Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should have asked a different question then if I was going to get a nice short yes. I will hope to see the Minister supporting increased funding for our NGO stabilization fund that regular Members would like to see.

My last question is given the size of the Minister's family, does he commit to buying them all toques from Raise the Roof in order to help them support their fundraising? Thank you.

The entire family, I would be poor; I'd have to run for election next year. But I'm more than willing to sit down and talk to the Member and see if I can find toques for the five grandchildren that are here with me today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member. The letter was received but the details in the letter had specifically only wanted to work with the Members of Salt River. The Housing Corporation funds funding and projects for everybody in the Northwest Territories. So we brought that back, and we are working with the details that are provided within that letter.

In 2018-2019, we did provide funding to Salt River as well too of $800,000. In the past year, we have also negotiated contracts as well with the Indigenous groups in the Member's riding as well and really emphasizing on training and apprenticeships and also trying to keep the money for these builds local and for an opportunity for local business to -- that we would be able to work and invest with them as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I really would appreciate clarity on my answers; I get confused by the answers.

Can the Minister explain why she has not yet responded to me or to the Salt River First Nation about the tiny home pilot project they are proposing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was trying to provide further information on the investment that we have had in Fort Smith. And looking at the letter that we did receive, the funding and the proposal was for membership. The Housing Corporation provides funding for everybody throughout the Northwest Territories. We don't categorize what our programs would be delivering and the people that we would be serving. We need to include everybody within that proposal. But we're taking it back, we're looking at it, and seeing what we can come up with to work with the Salt River First Nation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if she supports the pilot project idea to build tiny homes, that will be a solution to homelessness in Fort Smith, with the Salt River First Nation? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Housing Corporation is always looking for innovative ideas as well too, but the other thing that I'm very cautious of is that we need to provide funding and supports to everybody throughout the Northwest Territories. And homelessness is a huge issue throughout the territory.

Just looking at the notes that I do have, we did look at the tiny homes throughout the territory and that it was brought to us, and looking at constructing them was between 300 and 500,000 each for the territory. But if we're looking at community investment in a small investment project, and if we're able to deliver them at a lower cost, I would need to bring that back to my department. But just to inform the Member, we are trying to calculate those numbers and come up with something that is fair for the Member's riding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to provide funding to the tiny home pilot project by the Salt River First Nation? If not, can the Minister explain her position. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, we know as a government as well too that funding is quite crucial right now with the housing portfolio as well. But we are trying to be very innovative on what it is that we can address and looking at these proposals coming forward and how we can further work with the Indigenous groups.

One of the things that I've asked the department is looking at the co-investment fund and the federal funding that is available to the Indigenous groups and how can we partner and trying to look at those costs.

I do support the project that, you know, we could support this in several different ways as well too, and looking at the designs that we actually do have, what it is that we've provided so far, the time that we had taken into considering building tiny homes throughout the territory as well.

So just to further on that response as well, I do have two housing employees that will be reaching out to Salt River First Nation that now we're able to meet face-to-face. So they should be going into the community in the next few weeks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT provides over $50 million to non-profits through a variety of contribution agreements. And as I spoke about in my statement, I think many of these have not seen increases in years despite inflationary costs.

My question for the Minister of Finance is can we review all of our various contribution agreements to non-profits and create some sort of policy that the ones that have not seen increases in, you know, sometimes a decade, Mr. Speaker, get an increase? Because at some point I don't believe we can be asking people to provide government services that don't address the increased cost of living. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, there has been analysis done. The Department of Finance is involved in doing exactly that and analyzing where the funding goes.

Mr. Speaker, the $50 million sum includes not only non-profits. That includes education bodies and Indigenous governments, First Nations in the Northwest Territories as well. So there certainly has been a lot of analysis.

In terms of providing increases, it is possible for a department to decide to include an increase on a contribution agreement. It would be department by department. It may well depend on the type of the service that's being provided and is always subject, of course, to having the departmental budget approved here in the House. So in no case we'd be able to have an absolute blanket just as there's no guarantee for any one department or any one Minister that whatever proposal we might have for a budget agreed to by the Members of this Assembly. But in short, Mr. Speaker, those tools do exist. The solution may well be to make sure that they are better used and better understood. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the department is looking at this. You know, it's obviously quite a complex array of programs across quite a complex number of departments.

One of the things I would also wonder if the department could look into is changing some of these contribution agreements into multiyear block funding perhaps reducing some of the reporting requirements.

I brought up the example of the Bailey House, which has been in operation for decades, has not seen an increase since 2009. I really just don't think at this point we should be considering the fact that this is going to go out for tender or it's not going to continue to operate. I really think there's many examples of long-standing programs that could see, you know, five, ten-year contribution agreements and give them the security that they can plan for the long-term. Is multiyear funding something we can evaluate when reviewing all of this money? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the idea of multiyear funding comes up year over year in budget dialogues as well so I certainly want to acknowledge that the NGO sector/nonprofit sector have also been good advocates for themselves. That is part of the reason the Department of Finance has been analyzing those third party agreements.

I appreciate the Member's point. There are already multiyear agreements out there. For example, I know I've signed ones with the Status of Women and Native Women's Association. They're always contingent of course on the funding being approved here but it does provide some certainty when there's a sense that upon approval here that the funding will indeed continue to flow. So as I've said, again I can and will take back the idea of making that process better known and making perhaps a bit more corporate approach from the Department of Finance to my colleagues so that we are all able to make use of that tool. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think what I would like to see out of this is some sort of policy emerge and in that policy, you know, kind of a mechanism to include inflation. And perhaps it's not true inflation; we probably don't have the money for that. But to make sure that it's flagged when a contribution agreement has been in place for years and has never seen any increase, that the applicable department make sure they come forward and gets approval through forced growth or some mechanism. Can we look at a policy mechanism to build inflation into these variety of contribution agreements? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is consensus government and, of course, the Members over on this side don't have a majority. So this is exactly the right time to be having this conversation. It may well be that in the course of the next week or two weeks of sittings that we are at a point where we can have some discussion about how to better structure the budgets that are associated to third party agreements. I appreciate the flexibility that CPI might not be the best tag, that inflation might not be the best tag, it's rather variable at the moment, but there certainly are other ways that we can look at more incremental increases particularly for those contribution agreements that involve government services.

So again, as I've been saying all the way along, this work's already underway, and I'm taking the point that we might need to move that along a little faster. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to ask some questions of the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

On February 24th in Committee of the Whole, I asked him some questions about GNWT's seat on the oil sands monitoring oversight committee, and I'd like to know from the Minister whether the concerns of the House have been transmitted to the Government of Alberta over their rejection of a GNWT seat on that committee? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for ENR.