Thanks, Madam Chair. Committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 813-19(2), 2023-2024 Main Estimates, Industry, Tourism and Investment and Executive and Indigenous Affairs. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, committee. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We'll take a short recess.

---SHORT RECESS

I'll now call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we are going to continue with the main estimates, the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. And we're going to continue on at tourism and parks, beginning on page 238 with information items on page 239 to 241. Oh sorry, I better ask the Minister if she has witnesses. Sergeant-at-arms, please escort the witnesses in.

Minister, will you please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, on my left is Pamela Strand, deputy minister. And on my right is Nina Salvador, the director of finance.

Thank you. And as I said before, we are on pages 239 to 241, tourism and parks. Are there any questions from Members? There are no questions? Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So I know that there was some fanfare made about how some NGO funding was increased in the budget. And I'm just wondering -- I'm looking at page 239, grants, contributions. Can the Minister tell us whether any of the grants and contributions were increased as a result of forced growth? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there's one increase in this area. It is with respect to NWT Tourism.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So the NWT Tourism doesn't actually show funding for NWT Tourism here, unless I'm misreading this, but is that the tourism industry contribution? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you. Deputy minister Strand.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. The visitor information centre line here, can the Minister tell us which visitor information centres are supported? And it doesn't look like there's any change there; I just want to confirm that. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I certainly could provide a list. There's the Dempster-Delta Visitor Centre, Western Arctic Regional Visitors Centre, village of Fort Simpson, Yellowknife, Norman Wells, and in the South Slave is 60th Parallel and I can certainly provide more detail perhaps by breakdown in writing. That might be easier. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I think there was some one-time CanNor funding or something that was flowed through to the City of Yellowknife in previous years, or am I getting confused? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, there certainly are funds from CanNor that do come through at various points for various initiatives. Let me see if the deputy minister can speak to whether she knows what they may have funded for the City of Yellowknife.

Deputy minister.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So, yes, I think we can probably expect tourism to continue to pick up over the next year with the pandemic basically finally winding down. You know, where are we going with this stuff if there's -- it looks like the only increase in funding here is to NWT Tourism; how are we going to support folks moving forward? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I mean, yes, I certainly also hope that tourism continues to move forward. Right now there is -- I mean, NWT Tourism does do the lion's share, really, of all of our marketing. That was divested to them some years ago as being a specialty area that they can focus on. There is Northwest Territories, the Tourism 2025 still in play right now, which is still being implemented and there's funding for its implementation, and there's quite a number of funding programs still here for in-comers to the industry. So, you know, and the funding has continued to increase with respect to the implementation of T-2025. So, really, I think probably we would hear almost anyone, any department, any program, might say they want more money but at this point, they are -- it's preceding what was planned for in terms of being implementing the T-2025 program which ensures that the funding is flowing in an organized fashion. And for this coming fiscal it's $364,000. So hopeful that that will indeed be more than adequate for this year to keep them moving forward and seeing, hopefully, a return on the private sector revenue side as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't have anything further on this activity. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is around hotel rooms, etcetera, in kind of a little bit not budgety but I think something that really should be aware of is it's come to my attention recently that a lot of the hotel rooms are quite full and that people are struggling to find accommodations, particularly if the accommodation, you know, needs to be booked in a short timeframe. And so I guess that really comes back to I know that some of that space is being taken up by contract workers, etcetera. So I'm just wondering has the Minister or the department had any further conversations with the City of Yellowknife around allowing camps, etcetera, in camp, to then free up some of our hotel rooms for tourism. I guess the reason I ask this is that we have, in the past, had to turn down cold weather testing as a result of not having enough spaces in the hotels. So if the Minister could speak to how do we deal with our hotel capacity issue, that would be great. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it's certainly an excellent question. It's one I'm familiar with, really, as happening to be also a Yellowknife MLA. What I'd suggest at this point given that there's some city bylaw challenges potentially and obviously just the overall housing spectrum that is at issue in terms of understanding different needs. ITI can go back and have a conversation with NWT Tourism and the city, and I can certainly commit we'll make a point of doing that with a focus on increasing the availability of appropriate accommodation. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think another -- just to further make a little bit more points or comments around that is that also one of the issues that I hear around having construction camps and mining and other industry around is sort of the byproduct of the partying, etcetera, that may come from some of the workers that do come into town. So another point there for pushing for camps is that in a camp situation, the camp can regulate workers returning to the camp in the evening therefore limiting the amounts of alcohol that they can consume and then be, you know, creating trouble in our downtown core. So just more of a comment around that and why I think it's really important that we start to explore allowing those camps within city limits.

