Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just further to that, then, with the way that COVID is impacting our rental community at the moment, there is a lot of fear I'm hearing from constituents about making their rents, and the rent reliefs were really needed and helpful. However, I'm just wondering if we anticipate that we're going to actually see an increase again in the demands and services of the rental office, and I'm wondering if it is perhaps going to be underfunded for the upcoming year, given the COVID implications that we're seeing? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have anything prepared, and I am the last person who is going to stand up here and tell everyone else in this room what racism means to them. I do commit to being an ally and to educating myself and to always trying to check my own privilege when I can. I look to all my colleagues to help me do so and commit to continuing to do so. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the line items here that I really hear a lot about is the rental office. It's one where I do probably need to learn a little more on its operations and such. $238,000 is not very much money. I do know that a lot of our more vulnerable constituents do interact and need help at the rental office, and we often end up, as MLAs, kind of being that go-between or a navigator in helping them figure that out. My question is: could the Minister speak to whether or not that is actually adequately funded? Perhaps we need to be looking at expanding the rental office so it's...

I did not have the luxury of listening to the Minister's statement ahead of making my questions. Some of it might get a bit repetitive, but that never hurts, to repeat ourselves if we want to be heard. Often as MLAs, we hear of direct-appointment hires or non-hires for that matter, that seem to directly contradict the GNWT's own Affirmative Action Policy. Will a fairness review of direct-appointment hires be implemented as part of the new Affirmative Action Policy to oversee the ministerial appointments? What sort of corrections or sanctions will be built into the policy for individuals who do...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm looking at the biology casework line item. It's a $183,000 item. Just from looking at the page before, it appears this would be the cost-sharing agreement with Public Safety Canada for our part of the DNA work, et cetera, for our legal services. Could the Minister speak to whether or not we have any backlog in DNA testing, that type of work? I may be watching a little bit too much Law & Order SVU, but I'm just curious to know: is that ever an issue for us in the North, where our case work, our biological work, doesn't get processed in time, and does that impact...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of human resources or Finance. What is the GNWT doing to eliminate systemic racism in its hiring practices? Will the Minister commit to setting numerical targets for the hiring of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour within the GNWT at senior levels of management, not just in entry-level positions? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am just looking at the court workers line item and noting that we do have the actuals for 2019-2020. We are at $894,000 but have gone up now in the last two years to $1.24 million on page 286. Maybe could the Minister speak to what that increase reflects, and is that just more positions within the court and maybe where those positions lie? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Does the department have any idea or indication: do we think that this is going to rise and that we would be looking to put more money there? I am looking: here, it's another $100,000 over last year's estimates. However, would it not make more sense to put more money there now in the event that they do need it as it is something that I don't think we would just not fund? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate hearing that, and I want to actually pass along a quote that I do have in my notes here that Ms. Doolittle was awesome to talk to when the report was being done. I just wanted to pass that along to the Minister. Maybe just to further that or to get a little bit stronger wording around it, I think some of the issue, though, is that the after-care of Indigenous recruitment is that it's not so much always getting those people in the door and working but supporting them afterwards in the fact that, a lot of times, this is their family. These are people that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a comment that, yes, I think that's great. Perhaps it's just my own ignorance of how the Department of Justice works, but I think, in this area, when I was with the YWCA as a director, it just felt like this was one area where we could always be communicating more and more and really -- again, I am going to use my geology analogy -- mine them for their data and maybe being proactive to look at where trends are going. I think that they would be a good source for that. More of a comment. I'm done. Thank you, Madam Chair.