Julian Morse

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...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do yeah, I do note that I actually have notes for myself on Aurora College on the next page. It can be where we're going night after night here, it can be hard to keep track of all our notes. But, you know, the line item is here also so it seems like a fair place to also ask the question.

Just to be clear here, the Minister suggested that Aurora College had almost $2 million in reductions simply with vacant positions that weren't filled, is that correct? Or is there maybe a bit more to that story?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I appreciate those answers. And now kind of to the business plan itself, looking at that business plan it was just the continuing implementation of Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action, it just highlighted for me to kind of have a look at those calls, and that number 7 stood out to me particularly considering the auditor general's report that the department is responding to. So I guess my question is on the business plan, I don't see any commitments or targets being sought to reduce the gap between Indigenous and nonIndigenous youth. I'm not seeing...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the interest of time, I'm not going to repeat the compelling arguments made by the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake but did just want to reiterate my support for what he was saying, and I just state for the record I would wholeheartedly support supplementary appropriation coming forward from the department to better fund this area because it's important to my riding also. And, yeah, just want the Minister to be aware that the support is there for it if she's able to bring something forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, and I do I do recognize that was a very general and high level question, but I guess the point I was getting at is that we do seem to have quite a focused plan for dealing with crime on the policing side and was just kind of hoping to hear from the Minister what we're doing on the social side. And a lot of that falls under her department. And to the point I mean, I was asked the question myself the other day and had a difficult time kind of coming up with an answer like are we doing enough? I think if we look outside and look to what Members are saying is going on...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, really, not to repeat comments made by other Members, but I think, you know, the problem that I'm seeing is I still have constituents who seem confused about what's happening. The department has produced kind of a calculator, but there still seems to be some confusion about kind of what their benefits are going to be. So anything the department can do to kind of improve comms on this would be appreciated. But, you know, I can just say for the record as it currently stands as it's been presented, I'm not in agreement with the changes that are being made. I'll leave it...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's it for questions on this section. Thank you.