Finance Committee on April 1st, 2021

[Victoria Morton]

Those don't equate to each other necessarily, no.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay. Because what we're trying to understand is, how would you know that Ben Chin was shaping a program?

[Victoria Morton]

Once again, I wouldn't directly have visibility into who is and who isn't shaping the program. I would do the best I can—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Yet—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mrs. Jansen.

Go ahead, Ms. Morton.

[Victoria Morton]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would do the best I can to put together what information I had. Again, I don't have visibility into every single project, but I do have to create correspondence for a ton of different projects and do the best I can.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

So he would be the only one, then—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

This is your last question, Tamara.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

He would be the only one, then, for whom you would have made the assumption that he had shaped the latest program. It doesn't make sense to me that this is just a plain and simple “Oh, thank you for shaping a program” if you have no idea, actually, that he was involved in shaping a program. The wording is odd. Why would you word it like that?

[Victoria Morton]

Because I do my best to customize every message.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

So you would have had an assumption—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

With that, Mrs. Jansen, we're out of time, and considerably over time.

Mr. McLeod is next, followed by Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome Donna Lee Demarcke from NWT Tourism. I want to ask her a few questions, but first of all, I will say congratulations to her on her new position with NWT Tourism. I believe this is her first time in front of the finance committee.

We have talked several times about tourism in the Northwest Territories. I know there's a lot of concern from the operators, as the pandemic has had a great impact, as Donna Lee has presented. In the north, we have a wide variety of tourism operators, from large operations, especially in Yellowknife and regional centres, to one-person operations in our smaller communities.

I want to ask Donna Lee Demarcke if she has noticed any of the government supports that may be working well for some of the operators but maybe could be improved to help more of her members. That's my first question.

[Donna Lee Demarcke]

Thank you, Mr. McLeod.

In my short three months with NWT Tourism, I've had an opportunity to speak with many of our members, from our largest operator here in Yellowknife to several of the medium and small operators. Most of them have very similar things to say about the programs they have been able to access over the last year. While they're extremely appreciative of the programs—because without them they would not still be in existence today—several of them have mentioned that if we're to continue down this path for the next six to 12 months, the ceilings on the programs could be lifted. More funding will be needed.

A lot of them have done what they could to patch everything together to stay in business and to keep hanging on for the last 12 months. A lot of that means dipping into their personal savings and selling things, but now they are a year into it and they don't have those personal savings left, and they don't have those things to sell anymore. Some of the limits on the funds they can access.... The biggest thing is that they hope the funding will continue, but they need the limits to be increased as well.

A lot of them also have expressed that if there's meaningful work for some of these operators to do while we're waiting for visitors to come back to us, they would be more than happy to do that. A perfect example of that is the military operations that we had in Yellowknife this past winter. They were able to use some of our operators and some of their facilities and infrastructure. If there's work like that, they would be more than willing to do it. None of them really want to be sitting around. All of them want to be working, so if there's something we can come up with to put them to work....

The biggest thing, though, when I'm speaking to the operators—and this is just in reference to how the government may be trying to come up with some guidelines—is the unknown, the uncertainty. As of right now, they know the programs are ending. They don't know if they are going to be renewed. As of right now, they know that they can't have visitors to any of our locations, and they don't know when that's going to change. The unknown is what the operators are really having a hard time with.

Thank you for that question.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Do I still have some time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, you do. You have two minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Across all three territories, we're on pace to have vaccines administered to everyone who wants one in the coming weeks, and at least by the end of April. There's also some good news of late in terms of getting more vaccines delivered to the rest of the country.

It will still be months before the provinces reach herd immunity. Do you have any suggestions on measures? I think you've just brought up one, but how can the industry be best supported during this period of varying provincial and territorial vaccine levels?

[Donna Lee Demarcke]

Yes. Really, it's the same answer as for the first question. If we could find some meaningful work and if we could help set some guidelines as to what the goalposts are going forward and continue the funding that's in place.... If there could be some other programs, other things that we could put our operators to work at, I know they would all be on board for that.

If we could try to at least let our operators know that “once this-and-this happens, then this is going to happen”, they would have a bit of a guideline as to how we're going to move forward from here.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I have a final question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I want to ask about how Northwest Territories Tourism is preparing for a post-pandemic season in tourism. Many people are saying that we're going to see everything come back to normal, but that might take a while. Is your organization doing anything to try to plan around that? How can the federal government help?

[Donna Lee Demarcke]

You can continue funding for Destination Canada so that they can help us stay in market. Once the pandemic subsides and people start travelling, they will have choices all over the world. We need to make sure Canada and the Northwest Territories are top of mind for travellers. Funding Destination Canada and organizations like NWT Tourism and other destination-marketing organizations across the country is critical and important.

As to how we're staying top of mind, we're trying to stay in touch with the countries that are our market and trying to make sure we're on the top of their list when they're ready to travel again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both.

[Donna Lee Demarcke]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll turn to Mr. Ste-Marie, followed by Gord Johns.

Gabriel, go ahead.