Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister. Clearly it’s the commitment of the film industry, representative of the film industry and the departments of both ITI and ECE that have led to the success in this area. One of the areas that they talked about or the Minister has touched on is the funding that is now available to the film industry through SEED. It’s $100,000, which is, clearly, great. I’m wondering what kind of mechanism they have to assess the value of those dollars that we’re spending, how we’re going to track those dollars to make sure that they are in fact bringing...

I was hoping that would be the answer and I encourage the Minister to have his staff at the Film Commission start to go out and research the other communities. I do know that there are a lot of filmmakers in the other communities, people who can do duplication and things like that.

The other area -- and this is an area that came up an awful lot during the consultation -- was the relationship between ITI and ECE and how these two departments really need to work together in order to really enhance the film industry in the Northwest Territories. They do have similar mandates, but they do have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last couple of years I and some of my colleagues have worked hard to highlight to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and his department the significant advantages supporting a home-grown film industry will bring to the Northwest Territories. I believe that this multi-million dollar industry is good for the people of the NWT in many ways.

First, it employs a significant number of Northerners, and with support will potentially employ more.

Second, film and media produced and developed by our talented Northerners highlights the cultural diversity and...

That sounds good and I agree and support that, but in the back of my mind it’s suggesting or screaming to me that it may actually increase the demands on the Territorial Court, because many people don’t file now if it’s above $10,000, between $10,000 and, say, $20,000, just to pick a number, because the amount of paperwork required and the fact that you need a lawyer to take it to the Supreme Court level can get quite expensive and there’s no guarantee that you’re ever going to be successful. Whereas if it’s at the Territorial Court and you don’t need a lawyer to be involved, people might be...

So it appears that with the exception of one that is going to be increased to $30,000, we’re at least $10,000 above any of the other jurisdictions. I’m wondering what was the research behind that. How did we determine or decide that $35,000 in the Northwest Territories is the appropriate amount?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think my colleague Mr. Hawkins did a good job describing what this is about. This is simply a motion to get the future government in 10 years to conduct a review of the concept of a special majority. It was brought forward by committee and it wasn’t fully supported by Cabinet. There is some merit to looking into it and exploring it and doing some research. It definitely requires some additional research and I think 10 years from now when this comes forward for review is a good time for us to review the concept of a special majority. There might actually be some...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to follow up on the comments of my colleague Ms. Bisaro. Over the last four years it’s come up many times where certain regulations would have benefited from a review of Regular Members prior to being enacted. I would say that often this would be the exception as opposed to the rule. Many regulations will not likely ever need to come to this level to be approved, but clearly, without question, there will be those certain or specific regs which would benefit from that public review as well as review by the Members of the Assembly. The reason it’s here is...

One of the items that was discussed at that March 23rd meeting was the possible need, or need, in fact, of an industry association. At that time there was a lot of talk about the department working with some key individuals in the film industry that exist today about trying to find a way to create an industry association in the Northwest Territories. I was wondering if the Minister could tell me if there’s been any progress on that front.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and are in follow up to my Member’s statement earlier today.

On March 23rd I attended a meeting between industry and government on the NWT film industry, and at that time the GNWT, or the department committed to a number of items with respect to the film industry. One of them was to encourage greater cooperation between ITI and ECE, one was to dedicate some seed funding for film and media arts, one was to invest in a website, one was to invest in the formation of an association for the industry...

I accept the argument or the evidence or the information provided. I mean, it’s easy to correlate that. What was there will likely be there, but now in the new…(inaudible)… But I still worry that there may be an increased demand as more people realize that it’s a territorial process instead of a Supreme Court process.

I guess my caution to the department is even though I do fully support the arguments behind doing this increase, I do fully support this increase and I fully support this bill coming forward, I do caution the department that it may result in an increase in workload and I hope the...