Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of ITI. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, it’s been a year and a half now since a lot of my constituents were flooded out in the spring of 2013. I also mentioned that we had a few cabins that floated down the river, of which none of those applicants were approved for their funding.
So I’d like to ask the Minister, out of the total number of applications filed in the spring of 2013, why was there only two applications that were approved. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just received another letter from one of the Member’s constituents regarding the flood of ’13 and looking for compensation. I’ve made a commitment previously to the Member that we would review those applications for assistance. Back in ’13, I must first off state that allocated to this fund is $15,000. Both in the year ’11-12 and ’12-13 we had expenditures there of approximately $80,000 in each of those years. So it was heavily subscribed, oversubscribed, if you will, and the department had to find the funds elsewhere.
As to the reason why claims weren’t initially accepted, it would be because they did not hit the criteria that is put there in place for people to apply to the program and get the funding that’s available. That’s to a maximum of $4,500 per applicant, and again, I’d made a commitment to the Member that we will work with his constituents to try to see if there’s a way that we can get them some assistance. Thank you.
Thank you. That brings me to my next question. When was this policy put in place for the compensation applications? Thank you.
Thank you. I’d have to go back and see when the policy was developed surrounding the funding here. To my knowledge, it’s been in place for some time. That amount of $15,000 has been static going back at least to ’78. So we’d certainly have to go back and find the genesis of that for the Member, and I commit to getting that information to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you. I’d also like to ask the Minister what type of education or advertisement does his department do to ensure harvesters are tracking what they sell from the harvest. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. A different line of questioning, but I’ll allow the Minister to respond if he chooses.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. For that reply, I’d have to defer to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources on that. Of course, ENR signs off applications for consideration under the HTC program and they also validate the claim and the claimants as well. So we’d have to work with ENR on that response for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason I asked that question was, as I mentioned, in the criteria it’s 25 percent of what you harvest is what is required and that’s what the Minister was referring to.
So I’d like to ask the Minister, is the Minister open to reviewing and making changes to the 25 percent that is needed to qualify for the compensation application? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I believe I have made a commitment in the past to have a look at this, and again today I let the Member know that we are willing to take a look at this. It would have to be done in conjunction with ENR, and we’ll make that commitment to have a look at the program and funding criteria. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
