Thank you, Minister. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion is carried. Bill 88 has had second reading.

---Carried

Second reading of bills. Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, Bill 23, 29, 60, 66, 67, 68, 73, and 76, Committee Report 42, 47, and 48-19(2), Minister's Statement 264-19(2), Tabled Document 681, 694, and 813-19(2).

Colleagues, by the authority given to me as Speaker under Rule 2.2(4), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily hour of adjournment to consider the business before the House with Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes in the chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Committee wishes to deal with Tabled Document 813-19(2), Committee Report 42-19(2), Committee Report 48-19(2), Bill 60, Bill 66, Bill 67, Bill 73, and Bill 76. Mahsi. Oh sorry, can I do that list over again, Madam Chair.

Go ahead.

I'm losing my mind here. I'll retract that, Madam Chair.

Committee wishes to deal with Tabled Document 813-19(2), Committee Report 42-19(2), Committee Report 48-19(2), Bill 66, Bill 67, Bill 73, and Bill 76. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Does committee agree? Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Committee also wishes to consider Bill 60.

Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We will take a short recess.

---SHORT RECESS

I now call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we've agreed to resume consideration of Tabled Document 813-19(2), Main Estimates 2023-2024. Does the Minister of Finance wish to make a statement?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, when I attend federal-provincial-territorial meetings of Ministers, I am proud to tell colleagues from across Canada that we are in fact a perpetual minority government. I am proud of this fact because I can also say that we have always passed not only the operations budget every year but also, separately and additionally, a capital budget. These budgets may not pass unanimously but they pass through a consensus process of review, information exchange, and discussion. And when I describe the kind of expectations we entrust on MLAs to receive and hold confidential government information about departmental business plans and draft budgets, Minsters from other jurisdictions are surprised; and they are even more surprised when I describe the repeated negotiations that we undertake in order to pass these budgets. Madam Chair, I am proud of this system. It is only as successful and as strong as the efforts we all put in through active participation in the many briefings and reviews. We are here today because of the efforts that have been put into this process with respect to Budget 2023-2024.

Madam Chair, I realize that every Member here was elected to represent and work towards the betterment of the territory and its people. Our shared priorities are not only reflected in the mandate; they can also arise throughout the course of the Legislative Assembly or may find particular need or attention at different times. The consensus process of budget reviews and negotiations allows us all to have a timely role to respond to new, enhanced, or highlighted areas of need.

I want to extend a sincere thank you to the work of Regular Members to review the main estimates and provide their perspectives for improvements to the budget. A special thank you to the chairperson and deputy chairperson of the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight for their involvement and responsibility in carrying out budget negotiations. Madam Chair, they have ably and represented Regular Members and without their work, the outcome today would not be the same.

We have agreed to enhance Budget 2023 with $4.775 million in additional funding for several priorities. And I am committing to bringing these additional initiatives forward in a supplementary estimates document in the May-June Session.

Homelessness

Housing Northwest Territories is prepared to bring forward its Homelessness Strategy. To support the actions under this strategy, I am committing to including $2 million in additional funding in 2023-2024. Housing NWT will use this one-time funding for application-based grants with special priority given to shelter service initiatives. I look forward to Housing NWT's comprehensive funding requests that will come forward as part of the next business cycle. I note that our shared goal for these funds is to see them expended by organizations or communities who are actively working in this space and who are well placed to ensure their effective and timely use.

Mental Wellness and Aftercare

I listened to the Members' concerns about mental wellness and supporting the standing committee's request for increased funding for detox and aftercare services in response to the Auditor General's report. And I commit to including $500,000 in additional ongoing funding for a suicide prevention fund to be provided to Indigenous governments. I note in particular the recent publication of the Moving Forward and Healing Together Suicide Prevention Strategy by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, and I expect that funding to support the implementation of this strategy will be available through this enhanced funding.

Youth, Sport and Recreation

Excellent aftercare programs can play an important role in supporting the mental wellness of an entire family in addition to the programs' ability to support child and youth education. Participation in sport and recreation benefits all ages in many ways and plays a tremendous role in the development of youth into healthy adults. We are committing an additional $500,000 in ongoing funding to support youth involvement in sport, recreation and youth development initiatives across the territory.

I note that we again have a shared goal to see this funding be application-based to ensure that individuals, families and community organizations are able to apply for these funds and ensure they are spent efficiently in support of those who need them.

