Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One thing I do want to note on this page is just I am very happy to see that we didn't make any cuts that I can see to these homelessness programs. That's absolutely what I want to see, and I was quite pleased to see that there's been a fairly significant increase to the Northern Pathways to Housing program. Can the Minister just speak to what those funding increases are going to be utilized for.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And thank you very much to the Minister. I really appreciate you pushing the department on this. I'm very excited to have both of those highly informative documents well, I hope they're highly informative, because I and I just want to emphasize the importance of those in making decisions going forward. I've been speaking in the House a fair bit about our infrastructure deficit that we have in the Northwest Territories, both private and public, but we got to focus on what we're in control of here at GNWT. But until we kind of quantify this problem and come up...

Thank you. That's it for me on this one. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to ask about this Western Arctic Research Centre. I know that it was noted -- sorry? Oh, we're just on the first line; okay, I'm sorry. I thought we were going page by page. Apologies, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. And, yeah, I think this is one that I want to kind of maybe follow up with the department a bit more sort of outside of the budget deliberations. I just wanted to get some questions on the floor about it. But I am interested in learning more about what the department's doing, how it's capturing the benefits. This one's important to me. But I'll leave my questions on this budget item as that for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was going to do an acknowledgement for Dave Hurley today but being the selfless guy that he is, he asked that I instead highlight the important work Habitat for Humanity is doing in the NWT. So that is what I am speaking about today.

Habitat for Humanity Northwest Territories is a non-profit organization working toward a North where everyone has a safe and decent place to live. Established in 2013, the NWT affiliate is one of the youngest in the country. Their mission is to build strength, stability, and self-reliance through affordable homeownership for...

Okay, thank you. That's interesting, it kind of counters my understanding. I was under the impression that with relation to employment opportunities, ITI was playing a role. I understand there's some kind of coordination committee related to it that ITI is partnering in. So I wanted to ask about that, how it's going, how the department sees itself in that role with relation to the fact that, you know, this department also has a division that's managing economic diversification and maximizing opportunities there. So I was hoping to ask questions about that. So maybe the department can clarify a...

Yeah, thank you. No, I'm not really speaking to the pathfinder program. And maybe I'll give a little bit more detail so the Minister can understand what I'm getting at. So there's been quite a bit of talk in the past little while about the opportunities that mine remediation has for employment in the territory and just ensuring that we are capturing the benefits from this activity, but namely, the Giant Mine remediation project was going to be -- you know, it's upwards of $4 million now that's going to be spent in the territory. And my question is if this is the department to be asking...

I think you mean a different lake, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next thing I wanted to chat about is just the contributions part, advancing the knowledge economy. So they've got a hundred thousand set for that this year. I note that they've cut it a little bit from the past. And can the Minister kind of describe what the department -- the department's understanding of what advancing knowledge economy means and particularly how it relates to, you know -- yeah, just that comment alone. Thank you.