Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're just going to try to pull that in -- 2020. There we go, perfect. Thank you. And if the Member would like, we'd be more than happy to share that with her as well. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was going to be my next question. But can you clarify, has this evaluation been made public or is it -- is your intention to confidentially share it with MLAs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as long as there's nothing -- you know, no personal identifiers or something like that that couldn't be public disclosed, I'm always happen to be as transparent as possible as long as we're not infringing on a previous commitment made to the participants or anything like that. But I would like the opportunity just to ensure, but absolutely, so long as there's nothing wonky in there that I'm not aware of, then I would love the opportunity to share it.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is great news. I'd love to dig into that. But in the meantime, can the Minister tell us whether this figure of an 8 to 1 multiplier -- economic multiplier out of the mining incentive program, whether that comes from that evaluation and whether that figure comes from self-reporting of participants in the mining incentive program or some independent economic analysis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it was leveraging from the ratio from last year's mining incentive program, so it would be based on company reporting. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does the department or the Minister intend to do any independent economic analysis to verify those claims that participants are reporting, especially given that if they're the ones getting the money there's definitely an incentive -- no pun intended, although there's a pun there -- to make those figures look as good as possible? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it's all assessment work that gets reviewed by our professional geologists, and there are specific reporting requirements that they have to adhere to at the end of their program. And so because the geologists are well versed in the sector and aware of what costs should come in at, there's a natural vetting that takes place in that process. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And to be clear, I mean, I'm aware that there is independent geological analysis done of the, you know, geological claims that are being made, but I'm looking for more of an independent analysis by an economist. But I'll leave that for now. And last question on that is were there any recommendations coming from that evaluation done in 2020, and if so, have those recommendations been actually implemented? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'd like to give the deputy minister the opportunity to speak in detail about that. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, there was a number of recommendations, and we implemented all of them. They ranged from including advanced exploration projects, an earlier version of MIP only was exploration. So that eligibility was included. Secondly, we created a transparent scoring rubric for all proponents so they can see what we're looking for, and then we will tell them how they scored in each of those categories afterwards so they can improve for the next year. And then lastly, flexibility for multi-year funding. Programs need to know that they can have funding from year to year, and so we at ITI have a multi-year contribution policy. And, you know, because the middle of the winter field season falls right at year end, and so do you stop March 31st? You know, and so although we need our budgets, they wanted that flexibility. So those were the changes that we made, and there's a lot of good context in the program evaluation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
That's fine. I mean, I look forward to reading their report and following up. But I do think we need to have some more independent evaluation of the program before, as my colleague recommended, we, you know, start radically increasing the funds that we're putting into this line item. Thank you.
Thank you. Was there any further questions? Thank you, I am going to continue on. Please turn to page 240.
Industry, Tourism and Investment, minerals and petroleum resources, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $15,690,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to tourism and parks beginning on page 243 with information items on page 247. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could the Minister please speak to the decrease to the visitor information centres? I see here in 2022-2023, it was 161,000, and then it jumped in 2023-2024 to 411,000, and now it's down again to 296,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the primary driver of that is we have a visitors centre that's actually located outside of the Northwest Territories in the Yukon. It's the Dempster Delta Visitor Information Centre. It is in a -- on a piece of land in a building that we leased, and the Indigenous government on whose land that sits would like that facility back. And so that facility is going to be no longer. And ITI is looking at other ways that it can ensure that visitors to the area and to the region have access to information about the Northwest Territories. So, for example, in the Dawson visitor information centre and the Whitehorse visitor information centre, they have agreed to have information on the Dempster Highway and up to Tuk and all the wonderful ways you can get into the Northwest Territories and the great things you can do in those locations. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am going to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, just briefly -- and I'm assuming maybe following up on my colleague's question -- I notice that the seasonal positions in the Beaufort Delta dropped by three coming up in this year. Can the Minister speak to why we're no longer required to have those positions in Inuvik? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the visitor information centre that I was just talking about did have three seasonal positions. It had the supervisor of the Dempster Delta Visitor Centre as well as two travel counsellor positions as well. And those positions will be sunsetting due to the facility no longer being available to us.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
That's fine, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member now from the Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of revenues and potential revenues from our parks and campgrounds, I know that there were some changes made recently. So on the one hand, I'm wondering what the department can do to ensure that low income people across our territory still have as much access as possible to parks and campgrounds. I'll start with that one. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, this was the first increase to the cost of our park fees, our park stays for the first time in 15 years. It works out to about 40 cents a year for the campsite per night, or a $5 increase. And while we want as many people, for sure, to enjoy our parks as possible, we've tried to ensure that we're keeping up with kind of industry standards as well as still ensuring that we are making that sector a viable sector for people who operate private campgrounds as well in the territory. And I can confirm for the Member as well that we're not -- we're kind of right in the middle of park fees across the country. So we weren't striving to be at the top end of that or anything. We wanted to make sure that it was a reasonable increase to keep up with the costs. But I can also confirm too that we still heavily subsidize park costs across the territory. So it is not a revenue neutral enterprise at all. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And then my follow-up to that is on the other hand, we still see things like major discounts, 50 percent discount for long-term stays, and so I'm wondering -- that seems to me like an opportunity to gain more revenues in that that's a pretty lucrative thing, at least around here, for people to be able to sort of reserve a spot for the whole summer at a campground or something and something people might be willing to pay more for. So can the Minister explain the rationale for this kind of large discount for that kind of what I would call a perk and whether that's being looked at for a potential way to increase revenue? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the Member is absolutely right. It is two parks close to the proximity of Yellowknife that offer these long-term stay discounts. It's Prelude Lake and Reid Lake. Unfortunately, because those two long-term stays and the significant discount of them is prescribed in legislation, it's a longer change than simply a regulatory change which is much, much easier to do. Why those two landed in legislation back in the day, I'm not sure but they did. So I hear the Member and absolutely acknowledge what she is saying, but it is definitely a long-term tackle. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member for Yellowknife North.
That's fine. Thank you for that. And that is quite astonishing to see that that specific thing was included in legislation. Thank you.
Thank you. Colleagues, we're going to stop here with a hard stop at 8 o'clock, and we'll resume tomorrow. So noting the clock, committee, I will now rise and report progress. Thank you to the Minister and to your witnesses. Sergeant-at-arms, please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.
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Thank you. I was going to make a little note here that the Speaker had said that they’re going to be meeting until eight, so because of that, noting the time, I just want to thank the Minister and your witnesses. And then we will resume tomorrow.
So sergeant-at-arms, please escort the witnesses out of the chamber, and I will report progress. Thank you.
Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Minister’s Statement 4-20(1), Minister’s Statement 5- 20(1), Minister’s Statement 17-20(1) and Minister’s Statement 24-1(1), Tabled Document 111-20(1), and Tabled Document 93-20(1), and would like to report progress with one motion carried, and consideration of Minister’s Statement 4-20(1), Minister’s Statement 5- 20(1), Minister’s Statement 17-20(1) and Minister’s Statement 24-1(1) are concluded. And, Mr. Speaker, I move that the Report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
