Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I echo everything that my colleagues have been saying. As the deputy chair of the social development committee, I would be remiss if I did not also express my disappointment to not see more money here.
A couple points that I just want to add, because I don't want to keep bringing up the same things, but I want to add that while we're giving this amount of money to youth organizations and sport, etcetera, this doesn't factor in all the money that not only the time the volunteers are putting in but the money themselves. So they're paying for their own flights to things. They're paying for some of the youth to go with them. They're paying for food, all of these kinds of things, not to mention all the fundraising that has to be done. So basically the communities and the families and the coaches are subsidizing the sport program in the North yet the North takes the accolades when we win gold, silver, etcetera at games.
So when I hear the Minister say that the problem is people in the communities not wanting to use infrastructure that's been built for them, I ask why we're talking about that in the operations and maintenance budget when that's a capital conversation. It is not the fault of people in the communities around sport funding maybe not being adequate. I do take exception to that comment, especially when I look through this entire area of programming and the contributions are all to community organizations. If I look through, for example, get active NWT, funds to encourage groups to organize, healthy choices initiatives, after school activity programs in communities, youth contributions. All of these things are going to the communities themselves. So if anything -- if this Cabinet truly had a mandate and a want to get money into the communities and to increase employment in communities, this is exactly an area in which they could do so. So it's very disappointing to see all these numbers remain quite stagnant.
And giving on top of that the alarming rise in youth suicide and suicidal ideation, to me it's actually shameful, again, that we're not putting more money here.
For example, let's look at the youth centres. $500,000, Madam Chair. That is over, what, 33 communities? That works out to $15,000 a youth centre. What is a community -- what is an organization -- who even is these people that are organizing and running the youth centre for $15,000 a year? If they can even get a building. That's the other piece of it. This is not even, you know -- this -- again, I'm just reiterating what my colleagues are saying here, that this is being put on to people in communities to do this work. We all know that increasing funding to sports and youth programming will decrease the amount of mental health issues that we're seeing. It will increase physical wellness. And I also reiterate that it is very Yellowknife and regional centered centric. I heard those same complaints during Arctic Winter Games tryouts, that it was very difficult for small communities to come into Yellowknife and a lot of people were sleeping on beds and such. So even if you just look at that from a purely competitive perspective, those kids that are sleeping on a cot in a gymnasium with no showers are going to do poorly compared to someone who is living in their nice fancy home in Yellowknife. So while I, you know, support my community and my constituency and their athletes, it is very elitist. And I don't have a question. It's another comment. But I want to say this -- having no increases, given the amount of work that our committee has done, is shameful. Thank you, Madam Chair.