Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay. I mean, a number of things that were listed there. I mean, there's a few things that have been completed but there's a number of things that refer to processes, things that are still, you know, a work in progress. Is there -- has there been any, like, analysis within the dialogue itself or discussion as to, hey, is there something we can do to improve our own process to, you know, achieve things more quickly or, you know, communicate better what difference this is all making. Has there been anything identified by the dialogue itself in terms of improving its own process, or is the impression of the Minister that anyone who's working within the dialogue is sort of a-okay with the processes in place? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think everything we do in the world has room for improvement and that we always need to be asking ourselves how we can do and work better together. And so one example of a change that has occurred was the group felt that working on everything as a conglomerate was too much and, you know, how do you kind of make, as the Member referred to, timely change or timely decision-making. And so one of the things that happened was smaller carve-off groups with more focused mandates. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from the Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. Does the GNWT produce any reports identifying, like, what commitments the GNWT is making as part of this dialogue? I know, again, this is a partnership where you can't control what all the partners do and you can't control the -- all of the outcomes of the work, but you can identify what you as one partner can do and hold yourself accountable to that. So is there any records or reports of what the GNWT itself has committed to do in these dialogue meetings and then sort of tracking of whether we've done it or not, how long did it take us to do it? Is that available publicly somewhere? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Member is right to allude to the fact that the federal government is ultimately responsible for the reporting on that tracking and that that is currently behind. This is one of the items that would be captured under our MOU with the federal government because we -- I absolutely agree with the Member that we need to make sure that we're seeing traction at these tables and that that traction is publicly reported. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay. And so can we assume, then, from that answer that currently there is not public reporting as to the outcomes of those meetings and initiatives, or is there public reports available somewhere online? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So there is publicly available reports that are available online but the reporting is currently behind. So the reports that are currently online are dated. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay. Yeah, I did notice that there didn't seem to be anything from 2025. So does the Minister know when that reporting will catch up? And, secondly, can there be any commitment that the GNWT's role or actions can be kind of extracted so that we can look at those separately and then keep track of whether the GNWT is fulfilling its own commitments as part of this partnership? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I am going to go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, I can commit to following up with our federal partners on this and making sure that we're updating the online library. I am apprehensive to kind of carve off a GNWT piece and potentially run into a scenario where we're duplicating work because as the Member for Frame Lake alluded to, we have a lot of work ahead of us so I want to make sure that we're not being redundant. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Well, it's, again, another ongoing conversation that we'll continue to try to push for more results, but I will leave it there for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. We went through one round. Second round, I am going to continue on now. Member for Monfwi.
In your business plan, tourism operator licenses, you know, now that with the mine closure, there's going to be a lot of people that's going to be looking for jobs or to start their own business. So 90 percent of tourism operators license maintained. That's what -- you know, the target. And it's maintained, so -- and then here you identify progress to date. You know, there's 159 approved, 8 pending. Can you give me an update or a report or something that shows how many of this are in Tlicho region? I mean, Tlicho region, not North Slave region, because at this time, the way that it looks, we're part of North Slave and in North Slave region, there's a lot of development, not in Tlicho region. So I just wanted to ask the Minister on that. Thank you.
I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'd be more than happy to provide information to the Member on total tourism operator licenses and the breakdown of Tlicho operators as well. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Monfwi.
Okay. According to her knowledge, is there any license issued to Tlicho? I don't think there's any, but I am just asking. I just wanted to know if there she -- if there is, if they issue any license -- tourism license to Tlicho. Thank you.
I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the answer is yes, Tlicho do have tourism licenses. A big example of that is Tlicho Adventures and Tlicho Investment Corporation has a number as well. I just don't have the overall number at my fingertips right now. But there are definitely examples.
Okay. I will go to the Member from Monfwi.
Okay. The Tlicho Adventure, I don't know who they are. But then are there Tlicho citizens living in the Tlicho region? Because I am more interested in the Tlicho region. I don't see any tourism happening even in Tlicho constructions or, you know, Tlicho Investment Corporation. Is there an agreement in place, or how do they keep track of the tourism operators? Like, I don't know how the policy works but if it's not being used by a certain amount of time, then do they automatically cancel or is it just something that's -- or it's renewed every year yearly? Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, tourism operator licenses do renew their licenses every year, and we have a number of staff that support people who are interested in opening tourism businesses and we also have funding mechanisms as well. And then we are also in the process of resetting our tourism strategy which will come with additional supports for interested tourism operators in the North as well.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Monfwi.
Okay, thank you. Thank you for the information. I live in Tlicho region. I haven't heard of any tourism happening in the region. Maybe the fishing lodge. But, anyways, I want to go on to the next item.
For future explorations, you know, there's an increase of NWT Indigenous, NWT residents employment in the natural resource sector. We know that, okay, the diamond mines are closing. We have no control over that because it's our market -- you know, it's a market that we have no control over. But we know that there's the -- the gold price is up. So I just wanted to ask the Minister -- because I do worry just the same as her, as anybody else, because we have -- like, Tlicho region is going to be -- really be impacted by the -- by the closure of the mine and people have to live, provide for their families, and some have -- like, they've been working there since the day that mine opened. So a lot of them rely on that job, and that's the only job that -- you know, that they've been working at because some of them are doing it because they love it, you know, they want to be there and they put in a lot of -- you know, they worked there for many years, two weeks in/two weeks out, and they make a living from there and we -- so with that in mind, I just wanted to ask the Minister if -- if there -- because I haven't heard from the government if they are doing any -- or they're working with other mining or other industries regarding future explorations for gold mine and maybe other minerals within -- in the Northwest Territories. Because after the diamond mine close and after the oil and gas sector, you know, close, or, you know, slow down, we have nothing in the Northwest Territories. So I just want to know if there's any other new development that the government is working on that we are not aware of because -- yeah, thank you.
