Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to tourism, I share the Member's feeling that over the past years we have not paid enough attention to tourism. It has a tremendous potential.
When the responsibility for a large part of tourism was devolved out to the Northwest Territories Tourism Association, it was done with the expectation that there would be a partnership arrangement where the private sector would bring in 50 percent of the dollars and the government would provide 50 percent. That has not really happened. The industry just has not been able to do that.
I really believe in tourism we need to have that arrangement. I hope we can someday achieve that because I think it was a good objective to begin with.
The finding money from within...you know, we not only have to get to the level we were at, I think we have to get higher than that because we need to promote this more as an industry. So if, throughout the year, I could find additional dollars from within then certainly, there is a priority in the department when we do not have other things that are more pressing needs, then we need to put it into tourism, because it is a priority for me. I think it is too important of an industry.
With regard to the economic development programs, we do have small business grants that are specifically for small business, and I think they cap out at about $5,000, and there is a total of $287,000 within that category. We are also looking, because we do not have an EDA, we do not have a lot of money to make available in grants and loans and so on to small businesses. We are looking at the possibility of putting some sort of ceiling, even on the so called larger ones, of possibly $100,000 or so. Anything beyond that would have to be viewed differently, because the small business sector is a real driver within our economy.
We are trying to do it. I am hopeful that through the document, the common agenda, we can put a new argument to the federal government. Get us some EDA dollars to help this sector out because we are not doing nearly as much as the demand is out there. Thank you.