Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to put the Minister of ITI on the spot yet again today. My question is around -- I'm looking here at a news release around the Tourism Restart Investment Program, or TRIP, that has been put out by the Government of the Northwest Territories.

First of all, I want to say thank you, because I have some lodge operators as constituents. This is $2 million that we've given over the last, say, six months.

My question for the Minister is given that some of this is for infrastructure upgrades, etcetera, while it does need to be spent by the end of March or the end of the fiscal year, are there any mechanisms in place for operators to extend the spending of this money past the fiscal yearend? Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this point, no, we are looking -- part of the reason of doing another intake and of boosting up the amount available was to try to get that money out the door before the end of the fiscal. So we're certainly going to be hoping that operators -- and also, Mr. Speaker, I'll say that was one of the motivations to push to get the announcement out earlier about the timing because, yes, they certainly are going to have to try to spend that money in whatever way they can to be ready for the reopening that has happened. There's certainly conversations still happening with the federal government about what other transition money might be available. But for now, certainly trying to get that money out the door. And again, hoping that with the announcements, that there's actually quite a lot of work to do to get prepared. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just worry a little bit for our business owners that it's been nothing, nothing, and then all of a sudden a lot of money to be spent at the end of the year when perhaps, you know, logistics may be difficult. We have snowfall, freshet, supply chain issues. I guess I would just like to ask the Minister that she do consider some extension.

My question, though, is does this amount of money, the $2 million, is it fully subscribed or do we expect some of this money to come back and be distributed elsewhere? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I think there's probably a -- I mean, I guess I can't see into the crystal ball, Mr. Speaker. I suspect that it probably will not all be expended. And speaking as Minister of Finance, it doesn't just go elsewhere; it lapses. And so -- yeah, if it lapses, unfortunately Mr. Speaker, that's -- you know, just what it does, is go back into the -- you know, reducing -- or increasing the overall surplus that we'd be seeing at the end of the year of the GNWT, doesn't necessarily benefit individual operators. But, Mr. Speaker, there's other work underway. We're looking at getting -- as I said, I think in a Minister's statement, looking at what we can do to look at the confidence of people, the residents of the Northwest Territories, and have residents' sentiment dealt with. So there's actually a lot happening in this space right now, even though we're coming up at the end of the fiscal. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that the Minister has to be more careful with her words than I do with mine.

So I guess my next question is just around, again those supports that the Minister speaks to. I know at one point, there was discussion around the federal government to get a Canada tax benefit to encourage Canadians to travel internally within the country when COVID reopened. Could the Minister speak a little bit to whether or not that's still being planned, or I'm more than fine if she wants to come back to me with some information on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there were some changes made in terms of the residents deduction tax benefit in order to help encourage and allow people to benefit from staycations. So rather than having to leave the territory, for instance, they could now be able to claim their residence travel deductions around staycations and open that up to someone who wouldn't have had access to it through an employer but could actually -- that they weren't tied to having that benefit from their employees. So that would open up to more people to be able to benefit from staycations.

And, Mr. Speaker, there's also been a lot work done at the Chambers of Commerce and the Northwest Territories tourism around encouraging staycations and the Department of ITI's been there supporting a lot of those programs as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final -- colleagues, our time for oral questions has expired. Written questions. Returns to written questions. Replies to the Commissioner's address. Petitions. Reports of committees on the review of bills. Reports of standing and special committees. Tabling of documents.

Pursuant to section 99 of the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, I hereby table Annual Report of the Northwest Territories Integrity Commissioner to the Legislative Assembly for 2021. Tabling of documents.

In accordance with section 265(1) of the Elections and Plebiscites Act, I wish to table the Territorial By-Election 2022 Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh Official Voting Results.

Tabling of documents. Notices of motion. Motions. Notices of motion for the first reading of bills. First reading of bills. Second reading of bills. Consideration of Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 23, 29, 38, Member's Statement 202-19(2), Tabled Document 561, 567, 578, 579-19(2), with Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes in the chair.

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I now call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Madam la Presidente. Committee wishes to deal with Tabled Document 561-19(2): Main Estimates 2022-2023 with Education, Culture and Employment. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We'll take a short recess and resume with ECE.

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I now call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we have been considering Tabled Document 561-19(2): Main Estimates 2022-2023, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, and we haven't finished early learning and childcare. So I'm going to ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Welcome back, deputy minister MacDonald and ADM Shannon. We are continuing on with early learning and childcare. And Member for Monfwi, you had questions under this section when we left off yesterday.

I think we're going to be setting and meeting with the Minister next week regarding that early learning childcare. So I think I'll just wait until then because it was related to that, yeah.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Okay. I did talk to the Minister -- or well, we did -- I asked him before, because early learning and childcare is very important, and he did identify that there's 13 -- 11 or 13 communities that does not have childcare. So in lot of these places, there's -- okay, we have -- you know, there's not enough jobs, lack of employment in the communities. And there's not lot of working parents. It's only -- the daycare is -- service is provided to working parents, not to parent -- stay-at-home parents. It would be nice if the policy -- especially for the small communities where we're having lot of -- like, it's identified in the statistics that education level is low in many of the small communities. So I know that there's going to be -- it would be nice if the learning and childcare daycare program was available, open to parent and stay-at-home parents so that a child, you know, will have the same outcome as the child is going to daycare. So that's all I wanted to say, that it would be nice if they can have that open for other young parent, stay-at-home parent. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister for ECE, do you want to respond?

Sure. I believe that might be a policy of the Tlicho or the childcare provider in the region as opposed to anything that the GNWT does. The GNWT doesn't provide childcare but it will fund childcare spaces, and there's no restrictions on who can attend that is related to the funding that the GNWT provides. So that could be a local policy that we're not involved with. But I do take the point, and I agree that even if you're not working that you should not be disadvantaged and your child should be able to attend childcare to receive that enriched environment. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.

I wasn't just referring to my region but it was in general to -- to all the -- you know, to all the small -- to all the children in the communities, that's what I was referring to, not just -- I wasn't referring to Tlicho but in the whole Northwest Territories I was referring to that. So thank you.

Thank you. Minister.