Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I noted earlier today, I'm concerned about the continued misalignment between the Minister and the Aurora College board. Mr. Speaker, why aren't the department and the board coordinating and planning something like the CLC closures, polytechnic transition. How does the Minister plan to address this issue of misalignment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it's just not clear to me what the merit or intent of the motion is so can the mover explain to committee why we need to defer this, what is the -- what's the ultimate purpose here?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, just on the review of the CLCs themselves, I understand that when the facility's master plan was being put together, there was actually quite a bit of a review of the CLCs specifically and that a report was produced talking about everything that was heard during the review of the CLCs. Will the Minister commit to release that report so the public can better understand what's going on, better understand what's behind the decisions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we certainly didn't plan it out, but it looks like we're having a bit of a theme day today. I, too, am rising to speak about the closure of the community learning centres, and some concerns I have about the relationship between the Minister and the board and the president of Aurora College.

Now, Mr. Speaker, as my fellow colleagues have already articulated, and I don't need to repeat today, we heard the news about what's happening. What really concerns me is that this news dropped and there was no plan associated with it. The college didn't articulate that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't actually have any questions. I just have a quick comment, and I just wanted to compliment the Speaker and the clerk on a good job following a fiscally responsible budget. I know that, you know, the Speaker got hit with a meme or two on our favorite Yellowknife memes page but nevertheless managed to pull out a fiscally responsible budget, and I'm happy to see it. I don't have any questions for the Speaker or his staff. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Frame Lake is happy to boast that we have a young page in the House today, Mr. Jacob Couture is here, so thank you to him for all his work and all the pages, of course. And I'm not sure if he's actually still up there, but I saw a constituent, Matt Halliday, who is the new Chamber of Commerce executive director. He's had a busy job in front of him the past couple of weeks. So good to see him in the gallery. There was a couple other constituents who were in the gallery for the Budget Address but quickly disappeared. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to be trying something a little bit different this year. Last year I spent a couple of weeks honing and writing a statement that ended up running out of about 20 minutes and had every possible idea that I could put into it, not unlike the Member for Range Lake that just laid out quite a -- I don't know what to call that -- a mandate, I suppose. But what I'm going to give this year is an initial reaction to the budget. You know, we just heard the Minister's speech, and I want to some of my initial thoughts, and just to hedge that with saying, you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, inspired by a few of my colleagues yesterday, I just wanted to stand up and make a short statement today just about the increase anxiety and stress occurring for 2SLTGBTQIPA+ people south of the border, and I wanted to stand up and make a statement expressing my support and my solidarity for this community here in the territory.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen that we in Canada are not immune to the shift that's happening. Some jurisdictions are beginning to introduce legislation which I've heard is making transgender youth feel unsafe. Mr. Speaker, I have...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly don't have as nearly as passionate opinion on this one as my previous colleagues but I would just say that, you know, as a Member of the committee, committee had a discussion about this, made the recommendation that we did and, you know, I was in favour of it there, and so I'll support it here and would just note that I think my experience of referrals of matters -- sorry, of Members' statements to Committee of the Whole so far is that a bunch of them have been referred. We've yet to actually debate one. It does seem like something that is not a big issue...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I do appreciate that clarification. Mr. Speaker, has the GNWT explored options before for programs such as income supports or grants for families supporting persons with disabilities to organize their own in-home services or respite care? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.