Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of ITI. It gets back to my Member’s statement from earlier today, where I talked of the proposed changes to the allotment, the duration and the pricing for seasonal sites here in the North Slave region.
Most of us are well-aware of the firestorm that built up a month ago regarding these proposed changes. Again, I wanted to thank the Minister for maintaining the status quo in the campgrounds. What I’d like to ask the Minister today is: why did the department take eight months to come up with some proposed changes and try to implement them three weeks before the park season opened?
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, we had an election in October and this resulted in a change. As well, in the North Slave region we had a wholesale changeover of regional managers.
I don’t know if the territorial election had much to do with the operational requirements inside a department — that should be a day-to-day operational thing. And they should be covered off by somebody whether there are changes to personnel or not. What I’d like to ask the Minister is: what is the game plan going forward in terms of consulting the campers in the North Slave region? Has he got a plan for this summer?
I did write to the Member, as the chair of the Economic Development Committee, advising him of what we were looking at. So I was pleased with his response and suggestions.
As I’ve committed publicly and I’ve committed to the committee, we will be undergoing full consultation with the campers, the aboriginal governments, and all of the public before we make any changes.
I think it’s important in this that the department gets out into the campgrounds in the North Slave region and talks to both the seasonal campers and the recreational campers that are out there, and develop some type of survey or questionnaire or something to that effect before waiting until the fall when everybody goes and packs it in for the winter.
I’d like to ask the Minister: are there plans in the works to get out there and talk to people while they’re actually camping?
Certainly that is our intention, and we’ve been getting a lot of feedback from the campers. I’m also pleased that the Member supports the fact and the recognition that we need as many new sites as possible.
Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In relation to the issues in the North Slave campgrounds, I wanted to ask a final question on the reservation system and how it is that the public has to pay to reserve a campsite. I can understand that they pay and they get that offset against their actual camping fees, but from what I see and from what I hear from my constituents, somebody is taking that money, and it’s not going in to offset the camping fees. So I think that’s a cost the department should be incurring.
I’d like to ask the Minister: is there any appetite to phase that type of reservation system out so that the general public doesn’t have to pay to reserve a campsite?
That concern has been raised by many people, so we’re reviewing the whole reservation system. We’ve already made a commitment that we weren’t changing anything this summer, so we’ll look at changing it as part of our overall consultations, unless we can find a better approach quickly.
The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.
