Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Right now it is my understanding that the Premier is working with the Council of Leaders to push the northern agenda in Ottawa. The question is how is the Premier advocating to Ottawa in the run up to the federal budget to ensure any kind of funding to ensure Indigenous students receive an adequate education in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very familiar with Jordan's Principle. I previously served as the Minister of education, and I know people in the system who've taught prior to Jordan's Principle, during Jordan's Principle, and since then, and so I am very familiar with the circumstances and the impact it's having on students and teachers in classrooms. And so because of that, every time I am in Ottawa, every time I speak to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Northern Affairs, whoever it may be, I raise this issue with them and how important it is. Last time, or one of the previous times I met the Prime Minister, I highlighted it. I said this is the issue that keeps me up at night. If you take any issue in the territory, this is the one. And so I've been very clear and very direct that the territories are being impacted differently than the rest of Canada. And given our demographics, our history, there's no reason why the same Jordan's Principle program needs to be administered in the provinces as the territories. While the feds are trying to figure out what they want to do to fix the problems that arose in the provinces, I think there's an easy way that they can say okay, in the territories, we're going to go back to doing what we were doing before. It seemed to work. We didn't see big abuses the way we saw in the rest of Canada. And so there's an easy solution, and I've transmitted that to them as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The federal government now obviously prefers to work on Jordan's Principle funding with Indigenous governments. Can the Premier let us know how is he supporting and coordinating with Indigenous governments to ensure funding for Indigenous education across NWT be handled, especially working with school boards? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I think the work with the Council of Leaders is very important to distinguish ourselves from what's happening in the provinces where there was a sense that the provincial governments were offloading their responsibility to the school board -- or to Jordan's Principle. So it's a much different situation here in the territory. We advocate jointly with Indigenous leaders. I believe there's opportunities for Indigenous governments to actually apply for Jordan's Principle and then help support students and other families that way. That type of work, I understand, is happening around the territory. So there's lots of work to be done in partnership with Indigenous governments, and we're travelling that path. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier in this session the Premier told this chamber that his government is upholding treaty rights. Is he telling Ottawa to fund Indigenous education for him to uphold his own treaty right obligations here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. I didn't quite get the question, I didn't quite understand, But I am advocating to Ottawa to uphold the ruling that requires them to fund Jordan's Principle. I try to educate federal Ministers about the history of the territory, how we came about, the responsibilities that the federal government has to the territory, how we're different from provinces, how we're different from reserves. So I do my best to provide the overall context so that Ministers can understand how this fits into the support the federal government has pledged to provide to Indigenous peoples and how Jordan's Principle is an integral component of that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
