We didn’t give anything away; it’s still our trademark. There are stipulations on the use of that trademark and I’d be more than happy to give the Member that type of detail if he so wishes. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Minister for offering. Please provide it in the House right now. Thank you.

I don’t have the level of detail the Member has requested. I’ve made an assurance to him that I will get him that level of detail. Thank you.

Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is it fair to say that the government hasn’t gained anything in this particular deal since it’s been struck? How can this government, if it’s not receiving any benefit for locking into a deal with the Polar Bear Diamond trademark with one company, is it fair to say that maybe we should be looking around to consider marketing this option to a company that wants to cut diamonds here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

I wouldn’t characterize it as the government not gaining anything. As I mentioned, we sold two buildings on Archibald Street for almost $2 million. We are collecting lease payments on those properties at the airport, so we are gaining in that regard. Again, our hope is that those factories are up and running soon and that we do have the Polar Bear brand back out in the marketplace at some point in time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask some questions of the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I just want to commend him on the statement that he made earlier today in

the House in the statement regarding CanNor and the investment that the two governments have made into tourism in the amount of $10 million.

So the first question I’d like to ask the Minister is: How are these dollars being divvied up across the Northwest Territories and how are they being used? How are the regions benefiting from the money that’s being announced today?

Earlier in the year, Inuvik held a very successful welcome back, the Sunrise Festival. We had about 25 people from the south come up to Inuvik and participate in the coming back of the sun. It’s a festival and a celebration that I think all people of the North and Canada can partake in. Are any of these dollars able to go into the region, specifically the Inuvik Sunrise Festival?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The funding that was announced, we do have a regional focus on that. I mentioned five communities that will be receiving funding. In the Beaufort-Delta, Tuktoyaktuk will be receiving $250,000. We are hopeful to, at some point in time, have a campground outside of Tuktoyaktuk when the road is complete. We have supported the Sunrise Festival in Inuvik. I know the department’s been supportive of the festival in the past, last year to the tune of $10,000. NWT Tourism also contributed $20,000 to the Sunrise Festival in Inuvik just recently. We have been supporting the festival in Inuvik.

With the decrease of activity in the oil and gas sector within the Beaufort-Delta region, I think we’ve got to put our focus in another investment and industry such as tourism. I’m glad to see the Minister is taking that on and making headway in that sense.

I’d like to ask the Minister, I know that the dollars he says, but the cost of living, the cost of travel in the Beaufort-Delta region, we see it. We see it in our books here when Members have to go back up to the Beaufort-Delta. It’s expensive just for a trip from Yellowknife. Ten thousand to the Sunrise Festival might be great. It’s a one-day, one-event kind of event and they make it a big deal to make a weekend out of it. I think that we can get more people up into Inuvik in the Beaufort-Delta region if there is a little bit more of an investment, a little bit more work with the Town of Inuvik and with the other partners. The Town of Inuvik did a great job in developing partners with some of the airlines, but I think this government needs to step up if we’re going to diversify our economy into the regions.

That’s a lot of money, this $10 million, and I want to know if they’ll be a bigger investment up in the Beaufort-Delta region, up in the Sahtu and the Deh

Cho, because those are the areas that aren’t seeing the economies really grow.

We’ve made a substantial investment in communities like Deline. Lutselk'e will be receiving $500,000 toward tourism initiatives there. We are making an effort to try to get the funding that we have across the territory. In the region, I know our regional tourism office, in collaboration with municipal and community partners, is involved in lots of initiatives to help grow tourism visitation and spending in the Beaufort-Delta region. In particular, some of the initiatives, if I could highlight some of them for the Members, are: revamping and enhancing Destination Inuvik promotional materials to better target potential visitors to the Beaufort-Delta region. The regional tourism officer for the Beaufort-Delta region is engaging with communities in the region like Tsiigehtchic, Fort McPherson, Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik and Ulukhaktok to develop sustainable tourism. We’ve got programs that have been delivered or plan to be delivered in the region including Welcome NWT customer service workshops, starting a tourism business, a workshop in the Western Arctic, visioning tourism in Aklavik, a community open house, visioning tourism in Tuktoyaktuk, community tourism engagement in Tsiigehtchic, and we’re also planning community engagements in Ulukhaktok and Fort McPherson in the very near future, and more workshops and capacity building initiatives are planned for ’15-16 all across the Beaufort-Delta region.

