Mahsi, Madam Chair. I just wanted to support comments made by a couple of the Members regarding NWT friendship centres. I know, in my community, they provide a lot of services to lots of folks who aren't working at this time. There would be sewing centres, awareness of COVID, of different issues, family violence and whatnot. I see a real need for that, because it can create employment in a small community, too, whereas now they don't have a whole lot of funding to be able to do that. Anything that they can get for the friendship centres can really help in that regard. I just wanted to make that comment there.
The other one is the special events for National Indigenous Peoples Day. That's what it's being called now, I guess. $50,000, I don't know how much that stretches out to all of the communities, because not too many bands are in good financial situations. It's very low. They aren't able to host large celebrations where they can offer more, because, in this day and age now, even to host a drum dance, all of the drummers want to be paid well. What I notice is we don't get the good drummers because we aren't paying them well. It's funny how that works. Not only that, for all of the other events that we like to host, the prize monies are just not enough. I am just wondering if we could increase that funding a little bit there just to help out the small communities. That's more of a comment.
The other one I noticed is that, I don't know where devolution funding comes in under this heading or whether you've dealt with it already, but I know that the two governments, the Akaitcho and Deh Cho, don't receive any type of funding in that regard. I'm just wondering if there would be consideration for something like good faith funding since you're on First Nations land and you recognize the First Nations as the true owners of the lands. Now you're pulling leases, taxes, from the people. Maybe something like this would go a long ways in soothing the fractured relations within the parties. I'm just wondering if something like that could be considered, since there is no other funding coming to those governments who are left out of the devolution agreement. Mahsi.