Katrina Nokleby

That's kind of exactly my point. It doesn't happen in the window of time that it needs to in order to get at addicts when they are actually willing to seek help. I would like to see some commitment from the Minister on how she's going to address that delay and that issue. Moving on, it's my understanding that the on-the-land fund is valued at approximately $1.8 million annually. How long has this fund been available, and how much has it been accessed annually?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does the Minister and the department feel like this is an adequate amount of money, or is it, at some point, we should be looking to increase funding in this area? I'm always all about giving our money out to community groups and Indigenous organizations so that they can spend the money there versus spending it may be here always. If the Minister could speak to that, that would be great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, residents across the territory are wearing pink shirts in support of the national anti-bullying campaign. Pink Shirt Day has its origins in an incident when a child wore a pink shirt to school and was bullied for the colour of his shirt. It is reported that one in five children experience bullying, but it is likely that number is much higher. Bullying exists in many forms, including racism and discrimination, and can often lead to mental health and addiction issues. In some cases, when bullying is severe, it may lead to suicide and death. We must combat the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I do remember that in our previous briefing. Thank you. I am looking at the grants, contributions and transfers, noticing that that is the line item on page 319, or the line items. There is a decrease to some of that funding. However, the 2019-2020 was a lot higher than the budgeted, as well. This, my understanding, goes to Indigenous governments to help them. I always think there could be more support there. Plus, we are moving to a more virtual, unknown sort of world when it comes to consultation and engagement. I mean little "C" consultation, as well. Could maybe...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is about the securities and project assessment line item on page 318. I notice that the actuals were a lot larger for 2019-2020. I am just wondering if that is like the sunsetting or finishing of a project, like maybe Cameron Hills or something like that. Could the department confirm? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Let me rephrase. I'm sorry I don't have your position right, but the departmental staff indicated that it would be consistent with all of the other seniors programming across the Northwest Territories government. Is the trend across all of the Northwest Territories government towards income testing for seniors, and is that something that the Minister is looking at for her department specifically? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is there a move to be implementing income testing for seniors across all MACA programs or a variety of MACA programs in the upcoming year? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am just going to piggyback a bit on what my colleague has said and again more of a comment. I feel like this is an area where I would be supportive of any sorts of increase of funding. I like what my colleague was saying about the idea of using youth and sports to act as almost sort of a mental-health-and-wellness-counsellor-type situations and the crossover that could be happening between almost all of those types of departments. When I look at the positions, there are seven across the entire territory, which makes this really quite small. It's probably one of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question just has to do with the upcoming cultural sensitivity and training that we will be doing. Does the GNWT make available to all GNWT employees cultural sensitivity training that has the purpose of raising awareness on how to interact with Black or people of colour in the workplace and other departments? I do recognize that I am kind of asking a lot of the same questions. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Madam Chair. My next question is: does this organization or this area of the department support SAO development and retention? I have become aware, in my time in the North, of how difficult it is for SAOs to be retained in small remote communities at times, often being at the whim of mayor and council. I'm just curious to know: is this an area where the funding would be to support those types of employees and their roles? Thank you.