Agreed.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 20232024, Department of Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $9,531,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Please turn to page 10. Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 20232024, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, corporate management, not previously authorized, $89,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 20232024, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, economic diversification and business support, not previously authorized, $2,929,000. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. First off, I love fish and I'll eat it as often as I can get it. But in here there's $2.2 million for operations of the Hay River Fish Plant, and just wondering is this going to be an ongoing expenditure over time or what's happening here? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we are not expecting this to be an ongoing thing. This is really part of the transition now that there is well, hopefully soon to be the operational fish plant in Hay River, and over the next three years it will be transitioning to be a locally operated hopefully locally operated fish plant. But for now, we need to get it open and running. So unfortunately with the production in fish having gone down over the last five and so years, as a result of which there's a bit of a gap particularly in this first year in terms of what we're expecting in revenues versus the cost of running the plant. So we are expecting some revenues in and that will offset some of this amount, but certainly want to be able to ensure that we can run that plant, get it going, and support the revitalization of the industry, revitalization of having fish moving south and getting more money for those fish, which then, again, hopefully brings more fishers on, raises production, and gets us out of having to subsidize the plant. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, is anyone else putting money into the fish plant, the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, the federal government, anyone else? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there's been significant contributions from the federal government overall to both the building of the fish plant and to the fishing industry. So I do want to acknowledge that, actually quite a significant amount. I don't know that it's going anything to this specific item although I will note it's my recollection that CANNOR was quite heavily involved in procuring some of the equipment that's gone in. Again, so there's been a lot of supports, but just not perhaps on this particular element of the fish strategy. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. So is it expected that the fish plant is going to generate any revenues, and how would that offset this amount of money, and when would it kind of show up? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So we're hoping on there being just over a million dollars this year, and then increasing next year to over a $1.5 or $1.6, again depending on and subject to the amount of production that is available. Those revenues then offset the costs of running the plant. Certainly if production is higher, then there is more revenue that offsets further. And really can be hopefully a snowball approach, Madam Chair. There's more production, more fish for sale, more revenues, more fishers interested, the cost will the price of fish will go up as we're able to provide that supply to southern markets. So a lot of things are coming together but this is an important element of that strategy. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Okay, that's all good. Just in case anybody wonders, I do support this expenditure. I believe in economic diversification. As I've said, I love fish. I just hope that the price doesn't go up so much that I can't afford it. But I do support this. And I think it's good that we ask questions and maybe other Members may have some questions here as well. But I do support this funding. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I also have questions about the fish plant. Can the Minister tell me whether or not the opening of the fish plant will mean that fishers will receive more money per fillet or whole fish that they bring in than they are currently getting under the previous agreement or arrangement? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, right now the Northwest Territories remains the sole signatory to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act, a federal piece of legislation. That provides a floor. So it provides a guarantee where fishers are guaranteed a certain income amount that comes on a regular basis to them. Unfortunately what the offset of that is as well it's a guarantee and a floor, it also creates a bit of a ceiling. We aren't able to take advantage of the markets that we now believe to be available to the very good product that we have coming out of the freshwater here in the Northwest Territories. So part of having the plant is that we would be able to then be certified to sell directly to southern markets and make a higher cost higher price per fish. To get there, though, we do still need to extricate from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act. So this is one step in that process, Madam Chair. But there's another step, and that's going to get out of the act or to have exemptions. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you. Why are we still the only ones in this arrangement that basically indentures our fishers to, you know, not paying them what their fish is worth? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, the federal government had indicated some you know, within for the last recent few years that they were going to be transitioning out of having the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, and given that it is their act and their system, certainly seemed logical to anticipate and wait for them to indeed perform that – to complete what they said they were going to do. I think they were hoping for some other solutions. I can't say as to why they haven't moved faster or what they've done or not done or why they have done or not done it.
What I can say is we are no longer going to be waiting for them, Madam Chair, and we are going to be looking for a path forward on that, whether it includes exemptions as a temporary measure to allow fishers to sell outside of the act's confines and/or, but probably and, crafting our own legislations so we can regulate our own sale of fish which would mean we would not be reliant on the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act. So could those things have happened a year or two years ago or three years ago, perhaps, but, again, waiting on the federal government, given that it is their act, was the path forward quite reasonably at the time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for the answer. I wish we had gotten out of it sooner from what I hear.
