Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the 2019 NWT Community Survey is now under way, and many residents around the NWT will either be getting a survey request in the mail or a knock on the door. The household survey covers topics such as housing, employment, education, and language, and I want to encourage everyone who is asked to participate in this valuable data collection event to do so.

The survey is being carried out by the NWT Bureau of Statistics. It will include a sample of households from the six largest communities, Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, Fort Simpson, Inuvik, and Behchoko, and a census of all households in the other communities.

In Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, and Inuvik, letters were dropped at selected households, requesting them to complete the survey online or to arrange an in-person interview or a phone interview. Outside these four communities, interviewers are conducting the survey in person.

The survey intends to collect data from 8,000 of the 17,500 households in the NWT, a formidable slice, and the Bureau of Statistics hopes to have preliminary results at the beginning of November.

Why is this survey important, Mr. Speaker? It will yield valuable information than can be used for planning programs, identifying emerging issues, and monitoring progress on issues at the community level. In other words, this is the evidence for evidence-based decision-making.

This data is available for use by anyone; NGOs designing or evaluating programming and businesses doing market analysis for business planning. All levels of government, that is, federal, territorial, municipal, and Indigenous, can use the information to design and improve services for their constituents and clients, and this kind of high-quality detailed community data is vital for our access to federal funding.

Data collection is on now and continues into March, and I want to encourage all NWT residents who are asked to take part. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.