Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke earlier today about the need to make sure that we continue to produce traditionally tanned moose hides. And one of my concerns in this area is I know many harvesters do not take the hide when they harvest a moose. It's quite a bit more work. Harvesting the animal to take the hide completely. And if you have no one to give it to or you're not willing to put in the weeks of time yourself, it's not really worth taking it out of the bush. And I'm just wondering if the Minister could look into some sort of incentive to make sure people try and take the hides from moose. I know we pay people, I believe it's 50 bucks and you get a free hat if you bring in a moose jaw, and I know we advertise in a number of other areas to take all parts of the animal. And I'm just hoping the department can look into some way to make sure we're not leaving these beautiful hides in the bush. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ENR is open to discuss possibilities for moose hunting and hide tanning incentives and training through our online program. I think we talked about it in Committee of the Whole yesterday, and we said that we'd look into that there.
We know tanning is often a family and the communitybased activity where knowledge is passed on to the youth. This is why ENR, ITI, ECE, and HSS have been providing financial and inkind support to the NWT On the Land Collaborative to ensure that these skills are retained.
ENR is happy to have conversations with organizations interested in running hide camps and programs on a casebycase basis and encourage anyone interested to, reach out to ENR on the land unit to discuss the available funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to commend the department on their work to date working with ECE to get the hunter ed program in the schools. I know we're piloting it in nine schools. I also know there's been some work through Bush Kids and other initiatives to have kind of traditional knowledge in schools. But I would really like to have the Minister work with his ECE colleague to get hide camps into schools. Is this something the Minister could look into doing? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, educational bodies and schools have programs in place to bring in cultural programs to the schools. ECE has some funding for cultural programs and often gets funding from other departments, organizations to supplement school or communitybased initiatives. ENR and ECE recently launched the hunters education as a high school credit program, as the Member talked about and I said in my Minister statement here today. The implementation of this pilot project can inform the development of other future harvesting programs.
ENR has also provided funding to schools throughout the NWT to take a kid trapping what which supports other land skills based skills. ENR will continue to partner and support external organizations such as schools, Indigenous governments, and Indigenous organizations to develop, deliver landbased learning opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the department has provided support through a variety of funding mechanisms for hide camps. In the past, I know they've supported the Dene Najho Urban Hide Camp which happens right in Somba K'e Park here in Yellowknife.
I'm just hoping the Minister can give me a total of how much money we have provided to support this area and exactly where one can apply, where the funding comes from? Thank you.
Thank you. In my Minister's statement today, I talked about the land On the Land Collaborative. The collaborative supported eight specific hide tanning programs since 2006 for a total of approximately $195,000. ENR Takes a Family on the Land program can support tanning given its focus on mentorship. The next applications call for this program is expected to open April 2022.
Through ECE, the arts NWT Arts Council has funded individual handing time individual hide tidy or tanning projects and provides support to organizations such as the Northern Life Museum in Fort Smith. All our application programs are advertised, and interested organizations are encouraged to contact on the land units for more information. And if they have challenges with that, reach out to our regional offices. Our regional office staff are more than willing to help them with this sort of thing as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister may have answered my question there but I'll tell you 200 grand for those eight camps was a great deal, and I know many people are running these not necessarily with government support, that they're communitydriven initiatives. But I've talked to some of the organizers and they'd really like to, you know, take these to another level, perhaps fly in elders, fly in people to help support, you know, turn them into bit of kind of an educational aspect as well. And I just would ask the Minister that perhaps the department, you know, with this fund, reach out to people who run these camps and get the word out there that anyone who wants to run a hide tanning camp, the GNWT is willing to support them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. I think here we're telling people that we're interested; please reach out to us. We don't know all of the time what camps are out there and that, so we encourage them to reach out to not just, like I said, the on land unit but our regional office. We're more than willing to work with them, work with the schools to do this. So the Member is right; this is very much about, you know, being able to pass on traditional knowledge, and that's what we're all about, is trying to be able to do this. So if the Member is aware of certain things, please have him get them to reach out to our regional offices and we'll work together with them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
