Kieron Testart

Thank you to the Minister for making that clear. Will the Minister endeavour to communicate with all early childhood providers and let them know -- clarify this position so there's no more confusion, they're not under this misapprehension that they're going to lose funding if they don't do this, and that they can clearly indicate that parents decline. Can the Minister commit to sending out letters or using the departmental resources to get that clarification out so there is no more confusion in the territory. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, child care providers have been reaching out to MLAs recently and they feel that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is forcing them to collect sensitive personal information, including ethnicity and sex assigned at birth, and they feel that they are under threat of losing funding if they refuse. Forcing families to disclose this information as a condition of service to access or funding constitutes indirect or adverse effect discrimination, non-voluntary statistical reporting. Providers now feel caught between compliance and protecting...

Your Standing Committee on Public Accounts is pleased to provide its Report on the Review of the Auditor General's 2025 Audit of Protected and Conserved Areas in the Northwest Territories and commends it to the House.

The Speaker of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly tabled the Report of the Auditor General of Canada to the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly - Protected and Conserved Areas in the Northwest Territories on May 23, 20251 ("the audit" or "the report").

The Office of the Auditor General's report provided detailed findings on the GNWT's readiness and capacity to...

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Rule 8.3(3)(a), I give notice of intent to proceed with Bill 3, Carbon Tax Repeal Act, for further consideration in Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, of course Ministers are the final word. That's how governments work. I think everyone understands that. Mr. Speaker, the unit has spent two years inventorying problems that frontline staff have been complaining about for a decade. So why are we spending $2 million a year of federal money on an administrative process to build more plans, to build more studies, when we could be putting it into frontline services like an MRI machine or even security in the waiting room, in the emergency room, Mr. Speaker? That's what's important to Northerners, and until we...

Okay, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Premier about the healthcare system sustainability unit. The unit is diligently working away at inventorying medical costs to the healthcare system. We're now hearing a lot of the decisions that we're asking about on the floor as it relates to the healthcare system are dependent on data or reports that are going to be produced by this unit. So is the unit on track to meet its reporting timelines of a preliminary sustainability report by mid-year this fiscal? Thank you. Or, sorry, calender year. Thank you.

Okay. Well, maybe over the course of those meetings, the Minister could raise this directly rather than waiting for them to raise it. I think they've got a lot on their minds when it comes to in the case of -- well, when it comes to all of them. Like, core funding needs are huge, and that's probably top of mind rather than the other stuff. So, anyway, I will leave that with the Minister.

And there's also a situation where Aurora College has signed off on kind of an agreement to work with all the institutions -- sorry, all of them have entered into an MOU to collaboratively develop programs and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister for the response. So I know I am skipping ahead, but not every institution in the Northwest Territories has the benefit of a guaranteed 30-plus million dollars a year. Most, all of them have to test the market for their course offerings and compete for students across the country, across the world in some cases. So the idea of a micro-credentialed course is if you're a smaller college with less capacity -- and that's every one of the Northwest Territories except for Aurora College -- then you may need to build up programs rather than just...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, has the department engaged with any of the post-secondary institutions on developing micro-credentials, micro-credential accreditation, for post-secondary offerings from private colleges? Thank you.

Thank you. I would ask what the Minister is going to do about it, but I think she's had that opportunity. In the past, NTNP often opened in January of every year which set a rhythm for temporary workers' permits expiring in February and March. The NTNP has not yet opened. We know it's opening next month. How will the Minister support all prospective applicants who now can't apply when it eventually does open, because of this lag? Thank you.