Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the efforts of committee and the work that we have been doing going through the budget dialogue process and looking at putting dollars where we feel that has not been looked at or supported in quite a number of years. I think, for the past six years NWT Tourism has been operating on the same budget and doing a really great job in terms of getting out to the markets and other jurisdictions, while at the same time still operating on the second-lowest budget in all of Canada. Even with this little increase that we’re asking for, we appreciate the $600,000 that’s being allocated to marketing this upcoming fiscal year, and they do have a very concrete business plan, an expanded Marketing Program that would benefit all residents of the Northwest Territories, and in the jobs that they’ve been doing and the work that we’ve seen them do, they’ve been very diligent in getting the jobs done that they have set out and spreading their dollars as thin as they could.
With the inflation and increased costs of advertising and the increased costs of travel, doing business in the Northwest Territories, especially when they’re competing with other northern jurisdictions, we need to support this group that’s been doing a lot of really great work over the past number of years. We want to continue to support this group, and just from the NWT Days and the work that they did there, they were a great presence. I think they were a big contributing factor on the success of NWT Days. I know there were very interactive displays at the pavilion in Ottawa there and I know they will probably be a big reason why this government has
been invited to many other functions in Canada to attend and show our spectacular NWT.
I would support the supplementary appropriation that’s been asked for by our colleague to increase it. This organization has shown, and proven, that they can do the job successfully with the amount of dollars that they have with the $1.2 million fully to get this expanded program on the ground and running and providing those dollars invested in marketing so that we can increase the return on investment in the Northwest Territories. They’ve been doing a great job. It shows that this is our biggest industry that we should be supporting on the lowest budget with the biggest return on investment for the Northwest Territories. I wouldn’t say we’re nickel and diming them, but they do need more support.
That said, this is something that we brought up through the beginning of this budget dialogue process. I feel that NWT Tourism has been doing a great job, excellent job, has been very successful and professional. For the last six years they’ve been operating on a very thin budget and it’s about time that we recognized the hardworking staff over there, we recognize the work that they do, we recognize the investments that they bring to the Northwest Territories and that we do agree and get them that $1.2 million so that they can continue to go out and promote the Northwest Territories to other markets globally and bring more visitors to the Northwest Territories.
I am in favour of this motion and I applaud the work that NWT Tourism does and the motion that my colleague brought before the House today.