identify, that would be helpful to us as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you.
Okay. Okay. Just noting the time. How many more want to speak? So we're probably not going to get -- okay. I'll continue on, then. Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I just wanted to ask -- or maybe, again, more of a comment to in the small capital projects last year, we had a significant increase in money, and a lot of that was -- it was a great idea by the department to get money into small communities for small contractors and businesses locally to do work around the parks, etcetera. I'm really in support of that.
Can the Minister speak to whether or not the $2.9 million is enough, or would there actually be extra projects that are -- that we could be funding to have more of that work continue this 'COVID winter', for lack of a better word. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, I can think myself that there's probably projects in Madam Chair's riding that, you know, within -- in terms of parks that could use some supports.
Right now, the budgets that we have, from what I am understanding, is that there's already a maxing out on the staff capacity that we have within tourism, within the managing of tourism and within the managing of all these projects. So I'm not sure that ITI's going to be in a position to take on management of much more.
I mean, there's always the funding projects and the funding pools that we have over in operation's side, you know, community tourism for instance. So there's perhaps still opportunities for communities to be accessing those funds and would certainly encourage them to be doing that while these ones under the capital side for ITI may well be pretty well what we're able to deliver upon. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, I appreciate all of the work that ITI does up the Ingraham Trail, and I think that there's kind of an insatiable demand for recreational infrastructure on the trail, and I don't see that stopping anytime soon.
I'll note that in the Infrastructure's budget there's a few million dollars for planning that highway to eventually go to Lockhart Lake, and I expect that the recreational demand will just never stop as that highway progresses further and further to more and more lakes.
But specifically, I would like to raise a concern many of my constituents has brought forward. When you reach the end of the Ingraham Trail right now, you hit Tibbitt and then you just kind of hit the ice road there and it's an area that has increasingly filled up with garbage, and I think there's more and more people, both living out there and fishing out there, and I think it's long overdue for some sort of wayside park or sign or anything that kind of says you've reached the end of the trail and this is a nice place.
I don't know how to get that into the capital plan or into the needs assessment or get that considered by the department, but I'd like to ask the Minister if that's at all possible, something they could look into.
You know, perhaps even when we put out the contract that I assume will be hundreds of millions of dollars to build a road right past there, we could work in some sort of park area at Tibbitt Lake. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there's been a number of inquiries I think probably led by MLA from Yellowknife North on exactly this issue and from constituents on that riding. I am also frequently on that road. I am well familiar with it.
There is signage in the works right now, Madam Chair. But that doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot of money fortunately. So that one's in the works.
As far as creating parking, new parks, new facilities, that -- it requires land, and that is more complicated than just taking over the land that is obviously there. So ITI is working with ENR, with Infrastructure, with Lands.
You know, and I appreciate the comment that there's a lot of folks that are out that way. A lot of new cabins have gone in in the last few years, and those new leases didn't necessarily come with the fact that there were needed to be, then, more parking available. So we are racing to catch up, and we are going to do our best. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. All right. Seeing there's no further questions or comments. Industry, Tourism and Investment, tourism and parks, infrastructure investment, $2,978,000. Does committee agree?
Agree.
