Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all my questions for now.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on the wellness and recovery centre, I'm just wondering does the Minister have an idea of how we're going to cover the cost for operations of that centre knowing it's a new piece of infrastructure. Do they have estimates for how much staff we might have to add, or are we going to have to add staff in order to be able to operate that facility?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, the only question I would have following that, then, is just whether the department has a set of priorities for which -- I guess projects that are delayed by a certain amount of time and kind of ensuring that the ones that have been sitting on the list for the longest amount of time are being worked on as a priority. So does the department prioritize depending on how long a project's been sitting waiting to go, and just to ensure that we're kind of moving things off the list in an orderly manner? Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you very much for the quick answer.

So just noting that in the 2023-2024 Public Accounts, the committee noted that MACA lapsed almost 30 percent of its budget during the last fiscal year, and that committee learned at the time that those lapses are largely related to carryovers from that fund, the federal investing in Canada infrastructure program. So with that in mind, I note -- the question I have is how will MACA ensure that funding is not lapsed and flows through efficiently to communities? So how can we ensure that the communities have the resources to spend the money that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that commitment from the Minister, and I think that this is certainly something we could discuss at committee as well. And I don't think I have a follow-up question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, sorry.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And that all sounds quite practical and makes sense to me. I guess one of the questions I would ask, I mean, it seems like our need for added capacity for fire management is growing. What are we doing to, you know, look at our base amount of funding that we get from the federal government and whether that is adequate to cover this cost? I guess I would just say it seems like we're playing catch-up on every given year. And, you know, it's very clear what the territory is facing. You know, I just saw a report come out recently showing that effectively the prediction and...

I'm out of time, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister did a great job explaining the program, didn't quite answer the question, but I'll move on to the next one.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that point necessarily leads to another question, and that is, you know, I think it's very clear that the NWT can't do this alone. What kind of progress have we made at the negotiating table with the federal government considering they are -- you know, they just recently announced a very generous amount of funding to Nunavut. I'm curious where NWT lands in terms of the fed's plan to increase housing in the NWT -- or in Canada but also hopefully the NWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance this time. Mr. Speaker, in the government's response to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment's report on the regulatory framework, they spoke to the Building Capacity in Indigenous Governments Program. Mr. Speaker, has this program been fully subscribed since establishment?