I was able to attend one of those community engagement sessions where a lot of really good points and recommendations were made. This was a while back. I just want to know, moving forward with these community engagement strategies, I don’t know what the cost of that is. You know, get a bunch of business owners, community members in one room to talk about events. I’m not sure what the cost of that is, but what is the action taken out of these community engagements, and I guess, the five communities that we’re going to be funding this year, did they have a community engagement workshop in place and a plan in place before we funded them?

The communities that have been selected, the ideas came from the community themselves. The initiative came from the community. I can’t say 100 percent whether all of them had that type of community engagement before they were selected. I can get that information for the Member. But communities that have been identified for funding under the Community Tourism Partnership with CanNor will get funding through a contribution agreement with Industry, Tourism and Investment. We’re hopeful that we’ll see some success here and, I think, drawing on the success that a community like Deline has had will be an inspiration for other

communities across the Northwest Territories from the community level and the grassroots level in the community, develop ideas, develop thoughts about what product will look like in the community.

The Northwest Territories is also leading the way in this country when it comes to Aboriginal tourism and growing that type of product, the experiential travel that a lot of people are looking for nowadays. Deline has done that and we’re hopeful that other communities follow Deline’s lead.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the years we’ve seen this economy grow and develop the tourism industry and it’s great to see. I’d just like to ask the Minister on maybe not his trips, but the trips to Asia, Europe and North America, how are the rest of the regions promoted rather than just the northern lights? How are communities promoted? Because our communities are pretty unique. They all have something to offer, something different for every different type of person we have out there. So, how are our communities and our regions promoted when we take our trips over to Asia, Europe and North America?

We have promotional videos, we showcase some of the spectacular scenery of the Northwest Territories, the wild spaces, the clean air, and certainly when we’re promoting the Northwest Territories it isn’t just one segment of the tourism industry, it’s everything we have to offer.

It’s important to note that in Asia, specifically China, tourists from China really do like clean air, open space and the scenery. I think we’ve only scratched the surface of the potential in the Chinese market to get many more Chinese visitors here to the Northwest Territories and they won’t, hopefully, just be coming to Yellowknife. We’ll get them outside of Yellowknife into the regions as well.

That’s why it’s so important that we continue to invest in our communities and we give them the capacity building effort that they can take part in, in our tourism sector. We really do believe that tourism has the potential to really have a strong economic benefit for all 33 communities across the NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In previous years we did get some additional funds to do the winter road from industry. So when there was some activity in and around Norman Wells, we received an additional $400,000 annually from industry to support us with a road that led from about where the road gets rough where the Sahtu/Deh Cho line is up to Norman Wells. This year we didn’t get that money until we were able to negotiate a separate deal for less than that from industry. Thank you.

After driving the winter roads, boy, was my back ever sore. It’s 12 hours, two days driving the roads. I want to ask the Minister, is his department looking at any other means of watering the road so that it will stay longer? I know there are different mechanisms to water the winter roads from Wrigley on up to Fort Good Hope and even to the smaller communities. Is the department looking at any other ways to smooth out the road?

As I indicated, we had received some money from industry to work on the winter roads in the Sahtu. We also hired two supervisors that are monitoring the roads to make sure that if the roads got too rough that they will be reporting it and we will try to pay some additional attention to that.

After driving the road, we also had discussions internally at the department to see if we shouldn’t come back to the government for more money to be put into the base to put on the winter road. We do think it’s needed; it’s fairly rough. We’re getting quite a few complaints from industry, people going in there hauling supplies and fuel and so on. So at this point we are considering that for the future and we’re going to do some extra grading as well. Thank you.

On the winter road from Norman Wells to Fort Good Hope, just before we get to washboard alley there, there’s a bridge that’s sitting there all by itself. So, there are over $1 million in assets sitting there. I want to ask the Minister what is the bridge there for, because it has been sitting there for the last 11 years since I’ve been MLA for the Sahtu. Is that part of the highway decorations, or are we going to use that bridge? What is the government going to do with that bridge?