We work through the Minister of International Trade, Minister Fast, on this file, and we do have our trade-offs here that are attached to this file. For some specific questions, if the Member has specific questions, again, we’d be happy to try to get a response for him.

No. That was very clear. Thank you.

Alright, committee. Page 12-29, activity summary, economic diversification, and business support, operations expenditure summary, $22.970 million.

Page 12-30, activity summary, economic diversification and business support, grants and contributions. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just as more of a clarification, this is the one time of year where I sometimes get an update on some of these great programs. One of them here on this activity page, the Take a Kid Trapping, just a question is how many kids are involved in this program and if they could let me know of how many Aboriginal children versus non-Aboriginal kids.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe it’s over 3,000 children that participate in the program around the Northwest Territories. I could get the number of schools. I think it’s most schools across the territory. I know all the schools in the smaller communities participate in the program and it has been very, very successful in getting young people interested in trapping and out on the land pursuing that.

It’s a pretty impressive number there. I appreciate it. My second part of that question is more of a distribution question between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. Trapping in itself traditionally is considered an Aboriginal program, but we know quite well that there are non-Aboriginals who partake. I just want to get an idea of what is the uptake that we’re seeing in the school systems in retrospect.

The uptake has been very good in all regions across the Northwest Territories.

For a breakdown of where the contributions have gone, we could get that for the Member, but in our estimation it’s been spread out across the territory and it is accessible by any school in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Committee, we are looking at page 12-30 through 12-33, activity summary, economic diversification and business support, $13.958 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On page 12-32 we have the Film Industry Pilot Project. I know other Members have spoken to it. I want to go to your opening comments and your statement where you talk about $100,000 for a film industry pilot project in response to increased interest in the NWT filming location. This project will measure the impacts of a rebate program to the film industry. Yet, in here it shows $50,000. Is there another allocation of money besides this entry?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On our page 12-32 it is $100,000, and it is meant to be $100,000.

I’m actually going off an old book so they must have updated it since the estimates were given. With respect to that money, I know that speaking to the film industry directly, being a participant in a number of their Q&As and open houses and speaking to a lot of the film directors themselves, I got the impression that although they’re appreciative of a potential rebate, that was not exactly what they felt would have the most and deepest impact on their bottom line. They were very clear and very adamant that they need what they refer to as cultural film advisors or cultural film experts. I know I talked about this with the Minister about a year ago, and if we would have acted then I would assume by this time of year we would have had graduates. If we would have worked with ECE to have these programs in place, we could have put possibly students into this area, graduate them and they could be working right now alongside these film experts.

My question is why isn’t – and I know there are Members that were there from the Department of ITI listening in – why didn’t we look at this endeavour rather than going directly to a rebate pilot?

Part of the explanation might be that we tried to put some support immediately into the industry here in the Northwest Territories, and that’s why you look at this program being a rebate program and some support to the film industry. That could have been the thinking that was involved in that.

Certainly, we’re moving forward, as well, with our film strategy. Hopefully, that is going to outline some other areas, as the Member indicated, that we could avail ourselves up to grow the industry here in the Northwest Territories. We’ve had a great deal of success and we believe the future is certainly bright when it comes to the film industry here in the Northwest Territories.

Again, this is something that was made available through the Economic Opportunities Strategy, something that we felt that we needed to move forward on and move forward on quickly. That’s why it’s here, but that isn’t to say we’ve given up on anything else or trying something else in the future.

I tend to have to disagree a little bit here with the Minister. If we wanted to work more expeditiously, these type of questions, if you go back to Hansard, these have been asked over two years ago, and we’re only seeing this now, almost year three into our term here. I agree, the website that was designed for potential film industry executives to use is a good tool, but three years later we’re only now starting to think about investing into a rebate program.

I’m a bit disappointed only because the film industry is very nomadic and if you don’t do things to react more intensively, you notice that other regions in Canada who have not reacted have now lost that industry. I’ll use Saskatchewan, for example, as a classic example. We have a golden opportunity. We have a number of reality shows. We’ve just had another one recently announced here in the South Slave and in the Hay River area. Again, I’m asking, and I’m asking the Minister here to work with his counterparts, with ECE, if this is exactly what the industry is asking for, let’s put some cultural film experts, programs into our Aurora College. Let’s graduate some of these students. Let’s get them to have jobs. Let’s get them to represent the Northwest Territories. Let’s get them in Vancouver. Let’s get them in Los Angeles. Will the Minister commit beyond this $100,000 to do this in this fiscal year?

We’ve got to make a commitment to ensure that they try to stay in the Northwest Territories, as well, and I think that’s a goal that we should have. I will commit to continue to work with ECE on that. I think it’s a good idea and it’s something that I’d like to see move forward.

We have to look at the big picture. The big picture is we have had a great deal of success with film here in the Northwest Territories. I know the Member mentioned a new reality series; it is totally filmed and edited here in the Northwest Territories, the first reality show to have that all done here in the Northwest Territories. We are very excited about that, and on a per capita basis, the success of the film industry here would probably rank overall

the best in the country for what is happening here in the Northwest Territories.

Can we do better? Yes, we can. Are we putting together a film strategy? Yes, we are. We will continue to work with Minister Lafferty in ECE. We will continue to explore ways to attract new film investment and filming production here in the Northwest Territories. That’s something I can make a commitment to and I certainly want to see this industry be successful here in the NWT.

A lot of this too, you know, the dollars, we need to find some additional dollars, as well, as we go forward. We need to put our best effort into this, and perhaps through the business planning process next year, if we have had success with this, it is an area that we could potentially be looking at for further investment. If the Member’s idea pans out and we can work with ECE, that is another opportunity to make some very exciting things happen here in the NWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next on my list I have Mr. Blake, followed by Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few questions on 12-30. Under the disaster compensation, I see you have only budgeted $15,000. As you may recall, in this past year there was a number of people that were flooded out in both Fort McPherson and Aklavik that needed this funding. I believe out of 20-odd claims only one person was approved, so I would like a little information on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Deputy Minister Vician.

Just on that note, you know, most of the people that live… I will just use Eight Miles for example, just south of Fort McPherson. Many of those people that live there are elders and a lot of them don’t sell a lot of the products they make, for example dry fish, even though there is a huge demand. A lot of people take their families out there and I think that would be eligible. Thank you.