Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Vician.

Thank you, Mr. Vician. Mr. Bromley.

Certainly parking has been an issue and I appreciate the work being done to address that. Part of it seems to be related to trespassers using the facility for parking while

they’re at illegal facilities on the lake. I’m wondering if we’re able to resolve that situation at all. Also, the park is a bit odd in that there are residents who own lots there as well as some that lease lots there and, obviously, have to park in the park. I think the proposal is to start charging them for parking. That seems a bit odd to me. I’m wondering if that situation has been discussed and whether we’ll hear some solutions for those concerns.

Thank you, Mr. Vician. Tourism and parks, operations expenditure summary, $11.962 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a motion here with respect to this page. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories take immediate action to increase funding identified for the tourism industry contribution in the amount of $600,000 for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment under the tourism and parks activity.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. We’ll just wait for the motion to be circulated to the Members. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, colleagues. I bring this motion with the support of my colleagues here today to address and, obviously, do a thank you for the hard work that our NWT Tourism folks do to promote our territory with all their marketing initiatives. I believe that although

we see a $600,000 increase in this year’s budget, the fact remains that this government promised a $1.2 million insertion and has made a decision to do so over a two-year period. We’re trying to earmark the fact that we’re looking forward to the additional $600,000 that this motion be moved in the form of a supplementation at the appropriate time. The rationale for that is quite empirical in nature. The fact that what they’re doing right now is very well-targeted marketing campaigns but they’re not able to do all the campaigns needed in the regional centres that they have a plan for. They want to do things to improve tourism information in all these regional areas. There is a lack of capacity in the current framework. We know that the NWT Tourism also has a plan for more emphasis on Aboriginal tourism, so by adding this money we know that it is going towards these very important initiatives throughout our communities and infrastructure. We know that the monies that we’re looking at earmarking will definitely help with overall marketing and training, and again, adding jobs to our communities goes hand in hand with all the initiatives that we’ve put forward as the 17th Assembly.

The other area that we’ve mentioned here, and a number of my colleagues have mentioned, is the fact that we need a better presence and better leveraging opportunities with our current film industry. The Minister has even said on record that they’re looking at initiatives but, again, to leverage these initiatives from a financial standpoint, we have a golden opportunity to use our existing success stories in many of the different features, national and international filmmakers who are here, and to exploit and be proud of all the different activities that we have in the Northwest Territories and our regional centres. We know this money will prove a great asset to move that agenda forward.

It goes without saying that tourism and arts go hand in hand, and we know that with these increased funds we are definitely contributing to the enhancement of our arts with this tourism integration program of extra monies. If we also look at the economic return of what the Department of Tourism currently does with the minimal budget that they have, it’s phenomenal. The department has provided us documentation, and numbers have been tabled in this House numerous times, that the current budget produces, on average, about $100 million to our GDP. When you do the quick math it’s almost a 20 times return on your investment. As I said in my opening address, that type of return on an RRSP portfolio would be phenomenal. We know historical background what these fine folks do is paramount to our economy and we know that this additional $600,000, should everything hold true to their performance measures, will attribute about a $12 million return in GDP. Those are incredible numbers when you look at it. Again, these are

speculative numbers at best, but there are enough facts in there to support the investment, and I want to stress that.

Our counterparts to the west, and I’m referring to the territory of Yukon, we can learn a lot of things from our neighbours. They have been leaders and stewards in proper funding for tourism. Their budget is more than double our budget and, as a result, you can clearly see that the Yukon model for tourism investment and the output that they do for the people of the Yukon is phenomenal. I think we just need to look at what we can do. The $600,000 does not bring us on par with Yukon but it’s getting us and inching us closer to what we see as a very good model to which we hope, at one point in time, the government could emulate.

I’m hoping some of my colleagues here will hopefully speak towards this, and the government will heed to the wishes of this committee and look at their current budget and fiscal forecast to see if we can, through the proper channels, hold true to their word to this $1.2 million and add the additional $600,000 during this fiscal year.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Moses.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Next I have Mr. Bouchard. To the motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank Mr. Dolynny for bringing this motion forward and I support both my colleagues’ comments about the importance of tourism. In the South Slave we’ve seen a great deal of interest recently in tourism and we support any marketing of the Northwest Territories. I think the department has been doing a great job on the marketing side. I think these dollars will go a long ways to promoting and improving the Northwest Territories.

We started this process and this ask for additional funds in marketing some six months ago. We’ve been in the budget process, and half the funds were received or accepted in the budget, and this is the other half that we were asking for. I think we just see the commitment, we see the multiplier effect and the results that marketing does to the tourism industry in the Northwest Territories. We feel it’s important to put this into fruition for this upcoming budget. It would have to be a supplementary budget, but we see that as an important thing for the Northwest Territories in

promoting this renewable resource that we have and promoting the Northwest Territories to the world and the rest of Canada. I support the motion as it reads.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. To the motion. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I just want to say that I will be supporting this motion and I believe that we can do definitely more. I’ve read through the NWT Tourism Marketing Plan, and even though we’ve identified an extra $600,000 in this year’s budget, I truly believe that we can capitalize and further show the world how spectacular NWT we are, once we’ve got the appropriate budget to do it.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say briefly, I too will be voting in favour of the motion. I think any way that we can help buttress very important if not supercritical industry to draw new money into the territory, I think we need to take every step we can, as highlighted by Mr. Dolynny. He’s quite right that this is an industry that draws good money, well-invested money into a return that is fantastic and, of course, in times of trying to compete with the world of interest and getting people in your area to spend money and invest money and be part of the opportunities, this certainly seems to be a worthy and well-worthwhile investment. If anything, I would be surprised if, next year, we start to reap what we’ve sown, we will start to ask ourselves questions: why didn’t we do this sooner? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, will be in support of this motion. I think it’s been a while since we have been raising this matter for some time on this side of the House. I basically support what my colleagues have stated in terms of support for this sector of the economy. There’s great potential there. There’s been some great work done. I’d like to see the expansion of this initiative into the small communities, ensuring that we have a very good marketing strategy and we basically both worked on this initiative. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. To the motion. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to the motion?

Question is being called.

---Carried

---Applause

Tourism and Parks, operations expenditure summary. You can cheer when you get the money.

---Laughter

Operations and expenditure summary, $11.962 million.