EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
The communities are able to request funding assistance only if the local organizations are going to hand out country foods within their community.
There is wording stating that country food that is specifically towards local consumption and that will be shared amongst residents is eligible for this funding assistance.
With respect to the leftover funds, I seriously doubt it would be used to ship caribou meat outside of Baffin Island.
Sorry, I was joking there.
Nonetheless, I’ll move to another subject related to tourism.
Under (interpretation ends) divisional operations (interpretation) on page 184, which you also referenced in your opening comments, the line item has been increased by $620,000 for the (interpretation ends) divisional operations, (interpretation) if I am not mistaken.
Let me first ask for further clarification on this line item, Mr. Chairman.
Hon. Monica Ell (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My Deputy Minister, Mr. Suvega, can respond to this question.
This will be for the operations, field development corporations such as Nunavut Tourism and Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association, and also looking for staff and services.
Can you identify how many staff members will be added?
Will you add PYs or not and, if so, how many?
There will be some increases. These funds are being proposed for a lot of things. If he’s asking about community tourism or cultural industries, it will assist the communities and the sites where tourists can visit.
There will be maps with information about the surrounding landmarks, training of the guides, heritage sites, and on Inuit culture.
That has to be promoted, not to mention the trails that people can walk on because they would be different in each community.
I didn’t seem to get the response I was looking for, whether or not they’re going to hire more staff.
That was my question, if you can respond to that.
There will be one person hired for the Nunavut Film Development Corporation.
I would like to thank you too for the response. Let me move on to something else.
For the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association, there’s an increase of $100,000. The two communities that I represent are very well known for their artists. Can you describe what your department will do with the $100,000 in respect to the two communities that I represent?
In regard to your community, in the past in Cape Dorset, I believe it was in 1998 when it was first brought out. The Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association was created. We know that Cape Dorset is the longest running carving community.
That funding of $400,000 is an increase of $100,000 that NACA usually gets for their O&M or core funding.
We want them to look more into hiring Inuit for the future with an Inuit employment plan and also try to be more visible in Nunavut.
That would be the purpose of the extra funding that they are asking for.
I’ve got a few questions here.
In one of the responses to Mr. Joanasie’s question regarding new employees, just for clarification, was that specifically just to Nunavut Film or was that for all the tourism programs, the one new PY?
There would be one person hired for the Nunavut Film group.
That’s what the intention of that funding is for. The actual main estimates are for many things in the cultural sector and programming for artists. It’s also for them to set up strategic priorities.
They will look for other things that they can do in the future. That’s what the money will be used for.
Under that same category, the Nunavut Film, Television, and New Media Program, how many employees are currently employed under that program?
Right now, there is just one person working there and if this proposal goes through, there will be two employees with an addition of one.
I would like to go down to the line item, again that Mr. Joanasie I believe raised, the $1.55 million for the Community Tourism and Cultural Industries Program. It goes from a zero budget to a little over one and a half million. Are there PYs associated with that program as well?
That is the program I was referring to in the earlier question.
Maybe Mr. Hickes can elaborate a bit more in his earlier question, as I may have been referring to the wrong line item. When he was asking earlier for positions, I was referring to the Community Tourism and Cultural Industries Program funding for $1,550,000 in my earlier answer.
My apologies if I’m all over the board on this one. Previously I was asking about Nunavut Film.
If I heard correctly through the response to one of Mr. Joanasie’s questions, you said that there’s another PY that’s going to be added to that program. I was under the impression during your previous answer that there already was one PY under the Nunavut Film category and that you are adding one to make it two PYs.
Nunavut Film would get one person year and Tourism and Cultural Industries would get two person years.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Ell, for clarifying that.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you for that clarification, Minister Ell.
My apologies if I made it confusing in my questions.
Within the category of the community tourism and cultural industries, it speaks to “strengthens community infrastructure and readiness for tourism and enhances economic development” in different sectors.
Now, is this done in partnership with Culture and Heritage?
When we are looking at community infrastructure from a cultural standpoint or historic sites, doing infrastructure investment, I’m just wondering: is there a partnering of dollars?
It’s a brand-new budget, so it’s safe to assume it’s a brand-new initiative.
Where I’m getting at is: what kind of collaboration has been done with the Department of Culture and Heritage to identify which sites have the most tourist attraction as well as the highest need for further investment?
I would just like to clarify. Nunavut Tourism would get those two person years that I was just referring to.
I will ask Mr. Suvega to answer Mr. Hickes’ question.
If we are talking specifically about infrastructure, it can be rather complex, but the critical partners that we are talking to would be folks like Culture and Heritage, Parks Canada, Transport Canada, DFO, Inuit organizations, and communities.