My next question would be that why would we not take part of this $2.246 million and ensure that and use that money instead to pay the fishers more rather than operation of the fish plant because the operation costs will automatically start to be paid when more fish come through. So if we're not paying the fishers enough, we don't have enough coming into the plant, we operate at a deficit. We pay the fishers more to start with beginning this summer, then they bring more in, the fish plant has less operation costs to be borne by the government. I'm not understanding why this isn't what's happening. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, fishers do right now have the ability to apply through SEED force subsidies to support them with the cost of equipment. They are also being supported in terms of provided training, both in the winter and the summer fishery, and in the works right now is an effort to provide additional funding. Funding was already provided once last fiscal year and again this year to help support having mentors and trainees on the boats which would then support their labour needs. There is also has traditionally been and continues to be support subsidy support for freight, so freight is subsidized for fishers. And finally, Madam Chair, there is a subsidy supports for fish production in the Northwest Territories. We are looking at changing that and had sought the input of the Tu Cho, for one, in terms of what kind of subsidies might support and incentivize productions. So there's a balance to be struck between providing a subsidy direct to the fisher and wanting them to increase production and then also still wanting to get the plant opened so that it can provide that longterm solution that I was describing earlier of allowing fish to be sold directly. So we're trying to do all of the things with the fiscal capacity that we have. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure that that totally answered my question. I get that there's a balance. However, the fishers themselves have been asking for an increased payment for their fish. So I'm not sure how that then gets developed with cooperation of the Tu Cho themselves if the Tu Cho is telling me something different. Talking about subsidies and training and funding is great, but when we have an entire summer this summer where the fishers, there's is only a dozen or so of them, make no money, we won't attract new people here, we can't afford even one season of more fishers leaving, so I really think this is a bad plan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Comment.
Thank you, Member. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And, you know, I guess I kind of agree with the Member for Great Slave that this is a bad plan. And when you look at this, we're looking at a business model here. We're looking at an industry that pulls off, you know, maybe a million dollars a year, $1.5. We're putting in two point we probably put $20 million roughly into a building, we're putting another two point some million dollars into operations, and maybe this is for the first year. Like, it just gets to be it gets to be out of whack.
We don't have a lot of fishers out there. But what the fishermen want like, I'm from Hay River, I talk to the fishers. There's so many there's the number of fishers that are actually with Tu Cho. There's some that aren't, and so I try to talk to everybody there to get a sense of what they want. What do they want? More money. They want more money. If you get more money and then that's hopefully entice new entrance into the market I mean, into the industry. But, again, to do that, we need a market. We have to have somebody that's willing to pay more for the fish as well, because right now if you know, if we're paying like, I don't think we're going to be I'm hoping we're not going to be paying $2.2 million a year to operate this thing when we're only pulling off a little over a million dollars of fish a year.
That leaves us very little room to, you know, to put back into it because a lot of that has to go back to the fishers. We've got a lot of work to do here. Like, I guess what we need to do is take a look exactly what the costs are. We need to look at what other costs what other funding that we are actually putting into the industry itself as well. Like, we know that there's other money going in from the GNWT. We know there's other money coming in from the federal government. You know, we got a lot of work to do in, you know, upgrading equipment. The winter fishery is very important. Like, without a winter fishery, you know, this plant is probably this plant is overkilled. So I guess I just want to make sure that, you know, when we approach and we're spending this type of money that we're doing it right because if with the amount we spend, we might be better off just to take that money, divide it up, and just pay the fishermen to stay home each year, is really is what it boils down to it. But we don't want to do that because we have a lake full of fish. We don't have to feed it. It's there waiting to be caught and sold. So, you know, we have to get is it right.
But I think we need to take a look at all the costs, where the money's coming from, whether it's this you know, the different departments. We've got training dollars as well. And yeah, so my big thing for the fishers, and I've told them and in talking with them, is trying to maximize what they get per pound. And how do we do that? That's the question. And it's hopefully through marketing and getting the fish out there to somebody who is willing to pay a high price for it. Because if they're not willing to pay a high price for it, then, you know, we're just throwing good money after bad. And that industry is in my back yard and I don't want to lose it. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, one of the other things done under the umbrella of the fish revitalization strategy was work on marketing, was work on understanding the market for fish, and consistently it has come back that there indeed is a very strong market for freshwater fish and for the kind of product that's available here in the Northwest Territories, that it is a distinct and unique product. Geopolitically with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that price only increased and the demand only increased. So we're at a moment in time here right now that we very much would like to be able to capitalize on the markets that we know are available and on the price that we know can be higher if it was a product that wasn't the kind of thing that comes out of the Freshwater Fish Market Corporation in Manitoba because they're not there to maximize price; they're there to provide stability of price, which is a different goal. We want to maximize the price.
