Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So absolutely, Madam Chair, I don't think it would be a shock to anybody in this room that I am obsessed with the SNAP program. And the Member is 100 percent right, I want to see this program in not just every region. I would love us to be overambitious and see it in every single community because I think at the end of the day, we would -- it would serve the entire territory in such a positive way.

So this program, really, over the course of the last four years has exploded in numbers, and that is in gratitude to the staff at ECE that have really hit the...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I appreciate the Member's words. Certainly, any dollars for whether it's housing or training or both of them together or education or any part of that that comes to the territory is a win for the whole territory. And so if the federal government is creating deals and partnerships with Indigenous governments across the territory, that is certainly something that I absolutely support. I think that any dollars into the territory is a good news story for all of us. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Member and had the privilege and honour of working with the Member on that legislation from the other side of the House. And this -- the work there really is to determine what pieces of legislation are prioritized and go first and as identified within the legislative priorities of this Assembly, this piece of legislation has been identified as needing to be updated and be reflective of where we're at in the territory, be reflective of what the Member did bring up, Article 12 from UNDRIP, and making sure that our legislation is in...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, no, we are certainly in income security, and then next up is labour development standards. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, it was curriculum -- essentially curriculum development dollars for Aurora College. It was dollars that had been previously afforded through a federal agreement, I believe, with CIRNAC. Those dollars had sunset. The college then approached Regular Members letting them know that they wanted that funding reinstated. I believe the previous funding was to the tune of about $534,000, and then Regular Members put back in about 500 -- well, not about -- exactly $500,000. Regular Members were the ones that negotiated that and really fought for it, and...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, if the Member would like a breakdown of Indigenous versus non-Indigenous students and also the regions where -- the geographical regions across the territory where students come from, we can certainly pull the data that we have and would be happy to supply it to committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I can say in previous years, these programs all have not been fully subscribed. One of the goals that I certainly have is I want to see them fully subscribed. I want to see them in communities doing the good work of supporting employers to hire people to do the training, to purchase equipment they need to purchase in order to support somebody's learning and experience on the job. And so certainly a goal of mine is to see these programs absolutely fully subscribed across the territory. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, as I've said multiple times in the House -- and I think it's really important to say again -- that there is absolutely no way for us to design a program that would have satisfied everybody in the territory who wanted to be a part of it. I am very sensitive to that. I am very empathetic to that. There's no way for us, with 150 allocations, to meet a demand that is far greater than that. And so there's no way for -- I knew there was going to be no way for us to launch a program that was going to be perfect in everyone's eyes.

I take full...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And, Madam Chair, as always I appreciate the words of the Member, and they're words that I definitely take to heart. There is certainly -- while there's work being done, there's certainly more work to do, and there are complex needs across the territory and certainly working with my colleague over at the Department of Health and Social Services to address some of those needs, especially when it comes to therapeutic care and ensuring accessibility of education in the North. Thank you.

I look forward to the presentation as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.