Steve Norn

Thank you, Madam Chair. Based on this, then, is this fund going to be stopping in 2024? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that response. I couldn't imagine if I had to deal with something like that and have to constantly go through the whole red tape. I want to go back again about the senior citizens. I do have a couple of constituents that constantly have to deal with property taxes. I think that, if you are running a business or if you're paying taxes all your life, once you hit a certain age, I think you've paid the house, for lack of a better word, throughout your life. I think they've earned it. They've earned that right to get some of these tax breaks, and it goes to...

My one question I did have on this is: this seniors and disabled person's property tax relief, what age would I be eligible to qualify for a program such as this? Is it 60, 65? Sorry. I'm looking at her. She's pointing at herself. It made me laugh. That question's for the Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just looking at the line item, just to follow up, just to continue on with the Member for Great Slave, for water and sewer services. I know water is such an important issue. A lot of First Nations communities across the country and stuff and I know in my hometown, in Deninu Kue, that was an issue for quite some time, and they finally started to come around and get their water filtration and using UV to get the water where it's drinkable and to get rid of some of the bad stuff, like to prevent E. coli, that sort of stuff. It was passed on to me by some of the staff...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the response. It gives me a little bit more. It gives me a better idea where I need to go with this next question. We have 33 communities, and a lot of the communities are not like our larger centres where you could just consult with the mayors and whatnot. I know we have a lot of smaller communities, First Nations, for example, that the chiefs usually are the heads in that capacity. Has there been a lot of consultation stuff? I am thinking in terms of the business plans for MACA or the long-term business plans. Has there been a lot of consultation with...

Marsi cho, Madam Chair. I am just looking at the directorate on page 338 and some of the activity descriptions on this. We have the municipal funding gap we have to deal with, and it just feels like we are constantly finding ways to pivot and to find some solutions to close that gap and find ways to get funds out to our 33 communities. Aside from doing things on this side of the House, what has the department been doing in terms of finding ways to streamline and to get more funds out to the communities? Thank you.

Madam Chair, I move that we rise and report progress.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Let's hope we don't pay that money back and try to use whatever we can because we could use all the help we can get. I'm going down that list again. We see things like connectivity and broadband. That's an issue in a lot of our small communities. We talk about the cell phone service down the highways; I mean, yes. Anyways, that's merely a comment. I don't have any further questions on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We should make sure other Members are aware this covers a wide kind of spectrum of different things, like highways. I am just going to read down a short list here: public transit, regional airports, short sea shipping, culture, recreation, tourism. This covers quite a bit, so my next question is: how do we pick and choose how we allocate this, the main estimate of 18, almost $18.8 million? That is for the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that. Hopefully, I look forward to seeing that in committee at some point. Again, just a quick comment, just to end off this part. Like I said at the beginning, again, my colleagues, we all do feel the same way. We don't want to get completely overwhelmed with LPs towards the end of this Assembly because I think it's important that we get ahead of things and not be knee-jerked towards the end of the session because it will mean that you won't have good quality legislation. You want to make sure that we're very thorough and doing all the due diligence...