Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to thank the interpreters, but I also want to apologize to them. I know that I am one of the ones that's all a repeat offender for speaking too quickly in the House, and I know they all bear with me and I appreciate it. I also want to thank the staff and advisors for our work; it's been a tough one scheduling the Regular Members with all of our interests and wants and they work really hard. And as well the pages, because they're always fun to have and I haven't looked once to see my water glass at a low state. And of course my constituency assistant Maggie who is always teaching me and I am learning from. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Acknowledgements. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for those persons that made application for the Evacuee Income Distribution Support Program, can the Minister of Finance confirm if there is a telephone number, as of yet, that applicants can call to follow up on the status of their application? Or if not, is there another option for evacuees to confirm the status of those applications and payment? Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can now confirm that indeed there is a phone number. The contact number is now noted online. The application form is actively being updated as I'd indicated it would be yesterday. The message has gone out to the MLAs of the ridings, or will this morning, with that information.

As I said yesterday, this is a role that public servants weren't occupying just a couple of weeks ago so, you know, I appreciate some patience from folks, but those numbers are there now directly so that people can contact. They'll be going to the manager of financial operations to help work through any details. But the form, you know, again, that's your first stop is the web page with the form and that will have all that information available. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, with the roll out of any type of funds, there's always a cutoff date and I just want to make sure that, you know, that any evacuees do not miss that cutoff date because there was some confusion as who may or may not be able to actually apply. So I'd ask the Minister is there a cutoff date for making applications under the Evacuee Income Distribution Support Program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This program does have a start and end date to it. Applications are, again, for anyone who is under an order of seven days or more. Anyone that was under that order and had income disruption should be looking at the form and considering making the application. The end date for accepting those applications is 30 days after the evacuation order was issued. There's not a lot of paperwork involved. There's not a lot of supporting documents involved. That was done intentionally so that folks can get this done as a fairly quick process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I'd like to say thank you to the United Way for all they've done throughout this event, you know, and the support they provided to KFN and Hay River residents. So, Mr. Speaker, the United Way now, I understand, is responsible of disbursing funds raised for evacuees of KFN and Hay River.

Can the Minister confirm how this will be achieved and will the Minister commit to provide a staff person to temporarily assist the United Way, if need be, because I understand, you know, they kind of run on limited staff and volunteers. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there's a lot of good news for United Way today. Obviously, the announcement has gone out from the federal government that they'll be watching donations. We're likely looking at over a million dollars going into the United Way all in the space of less than a month. That is fantastic news. So folks are aware. The United Way works with communities, community governments, local organizations, non-profit organizations, and then disburses funds to them. So two parts to my message is, number one, if you have a cost and expense and need a concern, that you need some supports with, to reach out to your local organizations because they can work with the United Way to access those funds. But then, Mr. Speaker, since almost the beginning of when the GNWT matched donations, we realized that that's a large influx of money going in. We immediately started to look at what we could do to help support the United Way. They do have some part-time staff I understand, but this is a lot of money and it's coming very quickly. So we are -- my understanding is that we have now been in touch with their staff, been in touch with their board. Their board chair is on the way back from being out of town, and we'll be working with them to ensure that whatever capacity they need, so letting them be the ones, the drivers of deciding what they need, but that we will be able to support them, whether that's with some staffing or some other mechanism to help them get the money out the door. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a lot of work has been done on this, but the question is has any money been disbursed yet and, if not, when will it be disbursed? Because people are still calling, they're still waiting and, you know, hopefully within these next few days we'll hear some good news that -- or I'll hear some good news that somebody actually got something. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you might recall yesterday I think there were approximately 80 applications already in, and I can confirm that Department of Finance staff have been in direct contact with a number of those individuals to -- there was some -- I mean, the form is quite short but I gather there was some information still missing. So that first crop is going to be processed with either cheques or direct deposits to be issued by next week. And, again, you know, with the exchanges here hopefully more folks will be applying, and then those cheques again -- cheques or direct deposit, with that information now being on the form, we'll hopefully be able to issue even more quickly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you so much to the Member for addressing this issue here. The housing stability worker in Behchoko is very successful. It was actually introduced in the last government and also created by the Premier at that time who held the housing portfolio. We did address the housing evictions, we did address housing needs, wraparound services that may have been required. Since then, housing has created and worked with the Tlicho. We do have a housing working group right now. The decision of that working group is that the Tlicho had wanted to take the position. So we are now working side by side with the Tlicho and looking at how this position will be tailored and we look into the future as to filling of this position in the region. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for that, Minister. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if there's any plans to expand the housing stability worker into other communities and regions beyond Behchoko. As in my Member's statement, you know, this is something that's happening in a lot of our -- especially in our regional centres, and I'm sure it's happening here in Yellowknife too, so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question, that this is one of the areas that I did highlight, homelessness and housing supports is crucially needed. Throughout the Northwest Territories, we have a variety of different situations that we need to address. Along with mortgages as well, we have units that we need to be transferring. For me, those were the two major highlights while working within this portfolio. I would like to see these positions in every region, to be honest, Mr. Speaker. It is quite needed. It is very much needed. We need to address housing in a different innovative collaborative way, and this is a key on how we should be doing things differently. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, talking about this pilot project, it was a pilot project so it was scheduled for two years. The funding, I guess, was for two years. So is there still funding for this position for Tlicho and it's not been filled, or is there something that has to come back? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. The funding was a government position but we did end up providing a community initiative project approach with the Tlicho housing working group. That is how the position is funded right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Thank you for that, Mr. Speaker. You know, when we come in here we try to give our Ministers a little bit of an opportunity to come with the answers but sometimes our -- as we get our answers, things change. So I guess my last question to this Minister would be would this Minister commit to working with the Indigenous groups in Inuvik to try and create this position there to deal with some of the issues that are going on in housing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. I'm very passionate about this portfolio, and I'm quite excited but, you know, I just want to let the Member know is that I would like to see if there's any vacant positions that are not filled within housing and create a position that would soon be able to work side by side with the new housing position that we are creating that is addressing homelessness. I would like to be innovative.

I would like to see things change and address the issue in the Beaufort Delta differently. So I would like to follow up with the Member as well. We do have continuous conversations with the Indigenous governments but I would like to see what we do have available. If this position is able to be fulfilled on a term position, absolutely I would like to -- I would like to support that and follow up with the Member as well too. We do have a new position supposed to be housed in the northern part of the territory, housed in Inuvik, and if we can get a position to work side by side to address homelessness in the Member's riding, absolutely, I'll bring this back to my department and look for a vacant position to fill that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Calm down. Calm down. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.