Sustainable Living

Madam Chair, we understand the importance of sustainable living programs to communities and if the $1.1 million already budgeted for the Community Harvester Assistance Program, or CHAP, is insufficient, we need to address that. Minister Thompson has asked the Department of Environment and Climate Change to review the program's funding, being mindful of the $1.6 million in funding for complementary programs like Local Wildlife Committees, Take a Kid Trapping, Hunter Education, Country Foods, Trapper Mentorship, Harvester Disaster Compensation Assistance, and the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur Program.

In support of this program review, we commit to adding $1 million in ongoing funding to increase Sustainable Living programs.

Support for Entrepreneur and Economic Development

Members have made clear their support for the Support for Entrepreneur and Economic Development, or SEED, program, and we support their suggestion to earmark more SEED funding for the arts sector with a commitment to add $375,000 in one-time SEED funding, bringing the total for arts-specific SEED funding to $575,000 in 2023-2024.

Programs under SEED are currently under review and future funding requests will be part of the regular business planning process.

Emergency Response

The GNWT, through the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, remains committed to working with communities to determine community capacity for ground ambulance and emergency response services and to reviewing what the GNWT provides in support of these services. In hearing the concerns of Regular Members, I commit to providing $400,000 in additional funding for communities to seek opportunities for training and to purchase equipment to improve their capacity to support ground ambulance services in the Northwest Territories in 2023-2024.

After a review of this program and the needs of communities is complete, future funding decisions can then be made through the usual annual business planning cycle.

Non-government Organizations Inflationary Increases

Madam Chair, no one is more aware of the inflationary pressures on government programs and services than I am, and I was especially supportive in the 2023-2024 Budget of taking into consideration these inflationary and other expenditure pressures as faced by non-government organizations that deliver programs and services on our behalf. We changed our approach in next year's budget by allowing departments to seek additional funding for inflationary impacts to non-governmental organizations through the forced growth process and, as a result, have proposed $738,000 dedicated to helping organizations address inflationary pressures. These include organizations who are helping health agencies, housing, and the Community Futures Program and Community Transfer Initiatives.

We are also helping departments with the wording for multi-year agreements with some of these non-government organizations. I confirm that those changes in process in allowing departments to seek forced growth for inflation on behalf of their program delivery partner organizations, and to sign multi-year agreements, will continue.

As stated in the budget, we are going further in changes in how we work with the non-government organizations by establishing an external advisory committee to better support non-government organizations.

Northwest Territories Power Corporation Board Composition

Madam Chair, an options paper is currently under development by Executive and Indigenous Affairs that proposes to amend the composition of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation Board of Directors. This will include an examination of the implications of appointing a board of independent professionals. This options paper will be provided to standing committee by the May-June 2023 session. Madam Chair, as I noted earlier, the changes highlighted here will be implemented through a supplementary appropriation in the May-June sitting.

And that concludes my remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. I will now open the floor for general comments on the Minister's statement. Do any Members have any general comments before we begin the departmental summaries. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't have any prepared comments; I've got scribbled notes. I'm going to do my best to cover a number of areas. And I guess I just want to start by saying we don't really do a very good job explaining to the public what happens in this place. And I keep making that point again and again. And we always tend to think that we're the center of the universe in here but lots of other things are going on outside in people's normal lives, you know, picking up kids, arranging care for an elder or whatever. And in any event, there's a lot of things that happen behind the scenes. A lot of things. And I think we need to try to find a better way to explain what we actually do here. But we start discussions on the budget, the main estimates, back in September of the year before they come forward. And so there's an opportunity to sit down, try to work and discuss with Ministers what they are proposing to do in their departments, the spending that takes place, and try to negotiate back and forth. Then we get the main estimates that are, you know, given to us in late December. You know, we work with our staff to better understand what changes have taken place from the business plans that we got in September. And then we, you know, try to sit down and begin a series of negotiations of changes that the Regular MLAs would like to see in the budget and in the main estimates. And, you know, sometimes it's a bit of a challenge even for us to agree amongst ourselves on this side of the House as to what the priorities should be and what we should be trying to achieve. But, you know, we do have a common and shared objective of trying to ensure that whatever additions are made to the budget are in the interests of all of our residents.

And as Regular MLAs, we cannot force things to be added to the budget. We can cut things, but we cannot force things to be added. So that means we have to actually sit down and work and negotiate with our colleagues on the other side of the House, and that's through the Minister of Finance and her staff.