Madam Chair, we certainly found that, yeah, there needs to be increased production here, but straight subsidies won't necessarily do that. Handing money you know, again, paying people to stay home doesn't increase production. Trying to support and incentivize is what we want to do to increase production. So we've had some conversations. I know I've just today received some details about ongoing conversations and engagements that are happening with fishers all around the lake to see what can be done to continue to encourage and incentivize people to get out and increase their production. Part of that is by having the higher prices. We need the higher we need to have the market or to have the plant open to get the higher prices. We are in a bit of a tough spot with this, again, trying do all of the things at the same time with within fiscal capacities where we're at. So getting the plant open, running, and moving the fish out of it is one major step forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, you know, I understand there's, you know, there a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of moving parts here. And, you know, we have we have the fish plant, which, you know, we need production. We need fishers out there who are really producing because we need to fill that plant. However, we don't have that right now. We have some fishers that are interested in you know, in taking their fish to the plant. We have others who are just interested in selling local and locally, and they get good money for that as well. So you know, when we talk about how much it's going to come off the lake and how much we're expecting the plant, well some of that's actually staying in the in the North already. It's sold privately. And, you know, then that's the other question that comes up. Is the plant going to compete against local producers who are or producers who are selling their product locally as well? So that you know, that could impact what they're bringing in. It impacts what the plant's going to be generating for revenue as well. So like I say, there's a lot of there's a lot of moving parts. And, you know, something that I guess I've always kind of wanted to see on this is that, you know, we have ITI, you know, talking with fishers, we have, you know, fishers maybe talking with me and talking with other people as well, we have Freshwater involved, we have the feds involved, but what I'd like to see is that and I have talked to Tu Cho before about that is to come up and have actually a conference for fishers. We haven't had one probably for 40 years.
Bring everybody to the table and everybody put what they have on the table, and come up with a plan that makes sense for the plant, for the fishers, and how do we, you know, entice more people to get into the market. So, you know, it would be nice to get a commitment from the Minister at some point that we could look at doing something like that. And this is kind of how this all started when we start talking about the plant, and that was probably about, you know, 30 years ago, you know, it was it was through a it was exactly through that just a one day conference and, you know, we moved and there's two things that came out of that. That was one to get the small craft harbour for Hay River and the other was to look at a plant. But the plant that we were looking at that time was only was probably in the range of, you know, three $3 million to $4 million. And then it just skyrocket from there. So it's just something for the Minister to think about. She doesn't have to tell me today that she commits to pushing a conference, but she can think about it. Thanks.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm happy to think about that. Madam Chair, when I first took on the responsibility here about two and a half years ago, I don't disagree with the idea of trying to get all fishers into some kind of whether it's a, you know, forum or conference, but into a place where everyone's receiving the information about the fish industry and fish revitalization at the same time so there can hopefully be not any misunderstandings about what's happening, why it's happening, who's doing the training, who's available for the training, who's interested in having training, who's ready for having people on their boats. That has been a challenge. I have been struck at how difficult it can be to get all of the parts and all of the individuals interested in having a conversation like that. I think the Member points out that fishers really want to be out fishing. So look, I don't disagree, though, that we want to generate interest here for fishers. We want to generate interest in the product but also interest in people coming here. We're nowhere near hitting our quota. There's lots of room in this industry for anyone that's interested in this lifestyle. So all points well taken, Madam Chair, I guess is all I need to say. And I will take that back to ITI. Thank you.
Thank you. Anything further, Member for Hay River South?
Just one quick point, and it's not that difficult to get people in the room. All somebody has to do is say that they're going to make it happen, and that's what we did before. We just said this is going to happen and we got everybody in the room, and and something came of it. That's it. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 20232024, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, economic diversification and business support, not previously authorized, $2,929,000. Does committee agree? Did you want Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. This to provide funding to enhance support for entrepreneur and economic development, that is a real good program because this for arts program, and that I know it's very important for many of our small communities because there's a lot of people in the small communities use this for economic development, and a lot of them are using arts program part of their healing, and it promotes culture, and then it's good for tourism as well. And when we met with the artists, I know a lot of them wanted the artists wanted to be independent. The art they wanted the art council to be independent. So that was expressed to us. And I just wanted to ask the Minister this number, 375, is that the number that was negotiated with the MLA?
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, that's correct.
(audio).
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It right now is if I'm it's allocated and designated for arts specifically under the SEED program, which is administered by ITI. I can't say that it's then further broken down as being for any particular region or community. I believe it is based on applications and, you know, again, I yes, I think it's applicationbased. Thank you, Madam Chair.
