Supplementary Estimates No. 1, (Operations Expenditures), 2021-2022, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, minerals and petroleum resources, negative $296,000. Does committee agree?

Supplementary Estimates (Operation Expenditures), No. 1, 2021-2022, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, tourism and parks, not previously authorized, $5,622,000. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is of the $5,700,000 in new tourism relief funding, is any of this federal money? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No the two programs to support the tourism industry, these are both GNWT funded, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, if I might too -- I'm sorry to do this, but we'll need to just double check the numbers you read on the last one for the sake of the record. But I don't want to take the Member's time away on that, the 118.

Okay. We'll just finish this one, and we'll go back; how's that? All right, Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll start with the one for licensed tourism operators, $2.5 million. I'm glad to see this. I think tourism bailout -- or assisting our tourism operators is much needed funding. And I'm glad to see the GNWT do this of their own initiative. I think to date, we've been waiting on a lot of federal programs and these are designed to kind of fill some of those gaps. So I'm going to vote in favour of the money. I just had some questions about how it is spent.

Of the $2.5 million for tourism operators, how much of that do we expect to go to northern tourism operators versus those who are based in the south? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, yes, so, you know, while we were in the past relying predominantly on federal programs, the benefit of that is that we were able to gather quite a bit of data around the number of operators who were accessing the funds -- the relief funds in the last year. There are operators in the Northwest Territories, about 70 percent that have been so far receiving relief funding. Operators located outside, about 30 percent or 17 operators. But that said, Madam Chair, I do want to highlight that although the operators sort of base their -- or owner might be located elsewhere, the cost and the funds are meant to be costs that are, you know, directed primarily for activities and facilities here within the Northwest Territories, so rent or mortgages here and facilities in the Northwest Territories. I know utilities here in the Northwest Territories, of that nature. So that, again, the intent is to have the primary focus being cost incurred within the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'm happy to hear that 70 percent of it will go to the northern tourism operators. I guess it's that remaining 30 percent, and there's a debate here. You know, NWT tourism, many of its members' operations are not based in the south -- or not based in the NWT, they're based in the south and they fly clients in, and I kinda get that the money can be spent here. But it doesn't always get circulated in the NWT economy, especially not in the way a northern tourism operator does. And when I look at, you know, a lot of the other ITI programs, they require you to be northern-owned companies. They require 50 percent ownership. There's a number of different ways you can make sure that the -- you know, there's some definition of "northern business". Why did we not do that for this program? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so -- sorry, and I was actually -- I apologize. I was actually looking for more detailed notes, really, from the ITI as the Member was raising the concern. And the reason I wanted to do that in hearing where the concern was going was to be able to provide the assurance around the structure of the program. You know, we had some helpful information back from the committee around how to ensure that this money is indeed circulating to the Northwest Territories, circulating to Northwest Territories residents and businesses and spending time here. The, you know, general approach to ITI programming isn't a residency approach but, in general, we do want to ensure that there are -- that the money is circulating in the Northwest Territories. So, for instance, here, there is a requirement that the applicant have a physical address here in the Northwest Territories, a Northwest Territories tourism operator licence, that they're registered here, if applicable, with the Business Corporations Act, that they are paying income tax here. And as I said, again, the -- you know, the direction discretionally is that it is meant to be, you know, money that is staying with the operations here in the territories and focusing on that. And so while the ownership might reside somewhere else, the purpose of the funding is to ensure that the tourism infrastructure and the tourism industry in the Northwest Territories stays healthy and stays diverse and stays vibrant, and that's really the goal here. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. I think it's much needed for a lot of our tourism operators who are facing another very uncertain year about whether they will have any tourism.

I want to move on to the support for tourism accommodation relief program, the STAR program, which is $3.2 million for hotels and accommodations. I guess I also have similar concerns for this in that the vast majority of hotel rooms in the NWT are in Yellowknife; the majority of those hotel rooms are owned by very large hotel chains who, you know, certainly do not reside -- or not owned by Northerners. And I guess this is just another one of those funds that I -- do we have a sense of how much of this would go to northern-owned businesses as opposed to southern-owned businesses? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So again, Madam Chair, in this case, you know, again I can certainly provide a breakdown of the totality of the accommodation sector in the Northwest Territories because, again -- because there have been various relief programs operating, and we had good cooperation from our federal partners who are administering a lot of those, we have the information around what the sector looks like. And what I can say is that they've looked really, again, at the rooms available and the reduction in the capacity that's been filled over the last year, and this subsidy is meant to help all of the accommodation providers that are in the Northwest Territories keep those rooms available at a break-even point. So the system has been designed -- or the STAR has been designed such that it's a contribution to bring them up to a point of breaking even with their fixed costs here so that these facilities, these accommodation facilities in the tourism industry, are ready and available and still open and alive when the time comes to start to receive hopefully more tourism, firstly by staycations ideally, but realistically looking at when the restrictions start to take into consideration and continue to ease. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess just stepping back, a number of jurisdictions have provided rebates for staycations where if you go on, you know, a staycation in the territory, you send in your receipts and the government gives you a 20 percent or some percent rebate. And the reason I like this model is it encourages tourism within the territory; it encourages, you know, some competition to still remain in the market so that we're not just subsidizing people who have essentially shuttered their doors to a break-even point. It allows operators to actually exist with some revenue. And I guess my preference would be that of, you know, the $5.7 million of our own money, we would have distributed it in that way that actually caused people to, you know, go experience tourism operators. Can I just get a sense of whether the department has considered that model? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that certainly was considered and it may well have been considered after the suggestion I think might have been made by some of the Members in the House. You know, I would point out a couple of things. One -- and it was considered as -- within the Department of Finance as well as the Department of ITI to really look at what kind of bang we can get for our buck. I certainly want to encourage staycations. I know that some of the chambers are undertaking initiatives to promote staycations and promote local spending. They did that last year, and I think quite successfully. And certainly had some support from the government to do that.

With respect, though, to ensuring that this sector itself stays alive, we ultimately made the decision that getting funds that continue to provide the relief amounts so that they could hit the break-even point or maintain their mixed cost was the better way of ensuring the goal which was to keep the sector afloat. And while, because again, certainly staycations helped last year, that alone would not keep the sector afloat. So that they are going to need some direct infusions of dollars at the same time trying to encourage staycationing through marketing and through other -- you know, again some initiatives that the chamber -- around awards, et cetera.

The one other thing I would note for folks to remember is the federal government -- you know, it didn't get a lot of fanfare but they certainly did change some of the tax rules for northern travel and staycations do qualify. So for everyone who was, you know, very disappointed not to be able to maximize their tax deductions under the travel, you know, that is now available so, please, take your staycations. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I think we've got a document problem in you're reading numbers from the tabled document but Members are working from a different. There's a couple of travel figures that seem to have been flipped.