Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't repeat the questions on the economic planning. I pretty much just agree with what the Member for Great Slave just asked about and her comments on it. But moving on under this department, the business plan, again, page 154, the support for arts. So I actually support the mandate commitment, I do appreciate seeing continued support NWT Arts and arts organizations. I won't read out the whole thing. But noting that increased number of funded artists and arts organizations funding, just to that point. I've spoken about this a couple times over budget deliberations but just to note that, you know, just increasing the number of individuals receiving funding does not necessarily speak to kind of the health of the industry and can sometimes not necessarily work towards building the health of the industry as much as core funding for organizations. So I just wanted to hear -- I just kind of -- I guess I mostly just want to get that comment on the table and would suggest that if we could get targets identified that speak more to kind of growth in the industry overall and taking action which will include -- which will lead to that as opposed to simply just, you know, targeting that we're just going to fund more people. If the Minister could just kind of comment on that a little bit.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think that this is an exciting time because we are in the process of combining all of our arts funding within ITI, and I think what -- and my vision of doing this is being able to bring all of these funding opportunities together to a one-stop shop. And it also allows us to have conversation -- like, more fulsome conversations about what it is that artists need. And I think I've said in this House before that having sat through some of the art strategy engagement in 2019, I heard a lot of the same things that I heard as a 5-year-old sitting through art strategy type engagements with my mother back in the day with a lot of the same players and advocates sitting around the table and still asking for some of the same things, and so I think this is an opportunity to bring those voices together, bring the funding together, and be able to look at opportunities to stack that funding together, and within the arts council funding as well comes a position in order to look at just that. How do we take this funding and actually extrapolate it and grow it so that we are increasing the opportunities for artists within the territory? Because I don't think there's a single person in this room that would disagree on the absolute value of art across our territory. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next thing I wanted to chat about is just the contributions part, advancing the knowledge economy. So they've got a hundred thousand set for that this year. I note that they've cut it a little bit from the past. And can the Minister kind of describe what the department -- the department's understanding of what advancing knowledge economy means and particularly how it relates to, you know -- yeah, just that comment alone. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, you know, I think that I spent a tremendous amount of time in the last term actually looking up knowledge economy and trying to figure out what people actually meant. So I hear the Member in that kind of the piece in there about really it means something slightly different to everybody else, but my understanding of it is essentially a system where production of goods and services is based on research and innovation and development of product in our territory. And I think the really neat thing about the Northwest Territories is you're able to really even hone in on bridging our western and traditional sciences in that as well. So I think it's a pretty neat one here. But for more detail on our innovation action plan and our knowledge economy pieces, I'd like to pass to the deputy minister.

I'll go to the deputy minister.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the department for that answer. I actually -- I really appreciate that one, and I'm quite excited to hear what's happening in that regard.

You know, last but not least, this one's just a comment for the record, but kind of build upon what my colleague was talking about with the economic vision and the, you know, increased investment and diversification that we were talking about, something that the Member from Yellowknife North has spoken about a fair bit, and I completely agree with, is just that when we're talking about economic diversification, I think that we need to be focusing on strategic things that we can be doing, things that are actually going to advance diversification in the territory and we have evidence to support those as opposed to simply thinking of diversification as something where we just invest in everything and we try to grow everything that's happening. So I'm hoping that the vision that we develop is going to help us do that. I would just kind of add to the Member for Great Slave's encouragement to the department, I think this is something that I'd like to see us get in place soon. Let's say before we're more than halfway through the term of this Assembly, I'd like to see us really prioritize this, get it done quickly so that can start helping us kind of strategically target our actions. You know, the fact that we don't have the plan in place now does concern me, and so I think we need to be kind of thinking about -- yeah, I'd just like to see us get it done quickly as opposed to this be something that's finished, you know, say, by the end of the term because we've got big challenges we're facing, and we need to be targeted in how we're addressing them. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I took that as a comment but very happy to respond to it.

We often hear about the need to diversify our economy in the Northwest Territories, and we certainly do already have a very diverse economy, and when we look at, you know, where to go tomorrow and what opportunities sit before us, I agree with the Member that we have a tremendous amount of areas in the North that have the ability to grow and the ability to flourish and that we need to take stock of what our assets are and where we're going to get the biggest return on our investment as we go forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Before I go to the next Member here, I just want to just -- I just want to ask Members to be mindful that we have the Minister here and Members here speaking, if there's Members that want to speak to their colleagues, they could just maybe step outside briefly and then come back in.

So next on my list here I got the Member from Frame Lake.

I think you mean a different lake, Mr. Chair.

Range Lake.

Got to change these riding names, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I wanted to talk about the film industry rebate program. This is a really good program, and I support it fully, and I think the film strategy has come a very long way and it always has a lot of success. But it's succeeding in a very -- like, it's scratching the surface of our potential. And I think the key is this rebate program and at this point, I think it's the -- the funding is useful for those kind of small northern driven films which deserve to be supported, but we're never going to see production companies choose to base their productions here for the money alone when it's funded to this degree. Is there -- and what I mean by that is, you know, our natural beauty and the uniqueness of the setting brings people here. They choose the Northwest Territories because it's spectacular, but they don't come here because of the film credit. So is there a way we can take our natural advantage of being a spectacular destination for filming and bump this rebate up so we can start to see more productions come here and all the benefits that come from that, all the economic spinoffs and multiply our job creation, the industries that grow up around it as well. I know firsthand that this could be incredibly transformative, especially for small communities. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, I appreciate the Member bringing this up, the multipliers within the film industry in the Northwest Territories are absolutely incredible, and so being able to capitalize on that is definitely worth our investment for sure. For that reason, in this budget from Main Estimate 2023-2024 and Main Estimate 2024-2025, you do see an increase in the film rebate program of $400,000, and there is future increases to come as well. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. And my apologies if I'm not up to date with the current strategy, but what is the plan -- like, what's the ceiling for the rebate? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just give me a moment here on these contributions for film rebate program. Here we are.

So in the 2024-2025, our contributions there are $500,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.