It really depends on what type of infrastructure you’re looking at.
Cruise ships is something that has picked up in terms of activity recently, so it’s critical to have conversations with groups and organizations like communities, hunters and trappers organizations, and Inuit organizations on the types of access and activities that these tourist groups are proposing.
All of it depends on the type of activity and the critical conversations we need to have with various stakeholders.
I thank Mr. Suvega for that response; it kind of leads to where I was going.
If there is one and a half million dollars… .
Let me take just one step back, Mr. Chairman, if you will indulge me. We are getting all confused with the PYs associated with some of these programs.
Are there any PYs associated with the Community Tourism and Cultural Industries Program?
She said, “No.”
Again just for clarification, this program is a departmental run program unlike Nunavut Tourism, as an example, which is an arm’s-length entity that runs the program dollars, just for clarification.
Can you please explain that, Minister Ell.
Yes, that statement is true.
While we are on PYs, if we’re adding two PYs to Nunavut Tourism right now, how many existing PYs are there currently right now before this budget is approved?
We are looking for that answer right now. Right now, there are seven PYs.
I’m just going through the Blues from yesterday with some of the responses and it’s kind of leading me to more questions.
I understand there has been a challenge with identifying numbers.
I’m just trying to see the exact response and how it was responded to, but if I recall correctly, there has been a challenge in tracking the numbers of tourists.
One of the staffing positions that are being looked at is to assist with the tracking of that information that seems to have been a challenge to get.
With the seven PYs with Nunavut Tourism right now… .
Again, I am fairly new to the tourism side of things, so I don’t really know how a tourist office should work for a jurisdiction the size of Nunavut.
We are a very large territory.
Are these positions based in an office or are they scattered around the territory in different communities?
There are a total of 12 positions, including part-time employees at the visitor centre here in Iqaluit and in Cambridge Bay, of which five are Inuit beneficiaries.
For Nunavut Tourism, there are a total of seven staff positions in the headquarters here in Iqaluit, one of whom is a beneficiary, and there are nine visitor centre staff, four of which are full-time staff, two are beneficiaries, two part-time beneficiary staff, and three summer students, of which two are beneficiaries.
As an example of the Iqaluit visitor centre, one would be a manager, a senior information counsellor, and a part-time information counsellor.
They work all year, evenings and weekends, including a beneficiary, and then in the summer, there are three summer students, of which two are beneficiaries.
I believe one of my cousins was one of those summer students last year with tourism.
From what I understand, she had a lot of fun working there.
One of the focuses that was mentioned in one of your responses earlier, I can’t recall if it was from the minister or one of her witnesses, is that current training for outfitters and people in the tourism industry is done through Nunavut Tourism, or is it done through the Department of Economic Development?
It’s mostly through Nunavut Tourism, but it can be both.
In addition to the conference and meeting recruiter, in one of the responses was a training coordinator to work with operators and different communities to identify gaps in training. Out of the seven PYs that are located in Iqaluit, how many of those are currently used as trainer positions?
I’ll ask Deputy Minister Suvega to answer that question.
It depends on the type of activity and the training taking place at the time.
There have been projects in the past where individual staff have been tasked to undertake certain training. We’re always looking to try and go after resources and funding for new training initiatives.
An example would be something like certification in small vessel operation, but it also depends on the types of partnerships we can strike with, for example, federal departments and/or agencies, even industry and/or the private sector.
It really depends on the type of training and activity that takes place.
I guess that’s kind of where I was going with my question.
Hiring a training coordinator, to me, it means that there’s a bunch of trainers that are in place that need to be coordinated or different training programs that need to be coordinated.
Again, I don’t understand the tourism industry inside and out.
I was just looking for some type of clarification or maybe the minister is able to just convince me that the need for a coordinator of training is so desperately needed that we’re looking at increasing the budget so substantially.
The increase in funding for Nunavut Tourism for the 2015-16 fiscal year does include the hiring of a training coordinator position.
This position would work with the tourism operators in the communities and the communities would help identify what training needs they require and also identify major gaps in training needs that might be made available to them and determine the available funding sources, as I said earlier. They would help to identify either RIA money, IIBA money, or other monies that could be made available to them, other funding sources, so that they could increase the tourism in their communities.
They would help coordinate those resources in order for them to achieve the training results that they desire.
The funding, as I said, also is to hire a conference and meeting recruiter.
