Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm really excited to hear that. You know, I think it would be an amazing opportunity to offer, like, you know, go berry picking with an elder when we have people coming into the North. And as well too just all the mental health advantages of, you know, growing our own food and working with the earth and etcetera so I'm really happy to hear that.

I guess I just want to come back to something we talked about before the pandemic took over our lives, and that was the lack of anything around in the downtown core. In the winter months, when we do have the Aurora tours...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think another just to further make a little bit more points or comments around that is that also one of the issues that I hear around having construction camps and mining and other industry around is sort of the byproduct of the partying, etcetera, that may come from some of the workers that do come into town. So another point there for pushing for camps is that in a camp situation, the camp can regulate workers returning to the camp in the evening therefore limiting the amounts of alcohol that they can consume and then be, you know, creating trouble in our downtown...

Drin Gwiinzii, Mr. Speaker. February is Indigenous Languages Month in Canada, and once again the Northwest Territories proves unique in that we are the only political region in Canada which recognizes 11 official languages, nine of which are Indigenous. Indigenous Languages Month is an opportunity to celebrate the NWT's unique culture and heritage, once again emphasizing how important it is that we preserve and revitalize Indigenous languages. We will achieve this through their everyday use, indepth educational program, and new technology such as apps, ensuring these languages survive for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is what this seems to me, and I hear a lot of what the description about the gender equity unit does actually seem to me to quite overlap with some of the work that is being done by the Status of Women. So, again, just like our shelter situation where we put it on NGOs that can't afford to pay proper wages to do work, it seems like this is another one of those types of situations where we underfund an NGO to do work but then we have a parallel department or other department doing some of that work. Those people are making more money. They're getting better...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I have a clarification on where this million dollar from the federal government is? I only see $595,000 here. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think I said that the department was responsible for it. I asked what was happening with the fact that there hasn't been an executive director there. Given the importance of the work and that we are funding them from the GNWT to some degree, what does the department plan to do with the fact that there is nobody leading that organization? Thank you.

Thank you. And I appreciate having the 40 seconds left so I can ask one more question. So then I guess my last question is around the community tourism infrastructure. I look at that, and we have seen a few changes, and I know that we had an influx during the pandemic, when I was sitting in that seat, just to keep some money going into communities while building things like kitchen shelters, that sort of thing. I'm glad we're up a hundred thousand from last year but a hundred thousand dollars does not go very far when it comes to trying to build anything in the communities. Can the Minister...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And that plays really nicely into my next area of conversation around different forms of tourism. I recently had the opportunity to attend the Grow NWT conference, which was the agricultural conference that was hosted by the territorial agri association last week. It was fantastic. And through that there was a lot more conversation around ecotourism, agritourism. You know, I think there's a real opportunity for that southerners would find it quite interesting to see how does the North feed itself and when we do get to a stage where we have innovative greenhouses and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And if I don't already have this in the schedules, could the Minister provide me with the breakdown of the different community futures and how much money they're each getting? It perhaps is in the schedules and maybe she just needs to remind me of which page that's on. I'll let her answer that.

But I just want to do one last thing while I've got 17 seconds left here. The northern food development program, glad again to see that we've sustained the funding of $550,000. However, again, my comment being that it's probably too low. Can the Minister speak a little bit to...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister's response, and I'm sure Cabinet will be willing to work with her to ensure that the CRTC does recognize that it's not just the Minister of Finance that would like to see that. But I think I speak for my colleagues as well, that all of us would like to see this looked into.

Can the Minister speak a little bit about the fact that Vista Radio or True North is still a BIP'ed registered company with the Northwest Territories government? Thank you, Madam Speaker.