Thank you, Member. Honourable Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That Wise Woman's Award was a good program. The funding came through EIA but it was through the Status of Women that was -- it was done by. Through COVID, they decided they didn't want to do it because of COVID. I haven't heard them wanting to do that. It's only $25,000, Madam Chair. If the Status of Women does come forward, then I would look to see if I could fund that internally. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

So does the Premier commit to looking to find the money, or does the Premier commit to finding the money if they come and ask for it? Thank you.

Thank you. Honourable Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will commit to looking to find the money if they come and ask for it, recognizing, Madam Chair, that we just, I think the previous year, so just gave both the Status of Women and Native Women's additional funding. I think it was in 2021-2022, so. And with COVID, a lot of the expenses that both of those agencies would have incurred weren't as done because you couldn't see people. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I appreciate that the 2020-2021 Actuals are lower because of just execution for those two contribution agreements, the Native Women's Association and the Status of Women. However, when you look at the revised estimates and the upcoming ones were stagnant for both of those items, and we're only sitting at $920,000 for two pretty important organizations that do a lot of really good work. I know like things like the Native Women's Association in the past has put on a Women in Mining, Indigenous Women in Mining conference, things like that that I haven't seen for a while. I fear that while they maybe haven't asked for more money, that there are things that are not happening because they're using their money elsewhere. So can the Minister -- sorry, the Premier speak to whether or not we think there would be an increase in funding coming after this year? I would obviously like to see an increase in funding this year but I'm guessing we're kind of past that point. Thank you.

Thank you. Honourable Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, it was 2021-2022, there was $50,000 to both organizations additionally. At this point, Madam Chair, no. I also believe that both organizations are doing wonderful work. However, there's lots of organizations that do wonderful work, and we have huge priorities of the GNWT and everyone's aware that we don't have the money to meet all of our priorities as we have currently. So at this point, no, I'm not planning on giving any increases. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Disappointing, but not surprising. I'm looking at the women's initiatives funding. Again, kind of a low amount. I mean, I think overall this just, as a woman, makes me kind of -- I just wish there was a lot more funding for these types of initiatives. And I note that the women's initiatives is for nonprofit organizations to do special events. Is this fund generally fully subscribed; do we need to increase that? Again, as we've said in many other departments, the NGOs get a lot more money into the hands of people. I do recognize this is a multi-departmental conversation but if they're all speaking to each other and there are no silos, the Premier should be able to answer it. Thank you.

Thank you. Honourable Premier.

Madam Chair, I'll start, and then I'll pass it over to Lauren. So the women's initiative, again, that was -- yes, I used to be the Minister of Status of Women, and I did know it was oversubscribed and there was, like, $5,000 here and there and lots of people, organizations applied for it. So again in 2021-2022, we also gave them a $55,000 increase to bring it up to $100,000. So as for is it oversubscribed at this point, turn it to back to Lauren, if I can, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Ms. Alexandra.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Yeah, without having 2019-2020 in front of me, I'm not sure if those were COVID drops or if they were the increases that year, because a lot of our mains estimates, the 2020-2021's all dropped just as a result of not being able to spend money during COVID, so without having a year before that. I'll explain it to you afterwards what I'm talking about. And yes, now that I am jogging my memory, I do recall that we did get more funding from the government last year for this type of work.

I guess my question is, then, around federal funding. And again, maybe this is something that the Premier would have to go to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women but given that this government -- federal government has promised to be more, you know, female friendly, the -- you know, a lot of things around the gender equal Cabinet, etcetera, has the Premier gotten any indication that there is going to be maybe more of a push in federal funding towards women's initiatives? You know, we have things coming up around the Missing and Murdered Women, an area that I need to be more familiar with, but I feel that this might be an area where as its importance grows, we aren't going to see the funding growing with it and for us to find that internally is going to be difficult. So if the Premier could speak to that. Thank you.

Thank you. Honourable Premier.

Madam Chair, at this point, in talking to the Minister of Status of Women, she hasn't heard anything. We haven't heard anything yet. Their budget hasn't been released. We brought forward our ask but our asks are based on the priorities of this government, and we have huge priorities like housing, etcetera. So the women's initiative was not amongst those asks. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you. I'll just have to hope that the prime minister does some initiatives on his own, and I guess just a comment that if I could go back in time I would be doing those priorities a whole lot differently. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further comment? No, okay. Member for Kam Lake, did you have questions?

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of my questions I believe was just kind of -- oh, but that's good.

So back on page 119 in the gender equity unit, the $1.7 million, I see that there's a slight increase and my question was going to be around the implementation of the MMIWG action plan. And so does any of this money go toward the actual implementation of the action plan? Thank you.