Julian Morse

Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that Committee Report 320(1), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 20222023 Annual Report of the Northwest Territories Information and Privacy Commissioner be received and adopted by the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Frame Lake, thank you. It's okay, the other chair get that one mixed up too. So does the Speaker, for that matter. There's a lot of lakes in Yellowknife.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'll just say, you know, if the Minister needs some comforting words, it can just be that, you know, MLAs are putting a fire under her and so if she's feeling like she has to transfer that to the federal minister, I just want to kind of provide my encouragement also on that one. This is something that's important to our communities and our response to climate change. So thank you, Madam Chair. That's my comments on...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So that one, I mean, the issue I want to highlight is I've got a lot of constituents who are effectively, you know, on an older oil burning furnace paying exorbitant amounts of heating costs, aren't in a position where they can afford to switch to something more high efficiency or off of oil altogether to get out from under carbon tax payments, etcetera, etcetera, and just the general cost of oil. So I'm just wondering is this program geared towards that? It's only $200,000. I mean, personally, I'd love to see us providing a lot more support for people on this, just...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, just following up on a previous set of questions, so I'm looking at kind of the arts as a whole on these pages and note that we've got $1.271 million in cuts. We got $1.271 million in adds. So it's not  nothing's technically being cut, it seems, but there's a whole redistribution and reorganizing. Program funding, I quote from this page here, is redirected towards a set of new programs that better supports the creative sector.

So can we  can we just get a description as to how we are better supporting the creative sector? Has the creative sector been consulted...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I think that I I'll just make the comment that I think it would be nice to see the department speaking to outcomes they're looking to reach in the business plan just because this one, I believe, is quite an important item, and I think it's something that has been, you know, recently audited in the department. There was definitely some gaps found and so I think it's something that should be top of mind for the department in terms of the plans that they're making and the outcomes that they're trying to achieve. So I'll leave that as a comment for future updates to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to refer to business plan, page 11, just give the Minister and her staff a second to find that. In particular, the item that speaks to continuing implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action. So I note that that Call to Action, particularly action number 7, speaks to closing the gap between Indigenous and nonIndigenous education outcomes in the country. And that one is directed at the federal government. But, of course, there was an audit done by the auditor general recently of this system, came forward with a bunch of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly won't need 20 minutes to speak on this one.

Mr. Speaker, I'm also rising to speak in favour of the motion. Mr. Speaker, when I served on Yellowknife city council, the issue of access to lands was on ongoing frustration. When I asked staff at one point, you know, in a particular moment of frustration, whether any other jurisdictions in Canada have systems like this where lands within municipal boundaries have multiple layers of jurisdictional management? The answer that staff gave me at the time was no, that the NWT is unique.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, although I have felt a strong sense of responsibility since the day I was first elected, I must say, the weight of what our territory is facing in the near future has felt heavier still as I have been considering the 20242025 Budget and the new reality of the Government of the Northwest Territories. At the time when our territory is most in need of investment in housing, education, critical infrastructure, health care, and climate change adaptation, amongst other things, our government is at the cusp of hitting its debt ceiling and has little to spend on...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Continuing on the arts theme, you know, as was raised, the switch to ITI has been announced as part of the Budget Address, and so I think that there's  you know, there's reason for a little bit of concern from the arts community that, you know, the optics of putting the arts under ITI as opposed to, you know, a cultural department is that it kind of indicates that what we're moving toward is trying to kind of treat the arts as sort of a monetized or economic development initiative. And I would say that I think that, you know, investments in the arts is a big piece of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, the one that kind of caught my eye here was that, you know, the arts organization operating funding. I know that operating funding  funding for just kind of keeping the lights on, keeping the doors open, is what NGOs and arts organizations alike continue to tell us they need. And so it looks to me like operating funding for arts organizations has been reduced a bit. It was previously $470,000. It seems to be reinstated as $321,000.

Can the Minister just explain, are there any organizations who are losing operating funding through this change? Are there any...