One other thing that I didn’t mention earlier is the additional funding would also help smaller operators properly develop tourism packages that will help create opportunities for participation of Nunavummiut in the sector at the community level, the opportunity to engage with tourists who are interested in a Nunavut experience, and can enjoy means of earning wages by that way while still permitting people to support a more traditional lifestyle or augmenting income from other artistic endeavours, such as carving, sewing, or cultural activities.
This funding would help build stronger Nunavut-based operators and prevent the erosion of tourism efforts whereby southern-based operations remove potential wealth from the territory, leaving only marginal returns to the few Nunavut residents who are only able to secure positions as a short term.
As needed, support staff from tourism would assist in that. As I said earlier, Nunavut Tourism has had no increase in funding for the last four years.
I acknowledge there hasn’t been an increase for tourism.
Personally I think that it’s a challenging endeavour for Nunavut with the cost of travel and everything to get here.
I can understand some of the challenges that are going on.
It almost looks like we are catching up for the last four years of funding in one year with such a substantial increase.
My next question would be: as Nunavut Tourism currently trains outfitters and hotel operators and such, according to a response yesterday, that have to deal with tourism in Nunavut, what are some of the identified gaps right now?
I don’t think we need a review or a report if there are people out in the field, and I’m sure your officials have had discussions with Nunavut Tourism and identified how these funds, if approved, are going to be utilized to maximize the tourism industry in Nunavut.
My Deputy Minister, Mr. Suvega, will respond to the question.
Some of the known gaps can be things such as industry standards, whether they be hospitality or guide and tourism outfitting.
There are also some more recent ones such as regulatory and legislative gaps that are starting to be highlighted on things like cruise ships, for example, or park visitations on both territorial and federal type parks, and also the types of resources that are on the ground in the communities or with the various partners and stakeholders.
Again, it depends on the type of activity.
It also points to the need to have that critical conversation with a variety of stakeholders to ensure that as a group collectively, they are prepared going forward on how they mitigate the types of activities that they are willing to take on or not willing to take on.
With good timing, there seems to have been an announcement just made yesterday with CanNor increasing some funding, according to the article, in the amount of funding for tourism in the amount of $802,800 over a two-year period. It talks that this is going to a community tourism project.
Maybe if the minister could just elaborate on which project that funding is being allocated to.
As this is just coming out, we do have little information.
The various types of partners are fairly good at trying to spread the dollar out as much as they can and utilize as much they can from multiple partners.
An activity like this could be used to try and capture things like visitor exit surveys going forward, which would be a very useful tool to try and gather information and data on how we best align the industry going forward, and perhaps use that as a decision-making tool in future fiscal years on how and when to allocate resources or whether that could be used to determine to go after additional resources in different areas.
One of them could be things like legislative or regulatory gaps amongst the various stakeholders or it could be with some of the gaps in resources on the ground in communities or with local tour operators.
Are these federal dollars going specifically right to Economic Development and Transportation or are they going with some caveat? I’m sure, with federal money, there is always some conditions on reporting that they be spent in the tourism sector.
If that’s clear, Mr. Chairman.
These funds will go more towards (interpretation ends) Economic Development and Transportation (interpretation) and some will go towards tourism.
Out of the Economic Development and Transportation’s component of this new money funding, the $715,500, for tourism across the territory, I’m assuming all these monies get pooled together.
How much of this funding is going to stay within the department and how much is going to be put out to programs such as Nunavut Tourism?
For funding such as these, typically 10 percent goes to administration and the rest to the department.
With this $715,500 that is being contributed by Economic Development and Transportation, under what budget line would those dollars come from?
The funding would go to Cultural Tourism and Industries.
I think I just have one more question on that specific amount.
With the $715,500, is that an annual contribution or is that spread over the two years like the federal money?
That’s spread over two years.
I know it is an election year for the federal government, so they sometimes have their chequebook fairly handy, but with this $802,000 from the federal government, was that provided under a proposal or did they approach the department with money left over in their budget that they are looking to spend?
It was a proposal.
Within the proposal, there is always a request to outline what specific goals are going to be accomplished.
I understand, through Nunavut Tourism, they’ve got some components that you’ve listed already with some of your responses.
What are the department’s goals out of these dollars to measure success or to measure growth in the tourism industry?
Nunavut Tourism to achieve their goals is through the Sivumut Abluqta and Tunngasaiji, the Tourism Strategy for Nunavummiut.
Economic Development and Transportation works in partnership with Nunavut Tourism to help achieve those goals that are in the strategy.
Was the Tourism Strategy accompanied with the proposal to CanNor for this funding?
I would like to welcome the minister and her officials. I say “hello” to Nunavummiut and the people of Baker Lake.
Nunavut Tourism has staff in Iqaluit.
