Thank you, Madam Speaker. In the budget address yesterday, there was mention of a pilot rebate program for the film industry. That’s new to me. It wasn’t brought up when we were going through our main estimates, but it has been a concern for myself, working with people in the film industry. Seeing that there is a pilot rebate program, it kind of shocked me seeing it in the budget address yesterday.
I want to ask the Minister of ITI if he can just elaborate and give us a little bit of detail on this program that’s going to be coming out in this next fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. The $100,000 rebate program is something that was developed through the development of the Economic Opportunities Strategy that we put together. It was identified as an area where we could move forward. It’s a pilot project. It is going to be expenditure-based and in year one it will be at a value of $100,000.
It’s important that we continue to ensure that the momentum that we’ve built up in the film industry here in the Northwest Territories is continued forward.
We also have been recently successful in attaining $60,000 from CanNor, which is going to allow us to move forward in the development of an NWT film strategy, which will ensure that we do get that momentum carrying us forward. Thank you.
Getting into more details, what type of rebate initiatives are we going to be looking at? Are we going to be looking at film training, development, at location incentives to get some of our people in the film industry labour jobs or professional development with our filmmakers, people who are already in the film industry?
Can I get more information on the incentives, rebates and costs that groups are going to be able to access? Thank you, Madam Speaker.
The program will reimburse eligible television and film production clients here in the Northwest Territories with wages and also goods and services purchased here in the Northwest Territories. Again, this is a pilot project. We understand that we need to come up with a long-term strategy and vision for the film industry in the Northwest Territories, but again, we have the momentum behind us.
This is a pilot project and is something that we felt confident that we could move forward with. It was identified as an area through the Economic Opportunities Strategy that we needed to act on and that’s why it’s here. It’s something we think will certainly pay dividends as we try to attach more film production companies to do work here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Time for question period has expired; however, I will allow the Member for Boot Lake to continue with his set of questions, supplementary number three. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Pan-territorially, Ministers work with other Ministers and other government through Yukon and Nunavut. Yukon has a really great program where they have even more dollars into a very structured film industry.
I am just wondering if the Minister, even though we are embarking on a pilot project, if this is something he can make more stable following some of the best practices we see in the Yukon.
This year alone, we’ve lost some of the episodes and some of the work that Arctic Air came up with that was due here in the Northwest Territories. If anybody has seen Arctic Air around Yellowknife, they were at the restaurants, they were in our hotels and were doing tourist stuff. They were adding to the economy, but we’re losing it because we don’t have the right rebate program in place to track and keep other film industries from other jurisdictions here in the North.
Can he establish this and not really focus on the pilot program but also focus on creating greater incentives, adding more dollars, something the Yukon has done successfully? Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Just a clarification, that was Mr. Moses’ second supplementary, but third question. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It is very important that we ensure that production companies remain in the Northwest Territories to do the film works here. We have had some discussions with the Yukon. In fact, when looking at developing an NWT film strategy, we’ve looked at the Yukon and we’ve got a recommendation on a service provider, a contractor who has done a tremendous job for the Yukon government. That is who we have hired to do that work for us here in the Northwest Territories. Again, that is money that we’ve received from CanNor, $60,000 that we’re going to continue to work on that. It’s expected that that strategy will be released some time prior to March 31st of this year.
We are very encouraged about what we’ve talked to the Yukon about, their experience with this contractor. We are very excited about the future.
There are a couple of new reality programs that are in the works here in the Northwest Territories and we hope that there are more out there. Certainly with the construction of the Inuvik-Tuk highway, that might be another opportunity for a reality-type show here in the Northwest Territories, Madam Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. The last question I guess I’ll have for the Minister in terms of this rebate program is: Are there any new funding dollars allocated to the film industry in terms of training and development in terms of the northern film industry people that work in this area in this industry? Is there anything that will be included in future budgets or even this budget that might enhance the products that they do and the training and skills that they do require for work here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Madam Speaker.
We have re-profiled some of our SEED funding to the film industry. Last year we had 12 recipients, I believe, that received $114,000 in funding. It is our expectation that that type of funding will continue this year, that there will be applicants looking at doing film projects here in the Northwest Territories. It’s important that we have that type of funding available for them.
As we move forward, again it’s very important for this government that we continue to pursue the NWT film strategy and we will hopefully have that ready by the end of March. That will certainly build a foundation for us to work off of, to maybe have some additional programs and supports for the film industry here in the Northwest Territories. We certainly have that momentum behind us and we want to see that carried forward. Thank you.
