Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We allocated the entire $1 million in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, but I don't think it is a surprise. There were certainly significantly more applications than funds available. I think it was $4 million that was requested. That is up double from the previous year.

The previous year, we started with a budget of $500,000. Through the O and M process that we are going through today, it was increased to $1 million. We had $2 million in asks that time, and we spent the entire $1 million. This time, $1 million was known, $4 million in applications, $1 million approved. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a very good program. There is $1 million, and we had $4 million worth of requests. I guess my question is to the Minister is: why weren't you guys looking at trying to increase the budget in this area by at least another half of a million dollars to help people with this great anti-poverty work that they are doing? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This government is committed to fighting and addressing poverty as one of the many partners necessary to fight that battle, but there are limited funds, and there were significant amounts of mandate items that we needed to make some progress on.

Recognizing that there are multiple areas that are actually addressing poverty, housing, education, and many other things that we are doing, we felt, given that we had the $500,000 last year, that we weren't in a position to seek more when we had so many other priority areas to spend a very limited amount of money on. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess that I will have to kind of disagree with the Minister on that. I understand that other departments are doing that, but those are the other departments. I would have hoped that the government would have put a little bit more money in there from this department.

I know that we did work with the committee last year and the department on that. Will the Minister be looking at that or the department looking at that for not this budget but the next one, if we continue to see this increase or demand of $4 million worth of requests? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member's point is certainly noted. We have made significant investments in this, in this Assembly, that will support families and will support individuals who are struggling, and that is across many departments. There are also other pots that people can be referred to. The federal government provides wellness funding that goes directly to communities. Many of the communities are trying to run initiatives that will focus on poverty. ITI is working on supporting more community gardens for food security. There are multiple things happening. There is no one department that is alone in the battle to address poverty in this territory. In addition to this fund, I mean, if you look at many of the things that Health and Social Services is doing, they are intended to help address those challenges that our residents face, whether it is addictions or mental health or just overall healthcare. I take the Member's point. That is certainly something that I anticipate will appear in transition documents in planning for the new Assembly, and that is certainly something that I think the next Assembly is going to have to consider. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, and I thank the Minister for that answer. When he talks about mental health and addictions, on page 177, we see a decline of $200,000 from that line. Is that being replaced by federal funding, or is there a reason why we have had a reduction of $200,000 in this important area? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Abernethy.

Mr. Chair, the money from the mental health and addictions, which was $450,000 and now moved to $250, $200,000 of that has actually been moved into the line directly below, on-the-land healing fund, as part of the increase there of $725,000. Some of that money is new, but some of that money has been moved into this area from that area, so it is still in the budget. It has just moved. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought that the on-the-land healing was new federal funding, but we have taken $200,000 from mental health and addictions and put it into on-the-land healing? What was the rationale for that decision to move that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to on-the-land healing increases and changes that we have made, we have heard from individuals that they would like to see more focus on some of the on-the-land programming, focus on after-care treatment and mental health and addictions. We have sought through the budgeting process an additional $400,000 that we have included in this line to take it from $1.1 million to $1.5 million, but we also took some of the money out of this particular area, out of the $450,000, $200,000 to support more on-the-land training programs focused on mental health and addictions. This is the new initiative that we have been talking about. We also took an additional $120,000. In total, we reallocated $330,000, which will take the amount of money for on-the-land healing from $1.1 million to $1.825 million, and $7.25 million of that is really focused on, really, the mental health and addictions on-the-land programming, to strengthen it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you. I thank the Minister for that answer. I understand the $200,000. I understand the increase of $500,000, but, the $125,000, where did that come from? Where did you get that taken from? Was it out of this section or another section? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of those dollars came from a consultant position we had in the department which was vacant. Then we felt that we could get more bang for our buck, more benefit by rolling it into on-the-land program for mental health and addictions support with Indigenous governments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next on the list, we have Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Standing Committee on Social Development is eagerly awaiting the mental health and addictions recovery plan. Where do we find the money in this budget that will implement the actions that are recommended in that plan when we see it? Thank you.