Is there a staff position for advertising Nunavut attractions?
Do they have staff in all the communities right now?
There are nine visitor centres in the communities.
Not all staff are working in the visitor centre. For example, in Baker Lake, some tourists go up the river by boat and they take some of the tourists up the river.
As I stated yesterday, we have two Heritage Rivers in Baker Lake, Savvaqtuuq and Kangirjuaq, the Thelon River and Kazan River. (interpretation ends) From time to time, we do see canoeist that are from either Europe or from Germany or somewhere. Would Nunavut Tourism look after this portion in that essence?
It would depend on whether the tourists were seeking information from the visitor centre. The additional funding that we’re asking for would help smaller operators such as that properly develop tourism packages if that is what they needed.
Looking at Nunavut Tourism, my question is a bit long, so I will just start off with my preamble.
In Baker Lake, there are two Heritage Rivers and we are inland people. My colleague who is sitting beside me lives in Gjoa Haven and I know that he has to advertise Gjoa Haven and they could use the old ship as their attraction. Pangnirtung has their mountains.
We have various attraction sites in our communities. We also have cultural people who perform for the tourists.
Sometimes we see the east coast people on TV. They have advertisements about their province. Have you ever considered, as a department, to make sure that we at least advertise Nunavut to the public out there?
The additional funding would help to attract tourism destinations. That would be for their activities and their products.
It would help the communities by providing them with excellent tourist services through a well-trained workforce and start strong marketing campaigns that are essential for Nunavut to capture a fair share of the tourist dollars.
Nunavut Tourism works within the four pillars that are identified in the Tourism Strategy, which includes education, training, partnerships, and products.
The products could be part of marketing.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Ell. (interpretation ends) With that, I have made an executive decision to take a five-minute break. (interpretation) Thank you.
>>Committee recessed at 16:43 and resumed at 16:49
We are now back.
Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $27,659,000.
Committee Motion 002 – 4(2): Invitation to Nunavut Tourism to Appear Before the Standing Committee on Oversight of Government Operations and Public Accounts (Angnakak)
I move that this committee recommends that representatives from Nunavut Tourism be invited to appear before the Standing Committee on Oversight of Government Operations and Public Accounts to publicly account in detail for the association’s expenditures, activities, and initiatives.
Can I have a copy of the motion brought forward to the table, please.
The motion is in order and we will proceed.
Before we proceed with debate on motion, I have a few comments to make as to procedures.
The mover of the motion speaks first. The mover of the motion has a right to the last reply, which closes the debate.
To the motion. Ms. Angnakak.
I moved this motion because I feel that Nunavut Tourism is a very important entity in Nunavut and having them come before the standing committee on oversight of operations and public accounts will give all of us a better understanding about their mandate and about what they are doing in each of our communities.
Having them here, we will be able to ask them direct questions and get a better understanding of what has been accomplished over the last few years.
To the motion, any comments?
I think I can only vote when I am sitting in my chair.
My question is: ever since they started, did you want a report or which fiscal year are you asking for that you are seeking information on?
You will be able to exercise your vote from your seat, even though you are at the witness table.
Additionally, if the motion is carried and the matter is before the review of the Committee of the Whole. That is when it would be finalized.
I could now hold a vote.
It is unanimously carried.
We will proceed with our consideration on page K-6.
Yesterday, in her opening statements, she had stated the $500,000 for small craft harbours.
My first question is if it’s just for one small craft harbour.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Keyootak.
This is for all the communities.
When I was running for election, I had stated to the communities that I would be working on trying to get them small craft harbours, which is very important to the two communities that I represent. Are the small craft harbours in any business plan for these two communities?
They could be, if they make request or proposal.
This has been discussed and brought up by my community. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have an MLA for a long time, so we were really behind in different things.
That is why I wanted to ask questions under Transportation.
My constituency would really like to hear any information they can regarding small craft harbours.
I just heard from the minister that if they make a proposal, they could be considered.
I am not sure if you actually asked a question, but Minister Ell may comment if she likes.
These funds are trying to be increased by $1 million. It was $500,000 in the 2014-15 budget and it was used just for roads, but the Small Craft Harbours Program can be included in that now.
For example, in Qikiqtarjuaq, they used $30,000 from these funds in 2014. I’m just using this for example.
Sometimes there are big boulders that need to be removed at the beach during low tide. They make it flatter so that the boats can easily go in and out. That’s what it’s mainly used for, to get boulders out of the bay.
Along the same lines with the transportation policy and planning, and like the minister just stated, that extra $1 million is mostly for roads, what is the department’s long-term marine infrastructure plan?