Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, when I look at the contributions funding in this section, there's a lot of really good pots of funding here that are helpful to communities, Indigenous organizations, etcetera, to get money into the communities and help their people. When I look at the numbers, a lot of that is remaining fairly stagnant. The antipoverty fund, which I know we've done, has increased over the terms of this Assembly, which is great. However, you know, there's things like the family violence prevention fund, which has only gone up slightly; the communitybased suicide prevention...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope that we'll have a seat at the table. I think always that any of the experience that I'm sure the department can offer would be well you know, something that would be good to input on. I'm sure you know a lot better than the federal government necessarily what needs to happen. I think that's it for me now. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And is there any funding that's potentially coming from the federal government or something we could access around Indigenous supports, particularly for people working in the communities or living in the communities, sorry. And the reason, again, I ask is that I'm aware of people that have had to move to Yellowknife in order to access the services here for their children or to another regional centre. And I guess my question is is there some way to leverage attention from the federal government on Indigenous issues and reconciliation to get some money to sort of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize if this has already been said or answered, but when can we expect to start seeing increases or a change to the way the funding is going here? And, again, I just want to I think that there are more and more people that probably could use a lot of these funds and just aren't really aware. And so I'm glad to hear that there's a sort of a revamping coming, but when can we sort of expect to see that actually translate to work on the ground or to this changing? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to get a little bit more information as well around, like, the respite fund, noting that it hasn't gone up by very much. I'm just curious as part of the supported living review, are we looking at that amount of money as well? And I do note that it goes to organizations rather than from the department directly to individuals providing respite. But the reason I ask is because it's I'm aware of a few situations where people are living with are caretakers for children with disabilities and they're not accessing respite. And I'm just wondering, do we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The reason I ask that is in the note it does say "and shelter families affected by violence."

My last question I guess, or that I would like to ask about is around men and men's supports. I note that we don't have the men's healing fund here, and I'm just curious to know if there is any of these funds that are directly targeted towards men and men's mental health and wellness given that it is known and shown that men do not access services the same way that others will. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So if there is an individual because I do hear this often that someone would like to just you know, they've got their own equipment, things like that, and they do want to organize something but perhaps they just don't have that formalized partnership with a band, is there a pot of funding anywhere here where they could apply, or is it all going to be structured in partnership with Indigenous governments? Thank you.

Thank you. And I play soccer so if I ever get back to that with one of the people that work there, I will let them know that they should maybe schedule a meeting with the Minister and have a chat.

You know, I look at some of these line items and I recognize that there's been some influx of money, as mentioned to my colleague, for the Aurora College; however, given that we had the recent conversation with Giant Mine and the different proponents, I won't rehash all of that but, you know, I think this is an area where it's a good place again to get money, training, skills, and capacity into the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to just talk a little bit actually a lot of my colleagues have asked some of my questions already, and I appreciate the information. But I always have to get a plug in for Skills Canada. Their funding has stayed fairly stagnant over the last while. And, really, for my own personal history and experience with the program, it's a really, really good program. We do well at it, I think, and as far as the competition piece when we send people. I'm sure there's other pots of funding; however, during the pandemic, it was very difficult for them to sort of continue on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the events that NAPEG, which is the regulator here in the Northwest Territories for engineers and geoscientists, puts on during Engineering Month is the popsicle bridge building contest.

Will the Minister commit to taking part in the popsicle bridge building contest and constructing her own popsicle bridge for demolition during NAPEG's event week? Thank you.