This is page numbers 4503 - 4526 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 4th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was i'd.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about the potential of the film industry in our Northwest Territories. We have such a wealth of people, scenery, and landscapes to showcase to the world, yet it seems a shame that we don’t have more films being produced here in the North.

It’s true that we’ve had many talented independent filmmakers who have worked on commercials and entertainment projects, but with the few grants available through the NWT Arts Council it makes it tough for them to be established and working. We know Western Arctic Moving Pictures. They work very hard on showcasing their independent producers who develop films here in the North, and we certainly know about the film festival that was held here a few short weeks ago.

This industry, in a startlingly simple sense, barely shows up as a blip on our territorial scope. I think this government needs to find ways to help support this industry, because I think we have a wealth of opportunities to showcase to this world.

It’s no surprise to many Members here. We’ve all heard about the Ice Road Truckers. A few months ago I was travelling in Whitehorse and the first thing someone said when they found out I was from Yellowknife was, hey, do you know Alex Debogorski?

The message on our film industry up in the North here can showcase to the world the type of people and culture that’s available here. I’ve heard people down south ask me about Ice Pilots. The world is tuning in to what’s happening here in the North and they certainly like the format of what they see.

There are a lot of these movies and films that stir the emotions and certainly interest Canadians as well as people around the world. As such, I’ve heard that people, since watching the Ice Road Truckers, want to come to the North and drive on the ice road.

The bottom line is this industry does need help. I’ve spoken to people who were involved in the Ice Pilots show, but one of the problems they talked about was finding very little in the way of support mechanisms where they need to get staff to help them develop the film to a product they can then send out. The staff wasn’t available with the tools. They had to bring everyone from Vancouver, do the work here, and then fly everyone back home. Very little investment was put on the ground here.

With time running out on the clock, we’ve had great shows such as North of 60 produced here and we’ve had Northerners involved. Later today I’ll ask the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment about how we can turn the North into the Hollywood of the North and build on that potential.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Monfwi

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize Wendy Wile. She’s monitoring her daughter here, Mikelle, and I believe that Grandpa’s up here too. She’s a former resident of Behchoko and former teacher in Behchoko. Mahsi.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure today to recognize Wendy Wile, as well. I can’t see her up there, but I know she’s up there. She’s a resident of Frame Lake and a neighbour just down the road from me. Thank you.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I’d like to welcome everyone to the gallery today. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. Item 7, Acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regard to the report I mentioned, I believe a copy was given to the Minister of ITI, and ITI did provide some funding for this research. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, I believe that this research is really identifying the core issues on communities and also some suggestions on how they can look at being self-reliant in a lot of these small communities, especially like the community of Aklavik.

I would just like to ask the Minister of ITI if his department has had an opportunity to consider some of the recommendations in the report and possibly moving on some of the suggestions that were put forward in regard to how we can invest in some projects in the community and see if we can generate jobs and make the community self-reliant.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Aklavik project was quite a novel and creative approach to economic development. I think that it’s

an approach that could be used in other communities and was done largely at the initiative of the local people from Aklavik who want to see economic development occur in this community. As we speak, our department of ITI is reviewing the report with the direction to come back and give me some indication of what areas we can implement and what areas we can advance further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the Minister for that, because in the report it clearly identifies through the finding of the research some of the priority items include a sawmill in the community of Aklavik, the fur garment factory that was there in the past -- there’s still effort to do that -- the whole area around tourism. I think it’s those types of initiatives that we, as government, can provide seed money to assist those communities to get some of these projects off the ground to generate those types of incomes.

So I’d just like to ask the Minister if he’s had an opportunity to get his regional staff involved in looking at this report and seeing exactly how they can maybe work with the local communities to get some of these projects off the ground and get them going right from the regional level, regardless if it’s regional staff in Inuvik, the local economic development officer and whatnot. So this work is already there. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s had that opportunity to explain this to the regional staff.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

I understand the regional staff have a copy. We have just completed a staffing competition to hire a new economic development officer for Aklavik, so we’ll have somebody on the ground working to begin to implement some of the recommendations with some support from here in headquarters. Thank you.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Again, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the overall report and study, it does talk about challenges that they face in the communities, and one of them was something I believe the Minister just touched on, is capacity of trying to deliver human resources in our communities. It is critical that we find a way to ensure that we have economic development officers as key people in the communities. So I’d just like to ask the Minister, one of the suggestions is ensuring we have long-term commitments for positions and so people know that when they take on these jobs, they will have some certainty if they go into a community than simply year-to-year contracts. So I’d like to ask the Minister, in regard to the capacity issue, has he had an opportunity to look at some of the suggestions in the report on how we develop capacity in our communities.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