And I do want to say that, you know, based on my experience in the last Assembly, that was a very difficult process in the last Assembly and I don't think that the Regular MLAs achieved as much as they perhaps could or should have. But in this Assembly, I think it's a different working relationship with Cabinet. It's a better working relationship, and I'm proud to say that. And I think we have a good working relationship with most of the Ministers, all of the Ministers. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down, but we generally have a pretty good working relationship. And we actually have a Cabinet in this Assembly that is interested in trying to work with the Regular MLAs.

So I do want to sincerely thank the Minister of Finance and her staff for the process that we did go through. And I can tell you it is exhausting. But it is productive. And I think we've seen the results here today, where the Regular MLAs, we've worked with Cabinet to increase the spending in the budget by $4.77 million. It's not a huge amount, but I think it is a reflection of shared priorities amongst us all. Things like housing, things like sports and recreation, investment in youth, helping communities with emergency, you know, response, making sure that people can get out on the land in the interest of food security. These are important improvements to the budget and we should never lose sight of that. It's not a huge amount, and it's incremental, but these are significant changes that have been made to the budget.

I do want to talk a little bit about some of the additions that have been made and -- because I think we want to ensure that everybody's on the same page. We are probably are still going to be a little bit of a negotiating back and forth and exactly how some of these expenditures get down, and we will have an opportunity to review this in more detail when the supplementary appropriation comes forward in May-June.

So on the issue of homelessness investment, you know, I think the $2 million needs to be thought of as an initial investment. And it's going to take a lot more to address homelessness in a more comprehensive manner, and we'll see the strategy soon. Hopefully, the public will see that as well. And it's going to require a lot more investment. There needs to be some recognition of the specific needs for youth and housing. We heard some of that from the Standing Committee on Social Development. So we want to make sure that this is just seen as the initial investment and that pilot projects, proposals, are eligible for this funding and that NGOs and Indigenous governments can also apply for this funding.

In terms of mental wellness and aftercare, the funding is really aimed at suicide prevention, as the Minister noted, and we want to make sure, again, that proposals are eligible for funding, that it's -- and we understand that the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation is -- they have a strategy and they will probably be first in the queue and we commend that work. We want to make sure that the funds are available and will continue to be available through time for other communities and regions that want to do this very important work as well.

Sustainable living programs, I think we're good with increasing this. And as I said, this is really in terms of building greater food security for all of our communities. And we probably will look forward to working with our Cabinet colleagues to ensure that that money's invested wisely and in the best possible ways through the supplementary appropriation.

On the SEED funding, this is one-time funding so it's going to be up to future Assemblies and Regular MLAs on this side of the House to continue to push investment in the arts. And I think that also requires the funding that's made available to the arts. I think it needs to all -- and this is my personal opinion, need to all flow through a revamped and independent NWT arts council. So that's my own opinion. But we do need I think to increase our support for the arts. This is a small effort to try to do that.

In terms of emergency assistance, this is sort of one-time funding as the Minister mentioned, but we still have not dealt with the difficult and thorny issue of Crown-based ambulance services, particularly in smaller communities. I know the staff at the health centres are not allowed to leave. They cannot -- so it's up to the community and families to bring their people to the health centre for treatment, and that just leaves smaller communities in a very difficult situation. So we need a systemic fix to the issue of ground ambulance services in all of our communities.

On the issue of inflationary increases to NGOs, I believe the Minister has said that all departments will -- are encouraged to request forced growth and can make submissions to the financial management board. I think our view is that all departments should be required to conduct a forced growth review and make a submission to the financial management board, even if it's for zero dollars. Then at least you can see that each of the departments has actually considered the inflationary pressures that are put on NGOs. Right now, some NGOs got an increase, some didn't. Some departments got increases, some didn't. And it's really hard to interpret what happened. So I would encourage the Minister of Finance to require all departments to make submissions for forced growth in the future.

And in terms of multi-year funding, I hope that includes the provision for inflationary increases and the agreements themselves on sport and youth -- and I'm going to run out of time, Madam Chair. I think we have some interesting ideas about better supporting youth with some tours and visiting to their community with mentors. But we also want to make sure that regional sports events are supported, that there's the ability of individuals and families to access funding.

And lastly, on the NTPC board, this issue of public governance is a holdover from the last Assembly and needs to be resolved within the lifetime of this Assembly. So we very much look forward to getting that options paper, and I think there needs to be some public engagement around that as well.

