Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the multiple number of reports being tabled in the past four session days, and no doubt right up to the bell later this week, I think Cabinet is hoping that Members will be a little too busy to follow up on all the plethora of paperwork before us. But there is one tabled document, 314-17(5), that was tabled on September 30, 2015, to which I’d like to ask the Minister responsible some questions.
The Minister of Finance tabled the NWT Liquor Licensing Board and Liquor Enforcement Board’s 61st Annual Report, 2014-2015, and within this report it indicates the number of class A to class B liquor licence holders in the NWT. Interestingly, Yellowknife holds 40 percent of these class establishments in the territory. It is plagued with 66 percent of all inspections in the NWT.
Can the Minister indicate why Yellowknife businesses are so unevenly targeted with his Liquor Enforcement Program? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe anybody is being unfairly targeted. Thank you.
Again, the numbers don’t lie, and to take this one step further, the report also shows from 2013-14 to the 2014-15 year a decrease in inspections of licenced premises in every community in the Northwest Territories except the Yellowknife community. In fact, inspections are up in our community by 3 percent.
So, can the Minister offer an explanation to this trend? Thank you.
One of the benefits to Yellowknife is they have potentially a full complement of liquor inspectors. I know that in the smaller communities it is much more problematic finding qualified liquor inspectors. Thank you.
The report also indicates that enforcement offers what is called server training and conducts these courses free of charge to all NWT licence holders. This is voluntary, but the Liquor Board can order a business to attend at their discretion. Interestingly, for the past two years of this report, three communities, Fort Simpson, Inuvik and Norman Wells, had zero server training participants, yet once again it appears that in this 2014-15 report, 67 percent of the participants targeted and voluntarily forced to attend were from Yellowknife.
So once again, can the Minister indicate why the perceived unbalance toward Yellowknife businesses? Thank you.
I don’t believe it’s unbalanced. Yellowknife also has just about 20,000 people, the majority of establishments and the majority of people in a high, high influx as a territorial centre where folks come in and out of town. So they have way more volumes than anywhere else as well.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, Yellowknife has 40 percent of these establishments, not way more that we heard from the Minister.
Finally, it shows in the statement of operations that in 2014-2015 there were three compliance hearings in the NWT for a total compliance penalty collection of $2,800 from NWT businesses. For this measly $2,800, the Liquor Commission spent $25,000 in travel and amassed $34,000 in honouraria.
Again, can the Minister inform the House, does he still feel we’re getting good value for money? Thank you.
There’s a price to be paid for running effective regulatory processes in ensuring compliance, and I would hope and think that people would say if it was a lot worse we would be having a different conversation about why we are spending so much and why are there so many fines. So I think we just have to recognize that there is a cost to doing business as a government that’s not always revenue-based. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