My ITI staff are reviewing the document and will be providing me with some recommendations on what is in the report. In the

meantime, we’re also working to provide for more longer term capacity. We will be working to have somebody from the community work with the EDO position so that we can have longer term workers in the community. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister in regard to whatever his findings are from his department, if he can keep myself and the community of Aklavik involved so we can take it to the next step of implementing some of these ideas. It’s a great report. It’s 166 pages long and it would be a waste if this report isn’t being used and isn’t implemented. So I’d like to request the Minister to keep me involved when implementing the report.

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

We’ll keep the Member involved and also the people that have been the lead on this project from day one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement with the Deh Cho Bridge. I know that a lot of the issues have been somewhat addressed by the Minister and by the Finance Minister in Committee of the Whole the other day. However, my constituents are really upset that they had to cover the additional costs, because the additional costs come from government coffers and thereby the taxpayers. I would just like to ask the Minister of Transportation, does he have a plan B or a plan C if there are more additional costs to be incurred. Will he be going to the taxpayers or will he look for some other type of financing such as a full toll on the bridge? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Deh Cho

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member is quite familiar with the agreement that was signed with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, and in the Bridge Concession Agreement there is a clause that requires the Government of the Northwest Territories to assume the costs if they go over their budget amount. However, the money would then be recovered from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation from its return, and in the event that the government does assume all of the project and is not a partner anymore, it does allow for the government to recoup its costs through the self-liquidating clause that’s in this agreement. That

would mean that we would recover from the tolls that are raised. That’s the intent for this additional $15 million that’s been tacked onto the price of this bridge.

As to whether we would raise the tolls, that’s not something we’ve looked at. That is certainly not something we wanted to do. The price of the toll is still to be considered for what it was set at, and if there was ever any consideration for that, we’d have to have considerable discussion around the possibility of raising the toll. So we haven’t considered at that this point. Thank you.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

A complete toll system is something that constituents raised. There are, of course, good examples throughout Canada in other jurisdictions like B.C., the Coquihalla Highway, and in eastern Canada, that as you drive you pay your toll, you actually see the repairs happening, you see the bridge, the public infrastructure being built, so you don’t mind paying that extra cost. I really think that the Minister of Transportation should seriously look at this idea that, yes, you know, we are going to need some extra revenue to cover off these costs. I’m telling you, our taxpayers don’t want to be paying these extra costs so we’ve got to come up with a unique and creative way of addressing any increasing costs or even costs of this project alone. Thank you.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Deh Cho

Mr. Speaker, the consideration for providing a toll for all people that travel across the bridge is not something that we have looked at as an option. It would have to be a decision of this House. Right now the consideration for recovery on the extra $15 million would be through the revenue that’s raised from tolling the commercial vehicles. We have not had any discussion with any of my Cabinet colleagues or anyone else, for that matter, and that’s something we’ve considered. We’ve tried very hard to keep the commercial toll from increasing and we certainly did not want to burden the travelling public with a toll. So that’s the rationale for not considering a toll for all traffic. Thank you.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much. People are fed up that as taxpayers they have to bail out government for a project that has gone astray such as the Deh Cho Bridge. Once again, the public has asked for information, the ministry has provided that and I’d like to ask the Minister will they use this review and do a post-mortem of the information that they have to ensure that there will be no more increased costs in the upcoming project. It is hopeful that with this additional $15 million that they can certainly stick to the budget and try to be on time. Can the Minister use the baseline data that they have to look backwards and see where they went wrong and come up with a strategy that can ensure that they do not run into this type of problem again? Thank you.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Deh Cho

Thank you. We have tried very hard to look at all the different opportunities or any other costs to enter the project and we feel that we’ve covered all the avenues. Of course, I can’t absolutely guarantee that. We’ve also assumed full management of the project. We have a new team, we have a new contractor. Along with that, we plan to have better communications with the public as part of the responsibilities for project management. We want to have regular updates to all the MLAs and the public with the sites that they could look at, informing themselves, including establishing a website and the possibility of signage that explains some of the project information and things of that nature so the public can be more comfortable with this project and be able to have better communications all around. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.