Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member's commitment in looking at the same movie over and over again. But if it's a good movie, you want to watch it again and again. And so we want to get -- you know, see new things, moving on, and we can do that.

So we are moving forward. I have to say that. It's government, and we're looking at three different levels of government, and it takes a long time to get all three parties working together here.

To date, there has been a productive dialog with the GNWT, the Government of Canada, and the Indigenous government. And so we're working with them to resolve this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Finance. I'm wondering if the Minister of Finance can tell us how many summer students are currently working for the GNWT this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of May 31st, 2021, we have a total of 192 summer students currently hired. There's an additional 53 who have pending offers. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that response. The numbers are much better than the last numbers that I have from the Department of Finance, and so that is good news to start us off with today. And so I thank the public service and the Minister for that.

But this number is still lower than previous years, and I'm wondering if the GNWT has plans to beat their numbers from pre-COVID times. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, there's been an effort being made to keep numbers updated. Indeed, it's been a bit of a rally of late. So I am pleased to say that the numbers are improving. We're still a little bit behind where we were in 2019. I won't use 2020 as a comparator given what was going on a year ago with COVID.

But with respect to the 2019 comparison, Mr. Speaker, we're actually pretty close right now, whereas in -- at this time in 2019, we had approximately 247, and if we include the pending hires, we're only at 245, if I'm reading correctly on my numbers. So we're not doing too poorly, Mr. Speaker, but, really, the goal is to continue to hire and to continue to hire all through the summer. Maybe we can beat our numbers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, by my numbers, the GNWT is still off by about a hundred fabulous students that would love to work for the GNWT. So I'm wondering if the Minister will make a commitment to at least hire another hundred students before the end of June. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, but that it was so easy. So the summer student program, it doesn't have a separate line item or budgeting item to it, as I think was mentioned earlier in Members' statement. The way that it works, though, Mr. Speaker, the Department of Finance, of course, can coordinate the support hiring of summer students and can coordinate and support training programs for the summer students.

Every department has a responsibility to determine what their needs are, to find special projects that they often do, and often do rely, indeed, on summer students who are coming in to fill gaps over the summer period.

So, you know, opportunities such as this one, to be in the House, to be speaking to all the departments, who I know are listening, reminding them of the opportunity to bring in students, creates a succession plan for them in their departments, creates an opportunity to educate members of the public about the work they do, and to have ready and willing students available to do projects for them over the summer.

Again, this is an opportunity to essentially speak to the public service and to the departments and say, Please consider hiring a summer student. And, hopefully, we will get to that hundred mark by the end of June. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Final Supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as it stands right now, the last numbers that I saw, I saw a lot of summer students really concentrated in Yellowknife. And there's a great deal of need in our communities as well. If we look at what's happening in the Northwest Territories to date, there's tremendous amount of flooding that leads all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. I'm sure that there's students that would love to be on the ground and helping out with that too, with cleanup opportunities and being able to see, you know, a different community or being able to help out their own community. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity.

But my question for the Minister today is currently the GNWT has a program within Human Resources that's called Building Capacity in Indigenous Governments, and as a cost sharing program, that allows the GNWT to play role in building capacity within Indigenous governments. So I'm wondering if the GNWT would be prepared to put together a summer student program that also costs shares summer students with Indigenous governments, municipalities, not-for-profit organizations going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the question began with a discussion of out-of-Yellowknife hire. So just to give some sense, about ten days ago before the rally, the numbers, we were already at 71 regional hires, and that's hires I think not pending as compared to 2019 when we were at 80. So, again, we're not tracking too badly just yet. And, again, the numbers have, indeed, gone up even in just the last ten days.

As for entirely revamping the summer student program and modifying substantially how we will fund it, I'm certainly not in a position to give a firm yes on that standing in the House but always open to new ideas about how to support students, how to support succession planning in the government. And how to support, indeed, may well be the regional government's, non-for-profits, municipal governments and so on and so forth.

That conversation, though, Mr. Speaker, is one that I think would have to begin with those other entities and organizations, as well as looking at each department and the kind of connections that they have.

So, you know, I think that's one to take away and to see what kind of conversations we might be able to have and what ideas and inspiration it might lead to. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Disaster Assistance Committee oversees the governance and coordination for the GNWT recovery process. It is also responsible for assisting the GNWT to make a claim to Canada for assistance under the Federal Disaster Assistance Fund. The two GNWT staff that have been hired, they are navigators. They are currently supposed to be in Nahendeh this week, and they are to be providing immediate assistance in answering questions about the process for further information.

Staff will also be travelling in to Fort Good Hope as well, too, to conduct a further assessment and looking at what would we need to provide to the communities at this time to further support and assist them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure if that answered my question or not because I didn't hear the name of anybody. So I suspect there should be one point person, whether it's the Minister herself or somebody else, and I'll touch base with her later.

And, Mr. Speaker, right now is an uncertain time for many of those victims who have been displaced. So I'd ask the Minister to confirm if and when financial support will be made to flood victims who are struggling with meeting everyday bills and living costs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to elaborate on the first question, I just wanted to go back to that. Is that, you know, we're moving very quickly as a department, but it seems like very slow progress because we have to be preparing this disaster committee as well, too, in looking at our financial response and what we can submit to the federal government. The navigator for the community for the disaster has actually just started today. We just hired the person on Friday with the request from the MLAs as well. So we have two people that are working, that are going to be our main contact in the flood risk communities.

For the supports, the financial supports for the individuals, we have provided the evacuation centres for the individuals. We continue to have the one operating in Fort Providence and providing meals as well, too, and also in Inuvik, and, you know, for the flood victims for Aklavik.

By looking at the assistance that we are providing, housing right now is our main priority in looking at how we could return people to those units and to their homes, whether it be public housing or whether it be private. We're looking within our department or the Housing Corporation on what further supports we can provide, what type of programming we can provide, you know, if we're going to be getting into a partnership with the Indigenous groups, and looking for local contractors to also work on the boilers and the heating systems as well, too, specifically right now with the -- in Fort Simpson.

There's a lot of information I could provide to the Member, and I will follow up with him as well, because there's a lot of information that is flowing right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, she answered question -- the first question and the third question. So I'm going to ask the second question again. Can the Minister confirm if and when financial support will be made directly to the flood victims who are struggling with meeting everyday bills and living costs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for MACA.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're looking at the recovery for the disaster of the homes and returning people back to their residences. I don't have an answer -- I mean, I guess, an answer for the basic needs of food and clothing for the individuals. I'll have to get back to the Member as we are addressing the housing need right now, which is the priority, is to get people back into the their homes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT when -- at the start of the flooding there, we felt we fell short on communications and with respect to acknowledging that the flooding was actually occurring. And so I think what we have to do is in our messaging, we've got to be concise and precise. When we're talking to people in the communities, you know, they're looking for answers and not a story. So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm what communication strategy her department has in place to keep the flood victims updated, how is it being achieved. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.