Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I spoke about the challenges the tourism industry is facing in the Northwest Territories. How is the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment going to partner with tourism operators who are struggling to provide access to remote lodges and campsites that are only accessible by boat or float plane now that water levels are historically low and rendering docks and piers useless? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of ITI.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by thanking the Member for raising this. We have a very beautiful tourism industry to match our very beautiful landscape here in the Northwest Territories. We're certainly very aware of the challenges that the low water levels pose on our remote lodges across the territory, and ITI continues to work closely with NWT Chamber of Commerce and NWT Tourism as well to make sure that we're understanding the specific needs of lodges and who is in that situation, and until we know more information about what that looks like for everybody independently, we won't really be able to identify kind of what is needed. But I'm certainly committed to finding creative ways to address this with businesses and seeing how we can support one another. But at this time, I don't have a concrete solution or response for the Member until we know more. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister missed a chance to say Spectacular Northwest Territories, so I will do it for her. We have a spectacular industry, a spectacular, pristine environment, but climate change is definitely impacting it. So what are we doing to ensure that the industry is part of the conversation when it comes to wildfires and making sure that tourists are well-informed of the dangers wildfires present and that operators aren't liable for issues that happen due to evacuations and things like that? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, the North is definitely spectacular, so thank you to the Member for that.
Ensuring the safety of tourists and residents during forest fire emergencies is certainly a top priority for the Government of the Northwest Territories. It's important, though, for tourism operators to have robust business continuity plans and also appropriate insurance coverage in place to manage such situations. As far as communication, we do have our public safety page on the GNWT website, we have things like Cabin Radio who has always been very active in making sure they're informing residents. And so it's bit of a partnership that needs to happen there, Mr. Speaker, where we do what we can to get the message out, and we also rely on people to know where to go as well. And so I can definitely loop back in with NWT Tourism to see if we are communicating this information to our tourism operators as well so that they can pass the message on to their guests too. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. Will the Minister -- another issue is hotel capacity. We're often over -- sorry, often overcapacity -- we're nearly always overcapacity with our hotel command, and it's increasing year after year. So what is the Minister doing working with her Cabinet colleagues to ensure there are incentives for hospitality -- for the hospitality industry to grow? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, from within the ITI umbrella, we do have a support for product development enhancement through the well established tourism product diversification and marketing program. This is specifically funding to reinvent, improve, and expand tourism products across the Northwest Territories. And we also have funding for business planning for product packages for marketing efforts. Within ECE, we have wage subsidies. And then if you head over to some of our other departments, there are opportunities to build business in the Northwest Territories for sure. I can say as far as the Member's question in regards specifically to tourism offerings, I've recently met with a number of our Indigenous development corporations in the territory here and had the opportunity to also speak about tourism with each of them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, this is important to my riding. I've got many fine tourism operators, and I'm glad to hear the Minister is talking with them.
Finally, one of the things that's come to my attention is the need for more RV turnaround stations and campsites in the Northwest Territories. Does the Minister have a plan to address that need? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ITI does maintain a number of territorial parks across the Northwest Territories which do have turnarounds for RVs. That being said, we also did just increase our fees within ITI in order to create space for privately-owned campgrounds as well. Historically our rates were quite low, and we needed to raise those to make sure that they were both competitive and doing a better job of keeping up what it actually cost us to operate our parks, which I will say are still subsidized within the territory.
For turnaround stations that are outside of our territorial parks, that would need to be done in collaboration with the Department of Infrastructure as it would be a highway asset. And if this is deemed to be a priority of the Assembly, I would certainly be more than happy to follow up with the Minister of Infrastructure. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
