Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so I mean, as I've said, I think, through the last round of questions, I certainly in general would be happy to see more uses of the parks and more tourism opportunities. The challenge is ensuring that the contractors who run the parks are available, firstly, and it may not -- that they are prepared to undertake whatever the asks are. And there then has to be sufficient occupancy and incoming revenue to make some business case for it. And it probably will not fully offset the costs to the department to keep the parks open. But if it could at least come close then we could get to a place of being able to propose or request the budget. So I understand that as for this coming season, say the Queen Elizabeth Park will be open until September 15th, and perhaps what we will do is look at what the rate of occupancy is with a view to determining if there's an opportunity to keep it open further based on the occupancy and the costs of doing so. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Thebacha.

During your recent discussion about the information -- visitor information centre, so Fort Smith doesn't get funded for a visitor information centre? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I think that is correct. I was going to try and just pull my list up again. But my understanding, again, is that it's the town and Parks Canada that are filling that and the 60th Parallel Visitor Information Centre is currently the one that is receiving funding in the South Slave region. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

So Fort Smith doesn't get funding for a visitor information centre? It's probably the warmest community and the garden capital of the Northwest Territories and has all these different events and a lot of tourists that go there, and we don't fund a visitor information centre for Fort Smith? I mean, going under the auspices of Parks Canada is not sufficient. I'd like to know what the criteria would be for Fort Smith to get some funding for a visitor information centre, whether it be run by either, one, the Salt River First Nation or the Fort Smith Metis Nation. So we have an Indigenous content to the visitor information centre. We always had one, and I'm going to speak about that in the next question. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And, Madam Chair, not every community or every area necessarily has a visitor information centre or -- and not every visitor information centre is necessarily funded or operated by ITI. But I'll certainly commit to getting, as I said what that criteria it might look like, what -- you know, by what determination there are, just different gradient of funding that goes to visitor information centres. I can say that there certainly are asks that have come in from the town of Fort Smith and have received various funds on a project basis to support often. So, for instance, Mission Campground -- or Mission Park, rather, and that continues to be an option. But I'll get a bit more information for the Member with respect specifically to visitor operation centres -- or visitor information centres. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

So, Madam Chair, Conibear Park used to have a visitor information centre and it was burnt down. It caught fire and was burned. It was during the winter. And since that happened, there's not been any centralized visitor information centre in that park. That park was donated by a family to the town of Fort Smith, and it had a kind of a log structure. And I just want to mention to the Minister, Madam Chair, that I'd like to see an erection of a visitor information centre within that park, along with a stage that they used to have many years ago. Since that left, we haven't had that in the community. We're supposed to be promoting these parks and these central areas for visitors and for the people of the community and surrounding communities, and I'd like them to examine that if possible. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the deputy minister was actually quite recently in Fort Smith and perhaps I'll just, rather than me speak for her, have her speak to just whatever conversations briefly she might have had. I don't know that there is a specific ask from the town to us just yet. But I'll turn it to her for just some different detail. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister Strand.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

The last question I have is the utilization of the new conference centre in Fort Smith. Both the new Salt River First Nation conference centre and the Fort Smith Metis Nation building conference centre; one is a bit older, one is a newer one, but I'd like to ensure that the department starts having some conferences, the smaller conferences, held in some of these buildings that are owned by Indigenous people, groups in Fort Smith. We're always saying that we're going to encourage Indigenous involvement in conferences and ownership, and I don't see very many conferences being held there that are held by the government. In fact, when they phone up they say oh, that's too much and they want to go somewhere else to have their conference. I think that is not okay. I'm sure they pay a good buck when they go to the Chateau Nova or the Explorer. So I'm just saying that we have to start encouraging our own Indigenous groups. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I completely agree. There is the Tourism NWT conference bureau that sits within NWT Tourism. What I'd suggest is perhaps ensuring that there's a more direct connection between the conference bureau, which admittedly was not seeing a significant amount of incoming conferences here during COVID but is back to work now and looking forward. So perhaps making sure that they can confirm with me, again on my list of things I want to talk to them about, that they have a direct liaison to the Town of Fort Smith and to the facilities that are there. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

One last comment. My last comment is I want to thank the deputy minister visiting Fort Smith. All the leaders that she approached and went to visit were very, very pleased with her visit. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Do we have any more questions or comments for tourism and parks? Member for Monfwi.

Thank you. I know they started this before me because I wasn't here the last week, Thursday. I just wanted to ask here tourism industry contribution. I just want to ask the Minister how much of this is being spent in Tlicho region?

Thank you. Minister of ITI.