Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, again, as I echoed, said before, I think you would definitely find support from the Regular Members for more money into that. We often talk about getting money into communities, etcetera, is better for our economy than having it sit in the government pots.

Speaking of that, the community futures – sorry, the community transfer initiatives no, I'm looking at the wrong one. What am I looking at here? Community futures, sorry. Perhaps maybe we could think of some different naming for some of these pots, but.

I note that it's at $450,000. We had given $600,000 before...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, a lot of my colleagues have already spoken about what they feel is lacking in this budget, and I think I'm pretty vocal about what I also think. So instead I wanted to focus today on the economic outlook of the Northwest Territories going forward.

The Northwest Territories economy has shaken off the effects of the COVID19 pandemic. Economic activity, output, and employment expanded throughout 2021 and 2022, recovering much of the economic loss that occurred in 2020. Labour markets have performed particularly well with resident employment and the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that's wonderful. I'm sure the Minister's aware we had our food security panel recently and have had a couple, actually, of different presenters come in. I just really can't underscore how important food security is and that also it isn't really always, though, a money issue. So if the Minister hasn't watched or her staff hasn't watched that food panel, I would definitely recommend that they take a look at that.

My next question is just I note that there is some sunsetting here of different supports, which I would assume are because of the COVID funding etcetera...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm good.

Yeah, I probably didn't maybe explain my question right; it's been a very long day. So I guess why would we not add more leases? I'm not talking about like so we would actually need more money, not saying that can we free up any money by doing this. More of a sense of, like, is there if there really is and I mean, I guess I'm answering my own question because I don't think you're really going to find any spaces so it's probably a moot point. But I think if we have people on a waiting list and we have the ability to enter into new leases, then we should be doing that to just get people housed...

Thank you to President Young for giving me four more seconds so I can ask one more question there. So, yeah, I do really appreciate that. And actually what I'm hearing, I'm hoping, is that this is now transitioning to more of a wraparound client service or focused thing. So I think that is great and sounds like people have been listening to our side of the House.

So my last question has to do with the Habitat for Humanity line item. There is no money, no contribution. I have only heard good things about this program. I'm assuming we've just sunsetted our contribution. However, can the Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm now looking at the homeownership initiative. It's my understanding that the GNWT or the department has halted intakes on this program until the summer and not due to a limit of funds but rather an inability to process all the applications that are coming in. I'm hearing often from constituents and people, particularly as I have a riding that has several apartment buildings but then also several single dwellings, you know, a lot of people are wanting to move between those two and are finding that they just have no options. The fact that they need to move super quickly...

Is that a yes then, it went to okay, I'll move on. I'll follow up with the Minister after.

I am just looking at the preventative maintenance program line item as well, and I do note that it has stayed the same from the revised estimates that's on the same page. Right now, so it's sitting at $1.244 million. When we've done some of our community tours under social development, we've seen units within the different places, and I'm thinking of Behchoko right now, where there's not an obvious reason to an outsider or an untrained eye why that unit isn't being fixed up and repurposed or having...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There's lots of good programs here under the grants and contributions and transfers part. And I would be remiss if I didn't ask about the seniors aging in place retrofits and repairs. Noting that it has dropped slightly from the 20222023 and I'm on page 388 of the estimates. I'm just curious to know why we're seeing a little bit of a drop there. And given, you know, I think that we've had lots of conversation around keeping seniors in home as long as possible, it's quite an important topic. So could the Minister provide more information on that? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I'm glad to hear that the Minister is speaking about efficiencies and such. I guess I rise with a bit of a concern that when we look at other areas where the federal government has come in with this great idea or they've made election promises that they want to see fulfilled, and I'll pick on ECE with the Daycare Act. You know, not a lot of flexibility for us to actually do anything or make our own northern or madeinthe-North imprint on it. So how is the Minister, I guess and maybe this is going to be a hard one to answer. How can the Minister ensure that that...