My next question, though, is more related to what the Minister can actually answer which is around the pandemic relief programs. And I know now we've lost a couple of them over the last two years, and there was one that is sunsetting now which is the restart investment program.

Can the Minister or the department speak a bit to where is the federal government going with this? I know that there was a huge conversation as COVID hit around how do we restart tourism in Canada in general and some things around tourism travel grants for travellers, that kind of thing. So I'm just wondering if the Minister could speak a bit to any future federal contributions that are being spoken about and what is the federal government doing to restart our tourism economy. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there was a federal-provincial-territorial meeting just not that long ago in Vancouver, and it certainly I think was reflective that the experience across much of Canada is similar to ours, which is we're seeing a return to some degree, but also acknowledging that a lot of the operators are not uniformly back to where they were and necessarily uniformly back to being in a position to welcome back the tourists who do seem to be coming back in terms of the demand. So there is still some disconnect in that respect. We're not alone in experiencing that.

As far as new money from the federal government, I can say that the impression that we had quite clearly was that there was not a whole lot of new federal money coming in the budget for tourism or for sort of post-COVID relief which, you know, is not to say that there can't be ways of finding funding for -- whether it's training, labour market supports, you know, other ways by which the industry might benefit. There certainly is an interest in Indigenous tourism. There is an interest in looking at more rural opportunities for tourism products in terms of, again, the kind of experiences that tourists seem to be looking for. So hopefully we can see ourselves reflected in that and reflected in that in a northern way and not only in a way that is dictated from elsewhere. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And that plays really nicely into my next area of conversation around different forms of tourism. I recently had the opportunity to attend the Grow NWT conference, which was the agricultural conference that was hosted by the territorial agri association last week. It was fantastic. And through that there was a lot more conversation around ecotourism, agri-tourism. You know, I think there's a real opportunity for -- that southerners would find it quite interesting to see how does the North feed itself and when we do get to a stage where we have innovative greenhouses and such, which we do. I mean, the Inuvik greenhouse is pretty fantastic.

So can the Minister speak a bit to whether there is opportunities for tourism in that area and anything that might be coming down the line there. And the reason I bring it up is that it seems like there might be more money for agricultural investment at this point from the federal government versus tourism. So is there a way that we can be creative to lobby or leverage that agricultural money into a tourism sector as well? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, look, I can convey just briefly a conversation I had actually with the executive director at that same conference which is -- which some of the products that they are putting out and looking at the entire food value chain from growing to production. You know, I actually asked, why are we not having more foodie tours? I had much the same reaction to be quite honest, given the wealth and the variety of things available in the North, a lot of them very unique and gourmet forging. So I completely agree. NWT Tourism was represented at the agri-grow conference that took place last week. And I would just note there are some initiatives that are starting up in terms of the partnering between the agriculture association, NWT Tourism. There's a company out in Vancouver, sun -- you know what, let me get the deputy minister to speak to that briefly because she will have it right.

Thank you, Minister. Deputy minister Strand.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm really excited to hear that. You know, I think it would be an amazing opportunity to offer, like, you know, go berry picking with an elder when we have people coming into the North. And as well too just all the mental health advantages of, you know, growing our own food and working with the earth and etcetera so I'm really happy to hear that.

