Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly appreciate the Minister sharing that insight. I know that highway safety was one of the major concerns. I have brought highway safety to the Minister's attention a number of times in a variety of forms, not just tourists. The primary, let's call it, concern with tourists on the highway wasn't necessarily the operators per se, because the operators were experienced enough and have been experienced enough to go to day-use areas and pull off on the highway. They would go to our existing parks like Yellowknife River, Madeline Lake, or Pontoon, that sort of thing.
The safety concern was individual tourists who would rent cars and drive down the highway and park right on the highway. That would suggest to me that maybe we need better communications in the rental vehicles and maybe better signage along the highway that indicates that you can't park on the highway. I am not trying to discourage the Minister in his previous comments with regard to safety on the highway. We all take it very seriously.
I would almost look at this as an opportunity to motivate some of the tour operators to reach out to our Department of Lands and give some consideration to looking at some leases, not recreational, but commercial leases, because we are still issuing commercial leases. Even though the land-use planning is kind of in a holding pattern, we are still issuing commercial leases, according to the Minister of Lands. Maybe not recreational ones, but commercial ones, we are. That would then only be, again, a bit of a monthly rate. It wouldn't necessarily be something overly expensive. It would be the beginning of them making a longer-term commitment and investment to the territory.
The concern is that some of these older operators do have significant investment in assets and in land and in buildings and having to get insurance and protect their liabilities, et cetera. Now, it is being seen by them, and even others, that the government, through taxpayer subsidy, is letting tour operators, sometimes not even Northern tour operators, use our territorial parks as a base to run their operations at a very low rate.
I just continue to share that concern. I know we are committed to the pilot project, but I would really like the government to pay attention to these concerns. Please continue to monitor, of course, the program and how well it might be doing, and measure it in a way so that, in next year's business plans, we can report back accordingly. That is it. That is all I have with regard to that particular aspect.
I am going to move on just for a moment. One of the other concerns, and I raised it briefly in my Member's statement the other day, was a good problem to have, the ever-growing number of tour operators who are applying for permits here in the North year over year. What is the department's sense on the rate at which this growth is taking place? Is there any reason to be concerned or alarmed at this point in terms of how many tour operators in this region are starting to move into the market? Thank you, Mr. Chair.