Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. Yes, this is very specific to the Tlicho's agreement. I do take the Member's point that perhaps there is more that we can do in communities. That's one of the reasons I have started down the path of looking at what we can do for the heritage centres. While we might not be providing direct financial support for positions in communities, the ECE staff and Prince of Wales heritage centre are always happy to provide assistance, their expertise, to Indigenous governments when it comes to cultural activities in terms of artifacts and things like that. The Indigenous communities are the experts on the culture, but there is expertise that can be lent. We are providing support in kind whenever we can. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you for that. I agree. I would like to see empowerment of the communities. I am excited to see where the heritage centre goes. I just wanted to say that I wanted to get in on MLA Cleveland's tour of the Prince of Wales. I am also curious to see how the artifact preservation stuff is all progressing. I'm not sure that that is under this area, so I'm just going to hit the Minister up for that at another time. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. I would like to get in on that, too. Minister.

Sure. I think we made the offer a year ago, so I'm glad that people are finally taking us up on it. It is a great tour. To sell other Members on it, when I went there, the staff even pulled some things from the Hay River area, some of the artifacts that no one gets to see because so much of it is really behind the scenes. You get to go and see stuff that the general public isn't lucky enough to see on a regular basis. I recommend it. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you for that. I would advise that you bring your colleague, the Minister of Infrastructure, though, because I'm going to ask you about the asbestos and the remediation in the building, as well, when you do that tour. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. I'll take that as a comment. I think the Minister heard you. Member for Monfwi.

Masi, Madam Chair. [Translation] ...we have language and culture in place. When we look at this, we look at how many people are working, we can see that. For headquarters, and I'm talking about Yellowknife, it says that there are 404 people in the regional office. In the bigger communities, they have only 11. In total, they have 59. My question to the Minister is: I would like to know how many Indigenous people, even including the Metis and Inuit, as well, are employed? Later on, I'll have another question, after he answers this question. [End of translation]

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. I don't know if we have that breakdown at our fingertips, but we can easily put that together and share it with the Members.

Thank you, Minister. Member.

Masi. [Translation] When we look at education, our language, our culture and heritage, I wish that more Indigenous people would be employed or maybe some of the jobs can be transferred to the regions, specifically for this department. When we look at this, we look at who all speaks their language and know their culture. These are the people who should be employed, and it should be in the communities. Madam Chair, I am going to mix my language, in English and in my language, mixed, because sometimes there are a lot of young people who do listen to this session, and I will say it in both languages. [End of translation]

There are 59 employees within this district area division, and it would be easily empowered onto the communities and onto the regions with these positions. Everything is electronic, nowadays, and it would be ideal to have language-speaking people in these positions, as well. I'm not sure how many language-speaking people we have currently in these positions. I'd like to get that number, as well. I would like to see down the road -- it wouldn't happen immediately, Madam Chair -- the headquarters, there is always an increase in positions in the headquarters. We all know that.

There are 48 right now, and in the regional office, there are 11. That's pitiful. Down the road, I'm thinking five years down the road, if the Minister can agree to work toward that, it would be nice to have at least 35, close to 40, maybe, 35 at headquarters and 20 or 25 at the regional office. That number should be changed, and I for one would like to push for that even further. It should be our community experts dealing with this programming, especially the language-speaking people. We are talking about official languages. We are talking about culture and way of life, revitalization of our language. Here, it's all at the headquarters level. That would be my question to the Minister, if he would be willing to look at that, at least as an option going forward, and then I'll continue with my other question, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you to the Member for those comments. Some of the positions in the regions are at the territorial library located in Hay River; the Indigenous Language and Education Secretariat, for the most part located at headquarters. This is also where you'll find the Francophone Affairs Secretariat, which is 14 positions, and that is located in Yellowknife. Then the bulk of the positions are actually the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre staff, and so people who need to be on-site. I understand what the Member is saying. We often, in government, think or say that it's more efficient to run things out of Yellowknife. It's a larger centre, more economies of scale, but if you start breaking it down and all of a sudden you have, instead of a couple of dozen people in a regional centre, you have a couple of hundred, now you have those economies of scale spread across the territory. That's something I'm constantly thinking about. I have regular discussions with my departments about that: how can we put positions in the regions? I appreciate the Member's comments, and we will get him the information that he has requested. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. I appreciate the Member's passion on this. I think it has only been five years, now, since the creation of the Indigenous Languages and Education Secretariat, so we are making strides. The Member knows exactly what he is talking about: that is focused on revitalization, and the Member is talking about interpreter-translator training. After this meeting in March, we'll see where we go from there. We're not just holding a meeting for the sake of saying that we've done something. If we can come out of that with a plan and that plan requires some funding, that's something that we'll pursue. I'm open to that. I'm definitely open to that. I appreciate the comments. I can't make any guarantees about what will be in next year's budget. We haven't even passed this year's budget, but I recognize the need. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Are there any further questions under the Education, Culture and Employment, culture, heritage and languages from Members? Member for Monfwi.

Madam Chair, I'm not going to talk on the translation area, but I am interested in the library services into the communities. Public library services $1.9 million. I understand through the briefings that we've received, there's 21 public libraries in the NWT and 13 communities without public libraries. Fifteen of these are located in schools, and five are located in other buildings and one in a band office. What are we doing with the 13 without libraries, public libraries? Kids have to read, especially during COVID pandemic. They're staying home most of the time, and we have to have these students learning every day. If they don't have a public library, where do they turn to, Madam Chair? Masi.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. Recognizing that there is a need, we've committed to increasing this number by at least three during the life of this government. There is some progress. It's not all of them, but I can tell the Member that much at least. Thank you.