Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely, subject to legislation, I'd be more than happy to make anything public to make sure that I am following the rules of the Northwest Territories but certainly I definitely agree in transparency, and I want to encourage and support the Member's desire to continue to stay afoot on the happenings over at Aurora College, the direction they've been provided, and also the timelines that they intend to adhere to.

Mr. Speaker, the reason why yes, was a little bit longer is because I've answered this question numerous times and want to ensure that I'm getting...

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that's not a hundred percent of the story. That is definitely the primary driver for their reductions, but it is not a hundred percent. But I can definitely say that their selection of what dollars that they were not going to use and suggest for this exercise were intentionally not tied to transformation. But for additional detail, I would like the opportunity to invite another assistant deputy minister to join me at the table.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the trades trailers are owned by Aurora College and so would fall under their operations. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the NWT Early Childhood Association has a very good working relationship with the department. I've had the opportunity to chat with them during multiple occasions and can definitely ensure that this is added to the conversation in an upcoming meeting for sure to make sure that we have kind of the full context of asks and then go from there. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would have to phone a friend for that one, but I believe it is worked into federal and GNWT agreements with Indigenous governments. But may I please pass to the deputy minister.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. So this line item  or the difference, sorry, in this line item here is a decrease mainly due to reductions of $460,000. And this is partly offset by funding from the Canada Council of the Arts to support artists across the Northwest Territories. And if the Member just gives me two seconds  sorry, guys.

So this reduction here is largely due to a reduction in heritage centres across the territory. And so originally, there was a budget there of half a million dollars in the previous Assembly. That budget line item was moved up to a million dollars. But what we...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I could definitely provide a difference of definitions of the two. But the reason that I am saying that there is an intention rather than a direction is because I am reminded it is a collaborative process. I want to ensure that both of our voices are in it because we are both agreeing to something in it. But from myself, I do have an expectation that transformation is part of that mandate letter and is part of the marching kind of direction of the Aurora College as well. I think that this I agree with Members, this is a very important project. It...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think it's important to note that not everything that the government does lands in the business plans. There's still action plans that are still daytoday efforts that are done by public servants and by Northerners day in and day out that don't land themselves in the business plans per se. But educating children and making sure that we are preparing them for the rest of their lives is something that is constantly top of mind for northern educators, for parents, for community members, and something that we need to continue to do. So while these...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the Member's excitement and ensuring that we're continuing to work on this. I think that it'll be a exciting term for creating systems for people wanting to come to Canada and make the Northwest Territories home.

We have a staff member within Education, Culture and Employment at this time. Moving forward, we will be transitioning a second staff member from ITI over to Education, Culture and Employment. And so being able to really double that team, I think, will do a lot of good for ECE in being able to support people within this space. And...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, ECE receives $5.9 million from the federal government that is immediately distributed to Indigenous governments for the purposes of Indigenous languages. Thank you.