I guess I just want to come back to something we talked about before the pandemic took over our lives, and that was the lack of anything around in the downtown core. In the winter months, when we do have the Aurora tours, you often would see them sort of wandering around downtown kind of looking for things to do. I do recognize that the Yellowknife visitors centre is now up and running and have yet myself to get in there and plan to soon. However, can the Minister or the department speak a bit more about, you know, is there a plan to start hiring or having sort of almost showcasing artists or cultural exhibitions and such on a more frequent basis, just on a very small scale around the downtown, in order to provide something for our tourists to do on the offset hours? And even around there could then be some arts markets and such. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that probably is -- the answer there is probably going to have to look as much to the arts funding that is being proposed in the main estimates here as much as it is to tourism programming. But, again, as I had indicated earlier when I made a commitment that I will go back to NWT Tourism around accommodation issues and what work they may be doing, perhaps I'll add to that list, and I no doubt am due for a touch base with them, that we can speak specifically about what we can do to increase access to the arts sector as well. And again, you know, they are funded to support tourism broadly across the Northwest Territories. There's art funding to support artists across the territories. Maybe there are ways to take advantage and combine those things together so I'll add that to a list, and I'll add the agri-tourism to that same list. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you. And I appreciate having the 40 seconds left so I can ask one more question. So then I guess my last question is around the community tourism infrastructure. I look at that, and we have seen a few changes, and I know that we had an influx during the pandemic, when I was sitting in that seat, just to keep some money going into communities while building things like kitchen shelters, that sort of thing. I'm glad we're up a hundred thousand from last year but a hundred thousand dollars does not go very far when it comes to trying to build anything in the communities. Can the Minister speak to are there other access or funding pots that communities can access for this infrastructure or put together, and do we anticipate seeing a larger demand than we have the money for, and is more money coming? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister, if you can answer that shortly. If it's longer, maybe you could provide it in writing to the committee or to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I would certainly be happy to provide a list to committee of all the tourism funding available. There are quite a number of pots. I do have a detailed note here that lists them all with the amounts, and that probably is the most effective way of putting that forward. And I would just otherwise give one quick note which is to say CanNor does often come in, and we are able to work with them when there's particular funding shortages for communities or to connect communities directly to CanNor so they can go to them. So wouldn't want to not give them that thank you where it's available. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. So we'll get that to -- okay, thank you. All right. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I saw that there's an engagement and a land use permit going in to expand the parking when you get to the end of Tibbitt Lake at the end of the Ingraham Trail. Happy to see that. Happy to see that the signage has been added. I'm just hoping the Minister can clarify whether that's ITI or infrastructure money or operations or capital money, where exactly that money is coming from? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the signage is a shared initiative with ENR, ITI, and Infrastructure. I believe that we are responsible for the parking?

Deputy minister Strand.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Well, I'll save questions on that for Infrastructure. I guess I'm going to try one more attempt, my last in this Assembly, about winter camping. I know there's many different ways this could look. I want to perhaps point out one of the lowest cheapest ways is I saw the town of Fort Smith recently partnered with the Salt River First Nation and is running a number of on the land camping expeditions which are available to everyone who wants to go on them. And there's a number of elders participating, and it's kind of a training exercise. And I think this kind of, you know, bridges the gap in -- you know, it's kind of something ENR would typically run, perhaps even ECE. But I'm just wondering, you know, ITI has a lot of parks staff who obviously some of their work winds down during the winter, whether that's something ITI would explore, offering that type of kind of camping programming in the winter and perhaps using some of our territorial parks or perhaps just doing it on general public land. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, if there is an operator in the North Slave area that is interested in running winter camping, we would love to hear from them. There is going to be a whole list of funding opportunities that I'll be sharing with MLAs after today to give opportunity for potential operators to access funds to open their winter camping opportunity. The costs to the department, when we ran just two extra weeks back in 2020, was well over $200,000 and largely because of the costs of the contractors. Now that is across all of the regions that were participating in that pilot back a couple of years ago but there was very low uptake, very high costs, and it literally was to pay for the contractors. So if there is a private sector party that wants to get involved in this area, please, as I said there's going to be a lot of opportunity for funding that they can apply for and hopefully participate in. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, I guess just a bit of a comment. There is a couple private sector operators who are now at multiple years waiting for a response on their commercial lease applications to open some cabins and potentially rent them out. There is also multiple people who have expressed to me that if they were allowed to rent out for any commercial purposes their cabins that they would gladly do that. So perhaps just the Minister could have a conversation with her colleague at the Department of Lands and see what barriers, you know, exist in regulation and/or in accessing leases to offer some sort of winter camping, because I know there -- it's hard. You can't just -- there's no building presently that exists where you legally can do that. You have to go get a commercial lease application, which seems to not be happening. So I guess in the form of a question, is the department willing to kind of talk with Lands and get an update on where they are at in some of their outstanding issues in this area? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's been said before there have been regular meetings with the LNR departments, Lands, ENR, or now ECC and ITI, and I can certainly suggest that we put this on our shared agenda.

