Caroline Wawzonek

$3.1 billion, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The projected shortfalls from this one, Mr. Chair -- sorry, we do have the base funding here built in. There is -- yes, I don't actually have great detail as to what has led to that, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure if the deputy minister can speak to it, but it may well be -- yes, sorry, I'll just pass it to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, that is required to do -- to deal with the projected shortfall in contracted services in Beaufort Delta. So obviously NTHSSA is responsible for health and social services in the Beaufort Delta region, particularly with respect to the Inuvik Regional Hospital. The kinds of things that fall under contract services would include security, dietary provisions, catering, laundry, housekeeping, switchboard and reception services, and as well as some on-site -- any kind of on-site management support not health care related, that tends to be through service...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. $3.6 million.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I cannot see into the crystal ball of the federal government. I would be fascinated to know why they are not taking this on similar to, by way of comparison, the non-insured health benefits which is a benefit that is provided to Indigenous persons, or at least First Nations persons, and this program administered by the GNWT is meant to extend a similar level of coverage. I do not know why the federal government doesn't seem to undertake this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I certainly have looked back at data and charts going all the way to 2005, and there's a few years which is right around the time when the mines were being built that things were relatively flat, but the increase over the 16th Assembly, the 17th Assembly, the 18th Assembly show a steady -- in fact, 16th has a particularly strong spike up, and then a sort of steady increase in debt levels through the 17th and 18th. 19th, again, sort of steady the first couple of years, spikes up a little over the wildfire year, not surprisingly, and now we are, as of this moment...

Mr. Chair, I don't have that. I have only the information with respect to the supplementary estimates here in front of me. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'm able to say that I don't think we track that, the reason being that we don't currently have an operating definition for an Indigenous business per se and as a result of that, it's not easy to say the individual landlord is, in fact, is Indigenous. There's times where, for a development corporation for example, is an easier answer, but there are other businesses that may well be owned, operated, or partially owned or partially operated, and we don't right now have that definition so I'm not able to track that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, this is certainly far from being the only program or fund directed to support addictions use so happy that the Member is pointing that out.

This is one of the examples of where Health Canada came out with some additional funding and provided that funding under what is called the substance use and addictions program contribution agreement, and this one is quite specifically with respect to smoking cessation, so trying to reduce the number of individuals who are cutting back or reducing or ultimately ceasing smoking. And so it's money that's coming over the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, and it's not. I think that that's actually -- it's a good question, and it's one that -- it's important, actually, that they not be conflated, I'd suggest, in that we still want to be able to go to the federal government, particularly with the nation building scale work, the kind of infrastructure that provinces, you know, arguably not taken for granted in an expressed way but have and have at their avail that were built, whether it's a national railway, whether it's a national highway, whether it's capital level airports, ports, you know, pipelines, whatever it might...