Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I don't find if acceptable, and the department doesn't find it acceptable either. That's why I've been working on this issue for more years than I would care to admit. If this was an issue where I could write a cheque, and problem solved, then we wouldn't be talking about it. As a Regular Member, I worked with the Hay River DEA because they require new buses, and as Minister, I was able to sign off on their purchase of new buses. And now we have a situation where they can't afford to use those buses. So perhaps I can take this opportunity to let people know how the funding works for education bodies.

So in Yellowknife, we have DEAs. It's a single body. And funding flows from ECE directly to those bodies. The Tlicho Region, we have the TCSA. Funding flows to that body, and then they disburse it. And in other regions, we have district education councils. The way that it works, according to the Education Act, is that ECE provides funding to the education councils, and they divide it as they see fit. There's very few restrictions on how that money is to be spent. It's similar to the Government of the Northwest Territories. We receive money from the Government of Canada. We spend it on what the Members of this Assembly deem necessary. It's the same thing. We provide the district education council in the South Slave with funding, and they distribute it among the various communities. And they make that determination. And so it's a political decision made by the DEC. And this isn't a money issue. There's money there. There's money in the bank.

The Member referenced that in the last annual report, there's $3.2 million. I'm sure that's gone down because of the costs associated with COVID. But nonetheless, this isn't a case where the money doesn't exist; it's a case where a decision has been made to not allocate that money. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.