Thank you. Are there any further questions under tourism and parks? Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is the extension of hours within the parks. At Queen Elizabeth Park, they close on September 1st, and not this past year but the year before we didn't have snow until November 3rd and we had warm weather until almost the end of October. So I'm not asking that it open until the end of October but at least until the end of September. It's really important that we encourage more tourism; we encourage people to use our parks as much as possible. And I'm just wondering how the Minister feels on this. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister of ITI.

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.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I have 2021-2022 actuals here, and I can provide that as a one-page summary to the Member. Perhaps that might be the easiest. Right now the breakdown that I have is by the administrative regions of the Government of the Northwest Territories and not necessarily relating to individual Members' ridings. So as I say, I can provide a two-page summary here to Members and then we'll try and see if we can provide that in more greater detail at the same time. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, that's why it's really important to have Tlicho region so that way we know how much money is being spent and what are we doing with program and services, so. And I know that there are a lot of people in my region they inquire -- they've been asking about getting into tourism business but the liability and for insurance, it's too costly for a lot of them. So I just wanted to know what is the department doing working with the local people to promote tourism for businesses?

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, again, Madam Chair, would look to pointing again to the list of funding programs that are going to be provided to all Members. But perhaps I'll turn to the deputy minister and see if she can add something more specific at this point. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister Strand.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you. Thank you for the information. I know that we're next to Yellowknife. So, you know, like we're losing out on a lot of opportunities, especially within tourism. And here we don't even have a tourism visitors centre. You know, because I know a lot of people are saying they each out to the people but we have nothing for them because it's not just Yellowknife, and then some people that -- people that come from the south, they go to Yellowknife and they get tired of Yellowknife but we don't have nothing to offer them in Tlicho region. So that's why I'm saying that, because a lot of people are looking for authentic experience. And even last year when we had 100-year celebration, we had a lot of tourism that were in Yellowknife that went to Behchoko when they heard about when we were having the celebration and they said yeah, like, we're tired; you know, like it's the same ole and they trying to reach out, go to other places, and as soon as they found the opportunity they went, they came and spent, you know -- like, they really enjoyed themselves. This is what I heard from some of them, and some of them were from Ontario, from the East Coast. So that's why I'm saying that, you know, like it would be nice. I would like to see this department, the Minister, to promote and to have a visitors centre in -- either in Behchoko or in Whati or the junction somewhere, you know. So that way the tourism when they're coming, we can tell them what we do have. But right now we don't have much to offer them, especially in our regions, because everything is in Yellowknife and Yellowknife is not the only place. We do need stuff too in the small communities. So that's why I'm just asking that, how come we don't have a visitors centre in Tlicho region? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, if the communities -- one of the communities in the Tlicho region are interested to work on some form of visitors centre or facility and, again, happy to receive that kind of a request. There's been a lot of work gone in to Whati to try to work with the community and decide what they may want in terms of tourism product or tourism opportunities. And my understanding is the Tlicho government has been taking the lead on these issues, quite rightfully, and happy to work with them on that. There's been a lot of money that has gone to the North Arm Park camping grounds area, including access to, you know, interpretive signage and boardwalks, etcetera. And, indeed, money has gone away from other projects in the North Slave region generally into the North Arm Park in order to get that done and to get it done early and on time. Community tourism coordinators would be another place I'd point, Madam Chair. There needs to be someone in the community and the community wants to have to have a community tourism coordinator, and that might help to advance more -- to put forward in a more advanced way what is available in an offer in the Tlicho community, because I mean, I think we'd all agree we'd like to see more but it will have to be Tlicho government led with us in support. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Is there a timeline for the North Arm Park; when is it going to be completed?

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe it is open -- at least largely open, to be this summer, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you.

Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to talk about, I guess, the arts and one thing I still see that there's a need for is to secure naturally tanned hides for crafts and garments and those type of things. I'm just wondering what the government is -- or the department's doing to ensure that happens so that we don't have -- you know, don't have the artists having to go south to look for tanned hides that aren't from the Northwest Territories or are commercially tanned? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ITI.