The Regional Wellness Council across the Northwest Territories are there to provide us insight, wisdom, and make recommendations on ways to improve the delivery of programs and services in their regions and the communities.

Recruiting and retaining professionals is certainly an issue that affects everybody in the Health and Social Services system. I have reached out to Indigenous governments and, for the Regional Wellness Councils that I have met with, we have talked about trying to find ways to encourage local people to pursue health and social services careers.

The Regional Wellness Council members themselves, we do provide training to them on their roles and responsibilities on the Regional Wellness Council. We don't work to help them get employed, and I am not sure if that is what the Member is saying. I am not 100 percent sure I understand exactly what the Member is asking me, but as far as getting advice and direction on how to encourage young people to pursue those careers, we are certainty open to them for advice and their wisdom.

Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Then I will work with the Minister on training plan opportunities within the department for the Sahtu area, for example. My last question here: can the Minister confirm if there is a plan in place for traditional medicine awareness campaigns in the Sahtu, for example, or in any of the other regions, how traditional medicine and being researched and engaged into some of the systems that they would apply for? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is an area that traditionally over the years hasn't been followed up on or addressed. I made a commitment within this government to work with Indigenous leaders and interested stakeholders to bring traditional healing and wellness into our health and social services system. We work closely with the Indigenous governments here. We put together a working group who actually helped us develop some terms of reference for the creation and establishment of a traditional wellness or a traditional healing advisory group, and we have put that working group in place.

Their role is to provide us advice and recommendations on how to incorporate more traditional healing wellness medicines into our system of health and social services here. They are in early days. We haven't received information or a report back from them, but we look forward to what they are going to be able to produce, and the advice and guidance they can provide us around traditional healing, wellness, medicines, those types of things. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I spoke a little earlier today in my statement about the growing tourism sector and how well it is doing in terms of diversifying our economy. I would like to just start by asking the Minister: what is the department doing, or has the department reviewed the growing tourism sector with reference to how fast the sector is growing? How are they measuring it? What metrics are they using? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Based on, you know, a lot of comments that we have had from Members when we were in committee around data collection and stuff, the Department of ITI has definitely stepped up our progress around trying to get more data and build them into our business plans and stuff going forward, so there is more information for everybody.

For the tourism industry, we track how many people are coming to the Northwest Territories. You have clearly heard me saying in the House how much money has been spent and how much is spent by individuals from different demographic markets in the Northwest Territories. This is the type of information that is going to help feed into our 2025 tourism plan going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Minister sharing some of that information. Maybe I will take that a little bit further and just ask: the Minister referred to good information and good data being collected. Can he share a little bit more with, you know, where would a budding entrepreneur find this information? Where and how is it being collected? If I was a new start-up business and I wanted to find this data so I could feed it into my business plan, how and where do I find this kind of information?

You know, depending on what industry or part of tourism that this operator would want to go into, be it fishing or big game hunting or aurora viewing, we have all this type of data within the department from the number of people who come to the Northwest Territories from different regions, as I have said, different demographics, the money that they spend, the number of viewing days that are possible with aurora viewing, these sorts of things. We continue to grow that database. I suspect that, if an entrepreneur wanted to get that information, which would be good advice -- and I think the Member is asking the right question, if you are going to go into this industry, you need to do your homework -- they can certainly just come directly to the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment to get that information.

Thank you to the Minister for providing that reply. Mr. Speaker, we know that there is a major increase of new operators, especially within the Yellowknife region. With that influx of new operators comes some questions and concerns about safety, and in particular, public safety, so I would like to ask the Minister: with regards to road safety, cold climate, conditions on ice, and even going out on trails, what kind of qualifications and training and licensing does a new operator require?

As I have said in the House before, we are one of the only jurisdictions, and few jurisdictions in Canada, that need to have a tourism operator licence in the Northwest Territories. We have had some concerns, I guess, is the way to put it around how some of these operators have been operating, particularly around the Ingraham Trail, so we have attached a safety plan that has to be presented to the department to be able to access your licence. So anyone who is operating, and particularly in the North Slave region, where the Member's riding represents, they have to have these two permits in place to be able to operate in the Northwest Territories in a safe manner.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the reply from the Minister. The Minister indicated that he is aware that some of these concerns have been raised. He indicates that there is training required in order to get these permits. Let's say we have the permits now. What is the department doing to monitor the tourism operators to make sure that they are actually, in fact, doing what they should in terms of protecting public's interest? Does the department go and do random checks, or is there some kind of form of inspection that they undertake? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I have said in the House before, we have implemented where the licence owner has to have identification on their vehicle, a licence plate of sorts, to say that they are a certified operator in the Northwest Territories. We have upped our patrol, particularly around the Ingraham Trail. The safety issue there is something that we have been dealing with ever since I have been the Minister. There are different things. We are doing our pilot project this year around getting to operators into some of our parks during the winter season to get them off the road.

The Member clearly heard concerns from his constituents out on the Ingraham Trail about people just stopping their buses along the Ingraham Trail, turning their lights off for aurora viewing. This is a big concern of ours, along with a multitude of extra traffic that we have there with resupply of the mines. So this is a great concern of all of ours, and we are working on these things to try to improve customer safety, but also to provide a better experience for the visitors to the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke about the lack of funding for Indigenous languages in the Northwest Territories, and I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, my question is: does the Minister believe that there is an imbalance in the way Indigenous languages are funded compared to French language in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to be careful how I state this one, because I don't want to start a war between French people and Indigenous people.

There is a difference. There is a difference based on constitutional standing of French in Canada and the rights right across all of the territories and provinces within that. It is one of the two official languages for Canada, so that is recognized. All of the work that we are doing with Indigenous languages is exactly around revitalization because we are losing them. It's a concern of mine. It should be a concern for every Indigenous person in the Northwest Territories and across Canada, and I know it is. It's also my understanding that it's a concern for the federal government, and they are trying to work closely to try to support Indigenous communities, so I am hopeful. I know we are coming up to a new election, but I am really hopeful that the next government will also carry that torch and will promote more to support not only Indigenous people but Indigenous language, because language is culture.

I am not trying to play favourites, or anything like that, but knowing that the new bill that is coming out from the federal government does not really give the federal government obligations to work with Indigenous peoples on a closer basis. Mr. Speaker, last year, the federal government under the current agreement for French-language service and Indigenous languages will be 2019-2020. Mr. Speaker, my question is: has the department started to plan for what it wants to achieve for future generations?

Yes, we are actually planning at this point, now. Right now, we are looking at the money that we got, its impact, how it's used, and the outcomes, and we are using that information as well as working with our community partners to look at the new negotiations that will be coming. We are conscious that there will be an election, though, so we are hopeful that whatever government comes in will support this initiative, as well. We are working closely. We are looking at outcomes, and we are looking for as much support as we can get.

I appreciate the outlook from the Minister. Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of Indigenous languages in the territory. I know that sometimes it can be difficult working with many Indigenous governments. We all need to take ownership when it comes to language and culture. Mr. Speaker, another question about negotiations for federal languages funding: how does the department work with Indigenous language stakeholders when it's working with Canada to develop agreements like this?

This was before my time. It's a great initiative, and I am going to support it right through, is we have regional Indigenous language coordinators in every region, and their responsibility is to work closely with Indigenous governments and to lead and manage their regional Indigenous plans, their language plans. As well, we have the Aboriginal language revitalization boards that we work closely with. Those groups are used to consult with, to give us advice, and to provide their opinions as we go into any kind of negotiations or any kind of programming around Indigenous languages or Indigenous services.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.