Thank you, Mr. Chair. We work very closely with Education, Culture and Employment to promote all artists, whether it’s visual artists or performing artists and I think we’ve been very successful in doing so. Some of the promotions that we’ve done, we’ve continued to support artists, but also I’ve had many accolades from performing artist who have accessed funding through the SEED program so that they can go out to different festivals. Some of them even go to storytelling festivals in Hawaii and so on.
In addition to that, we also maintain an NWT artists database. We have an NWT Arts Branding Logo Program. We do NWT community consultations. We do arts promotions, art displays. We have an NWT Film Commission. We have a new strategic initiative, Support for NWT Arts Programs and Services, and we have some financial support to the SEED program. We have an NWT artists’ news line/newsletter. We have a toll-free line and we are developing a plan that will identify marketing tactics and strategies to focus on marketing and promotion of NWT artists from across the Northwest Territories in all genres of the arts to maximize potential and exposure of northern talent nationally and internationally. ITI and ECE have contracted Points North and Kellett Communications to prepare a plan for consideration by the departments. We expect a final report by the end of February of this year. Then we will have recommendations made to both the Ministers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.