R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned yesterday in the House, the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs is working with NGO partners in Yellowknife. There's a meeting coming up in early March, another one in early April, and so that's the forum often where those types of discussions would happen, and those types of gaps would be identified. There's been a number of conversations over the past many months since last summer between the government and NGOs, and so I'm confident that the department is aware of those gaps. I don't have a list on hand, and I can't point to an itemized list...

Thank you. So we are working on a tracker that we can share with committee. It's not, you know, available right now, but, yes, that work is underway. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the mandate is to build relationships, really. We've been working with Ottawa. We've had success with some offices, federal offices. Other federal offices, they have been more difficult to engage with and get information from. And that's important to be able to have that ability, especially when we have asks that we're bringing forward to Ottawa that we need to move along. We need to make sure that they're not falling off anyone's radar and so this is an opportunity to ensure we're pushing that. I have had a lot of -- I've had reach out from federal Ministers about...

Thank you. Both the deputy minister and I are not a fan of endless reviews and action plans and strategies. We're more -- we're fans of action, so I'm on board with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you. So we've been working, you know, now for a year trying to work with Ottawa and, you know, experiencing success in some areas, less success in other areas, and it was clear that there was a need for, you know, a different approach or augmenting the current approach, so not even going to say necessarily different. I don't want to get into an individual public servant's resume on the floor of the House, but the individual in the position has significant experience working in Government of Canada, in various departments at various levels in the Government of the Northwest Territories...

Thank you. So the NGO stabilization fund that -- previously with Department of MACA is one of the line items that we have inherited as we work towards integrating services across government starting with how we work with the NGO sector. And so for now, this year, it is a status quo for that NGO stabilization fund, but we are planning on engaging with the NGO sector to determine how we move forward with the suite of programs that we really use to support this sector right now, and that work is to begin this year. Thank you.

There's as many people in the executive hallway now as there were when we started. Thank you.

Thank you. I am glad the Member has such confidence that this budget is going to be approved; I appreciate that. And I appreciate the Member's advocacy. I know the Sahtu has the highest cost of living in the Northwest Territories and, you know, we do have a number of programs to fund, you know, food, whether it's funding for a food bank, whether it's funding that goes directly to schools, or whether it's other programs we have that allow for some sort of, you know, food distribution under them. And so we do have a lot of that. We are also engaged with the federal government on the Nutrition...

I'll hand it to the deputy minister.

Thank you. So the senior envoy is not a new person. It's the same person who is in a different role. We have an associate deputy minister with Housing NWT and an associate deputy minister with the health care system sustainability unit. And those are the senior positions that have been recently added. Although I'll note that the associate deputy minister position already existed in Housing NWT. Thank you.