I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will start and then I'd like to turn over to the deputy minister as well. So in short, the answer is yes, there's more drilling happening in the Northwest Territories right now than there has been in the last 10 years. So right now, there are -- and multiple projects are in Tlicho region as well, and this is in addition to the work that Tlicho government is doing with Fortescue.
So right now, there are multiple gold projects that have drills turning in and around the Slave Geological Province area and including in Tlicho area. So in Tlicho area, there's, for example, Stellar and NICO. And then there's also significant dollars coming into the territory to projects as well, and they're very busy forming partnerships with interested investors. So we have the opportunity when we go down to Roundup to sit both with these proponents and their investors. And the other thing that we're currently doing is making sure that we are supporting the critical mineral infrastructure fund applications, if they are critical mineral mines versus gold mines, and those are applications that go to the federal government. And we're hoping to hear sooner than later on the success of these projects so that we can share that information with Members as well. With that, Mr. Chair, I'd like to turn to the deputy minister. Thank you.
I will go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So yes, further to the Minister and the Member's comments, the price of gold is extremely high, and it is driving money into the market and to NWT projects. We haven't seen this much gold activity happening for a very long time, so multiple drills on several projects. Courageous Lake, which is the 15th largest unmined gold deposit in Canada, which sits north of the diamond mines, is being spun out to a new company that will dedicate its efforts just on that. But we're also seeing commodity booms in zinc which we haven't seen for a very long time; in tungsten, which is the Mactung project; in cobalt. So, unfortunately, the opposite is true where the diamond prices have gone down, and so it is -- it's rejuvenating all those projects with an even more urgency to be able to hit the commodity upswing, and it has made major financing. Some of them up to $50 million are coming into the companies exploring in the NWT. And so I will say that all projects, like under Arcan, our MOU for example, we will meet with all of those projects to ensure that we identify any barriers that we can help to remove with our federal partners that sit in their way, regulatory or other. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Monfwi.
Thank you for the information. Thank you for sharing with us. Because I just wanted to ask -- you mentioned NICO. Does the Minister have an idea of why or -- why NICO is not progressing forward? NICO is -- it's also a mine that, you know, could happen tomorrow. But I just wanted to know why, if the Minister has -- why this is not moving forward. And it would be nice if we can have an update, a report on all the drilling, the mining exploration that's happening in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the Member is right, would love to see NICO move forward and progress. They are a fully permitted mine that has gold, cobalt, and bismuth, and they just recently purchased a refinery in Alberta and so they're in the process of also making sure that they're putting their downstream pieces together at the same time. They also still do need an access road as well into the mine, and that's one of the pieces that they are currently trying to pull funding together for in addition to their full feasibility. And we can certainly provide a list as well of the active exploration projects that are happening in the Northwest Territories to committee. Thank you.
Okay. I am going to stop there. I am going to move on. I am going to move on to page 233.
Industry, tourism and investment, corporate management, $10,471,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to economic diversification and business support, beginning on page 235 with the information items on page 237. Are there any questions?
Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, also in the business plan I noted that there's mention of -- and I will read it so you don't have to reference the page number -- improving accessibility of NWT arts program streams, and the business plan noted that the measure was for fewer points of entry within the GNWT. Happily, yes, we've moved everything over from ECE into ITI and now one department rules them all.
So I am curious about the ways that arts overlap with the other functions of the department, as the Minister knows. So I guess my first question would be are there ways that the Minister can identify that connects funding of the arts with tourism? Are there ways that we can encourage local artists to work with local tour operators, for example? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so our economic diversification and business support branch of ITI, it works very closely together and are always looking for ways to kind of cross-pollinate. We see this even with both kind of the mineral side and the art side. And so, for example, when we travel to our mining shows, we're constantly making sure that we are also including our artists in those opportunities as well. We also have a new tiered funding model that enables more data-driven decision-making through a centralized intake within ITI, and there are performance measures that are included in that. We also have maintained, for example, the arts operating funding as well within the organization so that we're making sure that we're kind of evolving the sector while still holding on to the parts of the program that were evolved under ECE because they had just worked very closely with artists and with the sector. And maybe I will stop there and see what other questions the Member has. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to the Minister for that. I guess I will be a little more explicit. I know that there's a new tourism strategy coming, and I am curious if the cross-pollination -- I think was the words used -- between arts and tourism is being considered as maybe part of that forward-looking piece. Obviously, not getting into detail, but just in terms of a wider breadth of those, the Venn diagram of arts and tourism. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, those are two things that go hand-in-hand very closely together. Right across Canada, we're seeing a huge increase in cultural tourism, which also relates in that Venn diagram that the Member was referring to. And so, you know, whether it's through NWT Tourism, through the Territorial Agricultural Association, through, you know, film and arts, they all work hand-in-hand and all complement one another. In addition to that, Mr. Chair, you know, we've got programming that really can be applied right across funding mechanisms, for example SEED, so that people aren't pigeonholing themselves into one area. They're really just having to develop an idea but that idea doesn't have to just stick to one part of the Venn diagram. So certainly, the more creativity, the better. And we're certainly happy to work with residents, whether that's through our business development officers or regional offices as well. Thank you.
