Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I have to say I was really glad to hear the Minister’s remarks earlier today when he made his statement. He talked about wanting an economy that’s diversified. Absolutely I agree. He wants to raise the profile of locally made, in this case, jewellery products. Absolutely I agree. He wants to support the local arts sector and he feels it’s an important element to grow this sector to do that promotion. It flies in the face of what I spoke about in my statement where we have an NWT Tourism website which does none of that in terms of local, northern-made products.
I’d like to ask the Minister, first off, where each of the items that are displayed on that website are made, the licence plates, the pins, the maps and the luggage tags. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll get that information for the Member but I think most importantly is what we’re doing going forward. I spoke earlier today about our support for diversifying the economy here in the Northwest Territories, and there are three major initiatives that we hope to carry out in 2012-13. That’s an NWT artist database and website, NWT Arts Branding Logo Program and Arts Marketing Tactical Plan. These will be conducted here in the next year and, certainly, I will look into whether we can link sites from around the Northwest Territories to the NWT Tourism site. That is an idea that I think is a good one. I will be in touch with NWT Tourism to see if we can make that happen. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I’m glad to hear that we are going to do something, but I am a little concerned that we’re not doing anything at this point. I guess I would like to know from the Minister, at this point, what we do right now to promote our northern products, whether they be books, whether they be music, whether they be paintings and carvings. All of the products which are produced by our northern residents, what do we do right now to promote them? Thank you.
Earlier I spoke of the close to $1 million that goes out between ITI and ECE in support of artists around the Northwest Territories. We do support festivals. We support our artists. I also should mention BDIC and Northern Canada Trading. I think that’s a component of the BDIC that I believe currently is underutilized and something I’d like to see have more far-reaching impact. I think we as a government should take more of an active role in promoting our own artists and getting goods produced locally here in the Northwest Territories, into a storefront somewhere to be sold to the travelling public. Where that is going to take place, that remains to be seen, but I certainly think we have a long way to go. But I think with a concerted effort we can get there and I’m interested in seeing us make some progress in this area. Thank you.
I didn’t hear much there about promotion. I mean, it’s a wonderful idea to have a storefront, but there are an awful lot of people who look for stuff from the North and they look for it from afar. They’re not here and they’d be quite happy to buy stuff on-line. I would like to ask the Minister, and I appreciate that he’s committed to look into possibly linking artists, all our artisans to the NWT Tourism website, but he’s talking many months down the road. I would like to suggest this is not an expensive proposition. If people are on-line already, it’s a simple matter to link them to our NWT Tourism website. I’d like to ask the Minister if he can make it a reality as soon as possible, and when I say as soon as possible, I’m asking the Minister for a date when I could expect to see northern products linked through the NWT Tourism website. Thank you.
As I outlined to the Member earlier, the development of the three initiatives is going to be carried out in this fiscal year 2012-13. It includes an NWT artist database and website. Certainly, when that is wrapped up, we can look at linking it to NWT Tourism site.
In response to the Member’s earlier questions, what we’re doing today, we have NWT community workshops where we’ve delivered programming information sessions in 27 communities around the Northwest Territories. We’ve also provided training to our regional staff. We have arts promotion, a brochure of a series that was developed to provide art enthusiasts with information about traditional NWT arts and crafts. It’s distributed at airports, visitor centres, galleries, regional ITI offices and on-line in both English and in French. We have an NWT artist newsletter. That content focuses on arts-related events and activities across the Northwest Territories. It has a quarterly distribution of over 750 recipients. We also have a toll-free line, a 1-800 toll-free number for a direct link to artists to access regional staff and program assistance. We also promote NWT artists. This is an initiative designed to increase economic impact and production of arts products in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for that comprehensive list. I didn’t hear much in there about how we promote our artists’ sales, how we get their products out there and they get the money. I appreciate that there is a database coming, but I don’t think we need a database to link those artists who already have an on-line presence to the NWT Tourism website. I think it is a matter of e-mailing them and asking them for their connection and then we get TSC to do it. Will the Minister commit to do that in the very near future as opposed to waiting for the plans that he has? Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