But those are my comments, Madam Chair. Again, I reiterate my thanks to the Minister and her staff for working collaboratively with us to get some improvements for all of our residents. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I too want to commend my colleague on the other side for her work and effort to work with us as Regular Members and with our chair and yourself to come to some sort of a solution here to feel like we were actually heard in what we want versus just being told no, there's not enough money, which I think becomes really frustrating on our side when we do see inefficiencies and such in the government to then be told that small amounts of money are not available to us for very important things that we know can be effectual, then to watch and see government waste on the other side. So I do appreciate that I think this Minister has really listened to us. And while I think I would like to have seen more, I know that there's only so much that actually can be done with our budget. So a little bit is better than nothing, Madam Chair. So I just wanted to say a few things around some of the concessions we got and that was, first of all, with the homelessness money. I want to make sure that that isn't money that just goes into a government sort of glut or black hole of administrative costs and actually find that money making its way into NGOs' hands as well as Indigenous governments' hands where I always feel that that is more effectively spent and managed.

And further to that, I do see more of a consideration through the four years of our term to putting more money into the hands of our NGOs and our partners, and I do thank the Minister and the government for that because I've said numerous times in this House that NGOs, Indigenous governments, communities governments, will make their money go much further, and the indirect benefits of having that money spent in the communities by those people are immeasurable and really can't be caught in any sort of budget spreadsheets. So I think it's something that we all need to keep in mind as we prepare budgets that for every dollar spent there could be six returning; we just don't see that as a line item.

I think another issue that is a big problem with the government, and I hope I see -- I'm seeing changes is the gatekeeping of these funds that we've asked for. So it's one thing to put all the money in but then if not -- the money isn't spent, great, you know, it's not doing anything. And I know there has been money left on the table for various funding pots that people can apply on. And it's always hard because people will apply, and then their project will fall through, and then that money sits in the budget looking like it didn't get spent even there was an intent to spend it. However, I think some of that speaks a bit to, like, flexibility of application processes, of reporting processes. And I've heard the government numerous times, particularly around suicide prevention, say that it's not onerous, it's one page, that kind of thing. But it's a perception. So, and I heard a lot from this Premier when I was in Cabinet that perception is reality. And if they have the idea that, you know, it is something that they have to do and hurdles to jump through, they just won't do it. And it's not a matter of it being the easiest thing in the world to be done from a government perspective but if you're not getting people even coming to the table to have the conversation or look for the money, it's pointless, it's futile. So I think, too, especially when that money is federal money, I don't understand why our government wouldn't be more flexible in allowing people to access it. It's not their money and therefore we should be trying to get it out the door as quickly as possible. That being said, I do know that there are restrictions and measures put in place by the federal government around how money can be spent but then I think that's on Cabinet and Ministers to then go in and advocate for us properly with the federal government, to tell them that this doesn't work for us. And, really, I think that's an area where we could have a lot of improvement, especially as I hear the false flag of this is federal government process that's holding this money up.

So I just wanted to say that I do actually, though, despite that, see improvement in this area, and I hope that that will continue through and it will definitely be something that I would be pushing for in the conversation for the next Assembly, whether I'm here or not, but making sure that people are actually looking at the intent of programs and not the black and white A, B, C, D, E of the program, and this is how it has to be to be done. Let's be flexible, let's be creative. We're small, we should stop burdening ourselves with this, you know, crazy bureaucracy of hurdles and hoops. Instead we should be able to get our money out quicker and faster because there's less of us. So, yeah, I just want to say I think overall I agree with my colleague that, you know, there is a perception that this has been a very contentious Assembly and I mean, it has been, but I think if anybody wants to look around at the last year or two, there has been huge improvements. I've heard my colleague say numerous times that having been here in the last Assembly that this one is more productive, that this one is more collaborative, that we are working together, and -- though I can only speak for this side of the House, but I see that. And I see all of us putting aside our personal wants at times to support each other and our colleagues and that gives me hope. And it gives me hope that the Minister of Finance has listened to that and been receptive, so. That's my thoughts on it. I hope we continue down this path of change and that we don't see everything reverting back and that the Cabinet and government follows through on the promises that have been made to our side of the House. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Are there any further comments before we begin the departmental summaries? Seeing none, thank you. Does the Minister of Finance wish to bring witnesses into the House?

No, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Committee, we have previously deferred the matter of consideration of departmental summaries. Members, we will begin the departmental summary for the Legislative Assembly so please turn to page 5 of your Tabled Document.

Legislative Assembly, operations expenditures, total department, 2023-2024 Main Estimates $27,655,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Committee, we will continue with the department summary for Education, Culture and Employment on page 29.

Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, total department, 2023-2024 Main Estimates, $382,280,000. Does committee agree?