Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to start off with a few general comments on ITI. I guess I could have photocopied the transcript from last year's Hansard in terms of a couple things I'm going to talk about. The first one is tourism. I know some other Members have touched on this as well. Again this year, there's no increase to tourism. I know the department has gone through a process where they hired a consultant and are looking at the inner workings inside the department as well as Northwest Territories tourism to try to find some common ground perhaps, and make sure that what finite resources are there are utilized the best way possible. I'm really looking forward to seeing the completion of that, where the dollars are going and how better we can serve the tourism industry here in the Northwest Territories.
I don't believe we've seen an increase in tourism funding in a number of years. I think it's going on six or seven years, perhaps. I think it's time we had a look at tourism. I know it's easy for the government and this is the argument I'll make: It's so easy for the government to spend millions of dollars and lose millions of dollars on bad investments in other areas, but when it comes to tourism it always seems to be the poorer sister or brother, however you want to phrase it. We have to do more as a government to promote and market ourselves internationally and nationally. So that's one thing I wanted to touch on.
The other thing I wanted to mention is I'm very supportive of the move to split the Department of RWED into ITI and ENR. However, the one thing that causes me some concern, and caused our committee some concern as well, is the cost going forward in the area of $2.5 million, if you add up what it's going to cost for both departments. This causes me some concern. I know the Minister has mentioned this to us before about trying to get that number down. I'm looking forward to perhaps working with him through this process so we can try to maybe realize a smaller number. It is a big price to pay on an ongoing basis. I think what we're doing, Mr. Chairman, is duplicating positions in a lot of cases and I don't know if a service centre type model could be utilized for superintendents. New superintendents of both departments could perhaps look at working both sides of the fence. I don't know, but we're hiring a substantial number of new employees.
The other thing I wanted to mention is any of the ads that I've seen that have gone out for new positions with either one of the two departments have been open to indeterminate employees only. That causes me some concern, Mr. Chairman, because it doesn't allow for the department to bring in any new blood. It's just folks who are recycled through the system basically and that's what you're going to get. I don't know if there was any thought given to perhaps looking outside the current public service to try to bring in some new blood, especially when you're starting up two new departments. Those are my comments on that.
In terms of investment and economic analysis, I do believe that there is some overlap and duplication there, perhaps, in some of the functions and roles that IEA plays and the Development Corporation currently plays and BCC currently plays. There's some work there I think needs to be done. I'm looking forward to the committee working with the Minister to try to get us where we want to go with that.
Again, I could have gone back and got my script from the last budget session when dealing with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline office. I don't think we've been given the information that we need, Mr. Chairman. What we're looking for is a list government-wide of positions that dealt specifically with the pipeline and what we got was a list, but it wasn't a comprehensive list. It wasn't an accurate list. I think what we need is to really get a grip on the positions that we have government-wide, where they're located and what they do. As a member of GED today, I don't really know where all these positions are or what they do or anything. I think that's something that I'm looking forward to seeing.
Again, the pipeline office in Hay River, I can understand and appreciate the staffing difficulties in trying to get that office up, but here we are, it's been a year and the office still isn't open. That's a shame. I think it should be open. We should be getting the ball rolling here. We've been asleep basically for five years on this, meanwhile they're planning for an $8 billion pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley. Really, as a government, I don't know where our coordinated approach is. It just isn't evident. We have a long way to go in that. Again, I know the committee and myself were looking forward to working with the Minister to try to get that coordinated approach and it's going to take not just the Minister of ITI or ENR to work this through, it's going to take the commitment from the Premier and the rest of Cabinet to get these positions on the table and get some coordination. It's very convoluted, the reporting function amongst deputy ministers and committees and
where the information goes and how it's disseminated, it's very confusing to the lay Member of this House, that's for sure.
I just wanted to end on a positive note. I know the committee and myself have had a good relationship with the Minister and I know the Minister has shown evidence to want to work with the committee and he does actually take what we say and work with us on trying to implement some of the recommendations that we bring forward. It's been a good working relationship and I look forward to working with the Minister to accomplish a few more things here in the next year. Thank you.